An extraordinary book on the effect of writing poetry in the classroom - an effect on both teacher and students:
Kate Clanchy is a poet and currently Writer in Residence at the comprehensive school Oxford Spires Academy, where she has nurtured creative talent among the pupils, many of whom have come to the UK as refugees.
An anthology of the pupils’ poetry, England: Poems from a School was published by Macmillan in 2018. Her book Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me was published earlier this year.
BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, The power of poetry
Here is more:
Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me by Kate Clanchy review – the reality of school life | Books | The Guardian
Kate Clanchy: ‘Poetry makes children feel important, that they’re heard’ | Books | The Guardian
Book review: Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me, by Kate Clanchy - The Scotsman
Plus an extract:
‘So many of our children had a loss to mourn. Isn’t that what poetry’s for?’ | Books | The Guardian
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Monday, 24 June 2019
Sunday, 23 June 2019
pseudo-empowerment in education
We need to be aware of the promises of 'learning objectives':
Jay Doubleyou: a critique of learning objectives
Jay Doubleyou: taylorism >>> and education
Jay Doubleyou: behaviourism >>> and learning objectives >>> and the common european framework
Such 'frameworks' appear to allow for an 'individual' approach and to 'empower' both students and teachers, but the point might be more about control:
Jay Doubleyou: foucault's discipline and punish made easier
Jay Doubleyou: schools as 'total institutions'
And the point made in the following piece is that the control mechanisms we see today might feel 'freer' than before, but they are not:
Panopticon of the Second Kind
Alexander M. Sidorkin
The top-down reform is gradually replaced with… well, another, much more powerful version of top-down reform that has an outward appearance of a bottom-up reform. What one may call “self-reforming” seems to be the evolutionary trend of the Era of Excellence [in American education]. Self-reforming is closely related to the family of quality improvement methodologies developed by global industry. Total Quality Management, or TQM is associated with ideas of W. Edwards Deming (1900-1993)...
For the purposes of this paper, I want to emphasize the self-regulating aspect of these systems. Essentially, an organization devises its own set of goals, operational practices, and methods of quality control, and then shows to a third party how it carries out these procedures. The modern quality control is an exercise in meticulous, preplanned self-policing. Even more importantly, it is an exercise in designing the self-policing procedures...
A sizeable body of writing in organization theory examines quality control methods within Foucault’s theory of power relations. Sewell and Wilkinson8 point out that the TQM (for simplicity, I will use this as a generic term for all quality control methodologies listed above) is an extension of Foucault’s Panopticon. It looks like workers get more control over their own work and the organization. In fact, the means of control become less visible, and power more precisely distributed. Surveillance substitutes hierarchy and bureaucracy.
Indeed, there is something in TQM that reminds Foucault’s notion of disciplines as a technologies of domination: the meticulous self-control, the rationing of small doses of punishment, the impersonal character of submission. TQM made inroads first in higher, and now in K-12 education. Higher education accreditation procedures more and more rely on the TQM-type methodologies.
Pseudo-empowerment
The key evolutionary trend of the reform is toward delegating the responsibility to states, school districts, and individual schools, in connection with certain procedural controls. The reformers will not or cannot tell schools what to do; they simply provide standards, give or promise funds, and let the educators figure out their own course of actions. On the matters of structural and organizational change, districts and schools are more and more often left alone to decide what is best. In theory, such an arrangement should produce widespread enthusiasm among educational practitioners, which somehow is not happening. The self-reforming is turning out to be neither democratic nor empowering...
The underlying idea here is a belief that empowering teachers and administrators will know the context better, will be more flexible, and finally, more motivated to implement programs they author. I would like to share such a belief; however one is forced to face the reality of selfreforming. The individualized, locally-controlled reforming is not necessarily democratic or liberating. The educational reform debate now seems to concentrate on the forms of accountability (standardized tests versus more “authentic” forms of accountability). Yet I venture to predict that even locally controlled forms of accountability like those proposed by Deborah Meier,12 will not diminish the perverse domination of self-reforming. The theorists of educational reform may have missed the danger of Foucault’s Panopticon...
Right now, the tendency is to allow schools to figure out how exactly they want to change, and provide evidence of improvement. Thus, the combination of self-reforming and accountability more or less defines the landscape of K-12 educational reforming. Yet, as Elizabeth Ellsworth once famously put it, why doesn’t this feel empowering? A short answer is that an important component of self-reforming is the pseudo-empowering, which is a discipline technique based on delegating authority down the hierarchy without changing the nature of that authority...
We are witnessing an instance of the old confusion of choice with freedom. Pseudoempowerment relies on an ability of individuals and groups of people to choose. However, the circumstances and limitations of the choice make those who choose less free in their future abilities to choose. In a sense, this is true for all choices; almost every choice reduces future choices. True empowerment enlarges the scope of possible choices, and should not be too closely tied with an opportunity to choose. Pseudo-empowerment is an act of choice that limits subsequent choices. It is an act of choice that acquires great significance as such, regardless of the content and consequences of choice. There exists a whole range of manipulative technologies that can produce any needed results through careful organization of group choices. I have had an opportunity to witness a school restructuring process, where teachers went through a whole year of seminars, group activities and exercises in order to develop their own vision of restructuring. At every step of the process, they were asked to think, to write down their preferences, to reflect on their own personal experiences and beliefs. Never once did university helpers forced the teachers to do something they did not want to do. It appeared that the very logic of this collective thinking process dictated the next step. Large sheets of paper and color markers brought into a meeting room more often than not set a stage for pseudo-empowerment.
The result of this long process was a multi-page framework, no better and worse than any other, with some changes to scheduling, governance, with a new system of incentives for good students, etc. The crucial difference is that the teachers felt some authorship over this document. In the past, when governments prescribed exactly what to do, teachers could blame the government if the reform went wrong. The forcibly empowered teachers and administrators are given only a multitude of standards, but are free to decide which specific model of reform to undertake. Therefore, if anything goes wrong, they have no one to blame but themselves. They are put in a situation of perpetual guilt. “But you decided on all this yourselves!” – became a leitmotif of the new relationship with authorities. The pseudo-empowerment brings individual conscience into the relationship of power. Instead of ineffective ways of coercion through purely administrative means, we can now shame teachers into the active obedience.
The idea of Panopticon from the beginning relies on some sort of autonomy. According to Foucault, the prisoner does not know whether he is watched, therefore, he gets in a habit of watching himself: “the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment: but he must be sure the he may always be so.” It takes an autonomous decision-maker to make a good Panopticon prisoner. Yet now the prisoner gets to design the Panopticon for himself. The ghost of J. Bentham, the inventor of the original Panopticon, now wants every prison, factory, and school to get busy designing the blueprints for their own custom-built panotpicons. Besides watching oneself, the new Panopticon creates a sense of community among the prisoners. The collective body of prisoners becomes the guard; each individual remains a prisoner. Standardized panopticons are out; individually designed are in. The community exerts certain peer pressure, and therefore makes watching almost omnipresent. The prisoners can no longer conspire against the authorities, because the authority belongs to all other prisoners. Why would anyone want such a thing? For three primary reasons: so that each Panopticon fits to specific circumstances; so that it is flexible and constantly perfected, and so that the inmates consider it their own.
Panopticon of the Second Kind
Panopticon of a Second Kind: Self-Reforming during the Era of Excellence on JSTOR
.
.
.
Jay Doubleyou: a critique of learning objectives
Jay Doubleyou: taylorism >>> and education
Jay Doubleyou: behaviourism >>> and learning objectives >>> and the common european framework
Such 'frameworks' appear to allow for an 'individual' approach and to 'empower' