Curiosity-driven research: Does it exclude a market?
November 29, 2009
Max Weber in Kyoto, Doshisha University Library (女田図, 361.23||W-34, 閉架(B1F))
Dear reader,
who entered “Durkheim Science as a vacation” in an unknown search engine: Your query has been redirected: My article on the subject quotes Weber, Max – not Durkheim, Émile. Because the former is the author of a great essay on the subject of “Science as a Vocation” – a sort of death drive for recognition. The irony of Weber is that as soon as you are recognized as a substantial contributor to science, you will be most likely … retired.
From the viewpoint of many scholars in Germany it is understandable that students now protest against the implementation of the Bologna reforms. Cramming knowledge of centuries into a couple of semesters leaves little space for personal development or even … curiosity. But going on strike, c’mon, is it really going to revive 1968? We have deadlines, too.
The pleasure of the few is happiness for the many
Already Friedrich Nietzsche lamented the state of the German university back in 1872 (Über die Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten). In a conversation of a student and a philosopher-teacher, the student recalls:
“you used to say that no one would long for education if he knew how unbelievably small the number of truly educated people is and can be. And even this small number of truly educated is not really possible without the mass of others, who, against their nature, and determined only by a promising deception, get engaged in education.”
A double analogy at best. Many (the mass) adhere to an ideal of universal education. But for Nietzsche only a few (the truly educated) can attain that ideal. The mass follows an ideal brought down to a “national-economic” formula: “more knowledge and education, thus more production and in the end – more happiness.” If that is the rationale of education, personal development in a more liberal scheme will procure less happiness and less production. Dear reader, the path to less happiness will start with the right terms. And while some are quarreling with the terms, others are operating with factors.
Market accountability – where German and American universities differ
Nathan Rosenberg, professor emeritus of economics at Stanford, gave a lecture at the WZB in Berlin on the structural disparity of German and American universities. His basic assumption was that American higher education was “not a system” but rather an association of individual institutions. His three main points were: 1) research is heavily market oriented 2) graduate students are actively involved and recognized in research and 3) universities are a lot more “responsive” to demands from outside. He was bewildered by the ratio of students per professor in Germany and could not imagine how personal development of individual young researchers was possible under such conditions. A tacit voice from the audience replied: “It isn’t.” But above all he was making the claim that competition among universities for faculty, resources and students was the driving force behind innovation. American universities are after all “economic institutions” who can manage their day-to-day affairs only on the basis of their interests from accumulated assets.
Stanford University, ⓒ A. Mager
A fellow doctoral student from the USC Annenberg School of Communication commented on a presentation he had seen on an eye-tracking software in Winterthur during a conference on Journalism Research in the Public Interest. The presenter was Sebastian Feuß from the University of Leipzig. While Feuss presented his findings on the behavior of young people and their online reading/viewing habits in the interest of pure science, my fellow from the USC commented: “If I had that kind of equipment, I’d be a millionaire.” I wouldn’t doubt him. Descending into market orientation – whatever your market may be – is not a bad way to keep your research aligned with public interest. If you want to know a secret about the business world, it will be simple: “Keep the deadline!” Happiness galore.
11/9 – Symbolic Resurrection
November 8, 2009
For all those readers who were disappointed to find only snippets from a dictionary when looking up my article „define:symbolic“ I actually intended a more elaborate piece. But instead of rehearsing my use of the term with ample reference to Jean Baudrillard or Jacques Lacan, the media and history have offered me a wonderful chance to speak about „The Symbolic“ and personal memories. Twenty years ago, the Berlin wall fell. As a symbol it now emerges from the vaults of collective memory and the archive.
This week, Michael Meyer, communications director of the U.N. secretary general, and a former Newsweek reporter in Berlin, published a review of the events of autumn 1989 in the Herald Tribune. He pointed to the widely held view of Americans that Ronald Reagan‘s words to Mr. Gorbachev somehow magically opened the wall and confirmed a feeling of „We won“ (again). Instead, Meyer points out that the opening of the wall was an achievement of thousands of East Germans pressing against the bars at checkpoints and „sheerest happenstance“. Probably, Philip Zelikow would admit chance as an important historical force as well, while holding up his view of a “great election” between East and West that he saw decided already in the early 80’s.
Thank you, Mr. Gorbachev
My memory of autumn 1989 is focused on a certain Mr. Gorbachev, whom I saw on the West German news show, standing together with the East German politburo, saluting troops and flag wavers at the 40th anniversary of the GDR (7 October). Because this Mr. Gorbachev was regarded as a liberator by my parents and people around us, seeing him side with the GDR government aroused a feeling of dissonance. This person on the screen was not the person I imagined (as a nine-year old). In retrospect, Mr. Gorbachev belonged to a different universe and his appearance in the GDR heralded the latter’s end. Him and the old guards simply did not go together. On 10 November 1989 we walked down Kurfurstendamm.
Down the vortex – symbols never survive
These days, the historic event of the falling wall will have to succumb to its symbolic value. It will have to lend itself to all kinds of interpretations and exhaust its energy in the process of symbolic resurrection. On Monday, it will even fall again. One thousand domino stones, each individually designed by people from all over the world, are in place to reenact a unique event as media spectacle. A project called Twinity will even simulate the wall in a virtual reality environment. The symbolic steps in where the „lived character of things“ (Baudrillard) is transcended in an endless rerun of archival material. In this process of reviewing the same over and over again, a multiplicity of meanings attached to a symbol becomes equal to „no meaning“ at all. That is the precondition of the media‘s fascination with symbolic events.
Unfortunately, 11/9 is going to be a Monday. While German media have excelled at recovering the events of November 1989 in the last weeks – resampling photo stocks, reediting historical material and adding commentary on commentary – the actual memory day will fall prey to publishing schedules. Germany‘s (still) leading news magazine Der Spiegel will open the week with an „in-depth“ report on … The future of German grammar schools.
Check it out!
November 2, 2009
In its colloquial use this phrase is quite typically associated with new things. It indicates something that is supposed to be unknown or was not (yet) perceived. There is also a social imperative behind this phrase, involving at least one person that has already “checked out” something and another who hasn‘t. Knowledge is handed down, spread and expanded. Yet there is another use which makes this common phrase all the more interesting. In the case of “checking a book out from a library”, for example, the initial recommendation is transformed into a proposition to act and to get hold of something.
“To check” is a Cybernetic metaphor
The placing of the word check here is indicative of an intrusion of cybernetic jargon into common speech. “Checking” is closely associated with surveillance and control, of safeguarding the proper functioning of a machine, a routine or an algorithm. The seemingly trivial remark adopts a whole new dimension pointing toward a cultural condition where the number of choices surpasses what the mind can reasonably and productively process. In the field of cultural production each enunciation exist first and foremost to be communicated at a given point in time. Because production is asynchronous (works on particular subjects) and simultaneous (different actors produce at the same time), continued attention to a multitude of subjects is difficult.
Dissonance and Consonance
Assuming that a given individual can only follow the development of a limited number of elements, “check it out” points to a hitherto unnoticed element and seeks to integrate it into the wider perceptive and interpretative framework. Elements that are excluded from a structure are reviewed and amended to establish consonance or can be rejected to uphold dissonance on firmer grounds. “Check it out“ remains an imperative and a cybernetic metaphor of cultural production. Any selection of elements remains to be expanded by further “checks” on available alternatives and variants. Identity thus established is a temporal marker.
Den Alltag dialektisch verstehen
October 11, 2009
Eine Frage der Ähre
Man stelle sich einen Hamster mit mittlerer Reife auf der Durchreise von Amsterdam nach Berlin vor, der an der Raststätte Garbsen vor Hannover einen Zwischenstopp einlegt. In froher Erwartung einiger frischer Getreidekörner betritt der Hamster in Begleitung seines Frauchens die Raststätte und muss feststellen: Es gibt nur Wasser! Und das ist bei aller Kundenorientierung der Mitarbeiter auch nur auf Nachfrage zu erhalten. Da er in Damenbegleitung ist, muss er sich der Nahrungsbeschaffung alleine widmen – nur Herrchen dürfen hier ihren Schutzbefohlenen zu Seite stehen.
Auch der etwas betagte Dalmatiner W., der gegen 9.30 Uhr in Begleitung der Familie M. aus G. in Garbsen ankommt, ist erschüttert. Hatte ihm die Grundschule und das Gymnasium bereits 12 Menschenjahre seines ohnehin kurzen Lebens geraubt, muss er jetzt zur Kenntnis nehmen, dass die freundlich-höfliche Anrede seiner Person nur darüber hinweg täuschen soll, dass auch für ihn hier an Wasser und Breckies nur „gedacht“ worden war, Taten sollten in unbestimmter Zeit folgen.
Stellen wir uns abschliessend also jene Person vor, an die sich dieses Schild eigentlich richtet – das Herrchen bzw. den Kunden in seiner Funktion als konsumierender Weltreisender, der zu jeder Zeit an jedem Ort der Autobahn eben jenen Komfort erwarten darf, den er in seiner unmittelbaren Lebensumgebung auch vorfindet. Schließlich ist er es, der, trotz aller Bemühungen demokratischer Bildungspolitik, von allen Mehrbeinern immer noch der einzige ist, der durch die Lektüre abstrakter Buchstaben (in den meisten Fällen) jene zu sinnvollen Worten zusammenfügen und (im besten Fall) auch verstehen kann.
Verstehen wir diese absurde Krönung von Kundenorientierung hier also richtig, müsste sich aus dem Geschriebenen eine Handlungsanweisung ergeben. Bleibt nur die Frage, wer hier handeln soll. Das „Herrchen“, das in absentia implizierte „Frauchen“ oder doch das Team aus Zwei- und Vierbeiner? Wir stellen uns also abschließend den mit Waffenschein ausgestatteten Rottweiler des ledigen Markus P. aus D. vor, der nach der Lektüre dieser Zeilen mit einem kühnen Sprung hinter die Theke des Raststätten-Shops – zu deutsch: Convenience Area – einen prekär beschäftigten Mitarbeiter in eine noch prekärere Lage bringt, indem er ihn durch eindeutiges Augenrollen und lautes Bellen AN DAS AUFFÜLLEN DER WASSERSCHÜSSEL ERINNERT.
PS: Beschwerden bitte an: Autobahn Tank & Rast GmbH, Andreas-Hermes-Str. 7-9, 53175 Bonn. Telefon 0228/922-0, Email: kundenkontakt@serways.de
Printed periodicals in decline in Japan
September 14, 2009
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Against Simulation: The Early Works of Jean Baudrillard
July 28, 2009
Becoming an author is a really hard job. Publishing a book is even harder. Even today. Not until you can become ignorant of your own text and read it over and over again, the true character of the text will emerge. My thesis on Baudrillard’s early works is now available (in German) featuring in-depth explorations of the Marxist and Semiotic treatises, McLuhans heritage, and Baudrillard in the context of Durkheim’s distinction of profane and sacred practices and Weber’s disenchantment of the modern world.
Chapters feature:
- Baudrillard in Media and Cultural Criticism: Against Simulation
- From Symbolic to Semiotic Cultures: Collective Representations – Rationality of Literacy and Individualization
- Alienation and Symbolic Exchange: Barthes’ Modern Myths – The Objects and Consumer Society – Need for Difference – Symbolic Exchange
- The Test of the Mass Media and Telematic Subjects: Parole sans réponse and Implosion – The Screen and Telematic Subjects
- Symbolic Exchange in (online) social networks
Graphic concept and typo composition by Katharina Berndt (gluecklichebilder.de). Editor: Jakob F. Dittmar. Available from University Press of Technical University Berlin, Kiepert, or Amazon.de or as a free download of the complete pdf from the publisher.
Theory – 学説 – Theory
The cover image was taken on the streets of Ginza, Tokyo. I wish it was a montage but actually it was all there. “Longchamp” of “Paris” next to a Barbra Streisand-looking girl featuring fashion by “Theory”. What struck me most is the combination of such disparate elements as pure signs. Maybe it takes a long way to Japan to discover this self-referentiality of the sign and the image. The cultural difference aside, it teaches a lesson in Baudrillardian thinking. And maybe theory is not so far away from fashion anyway.
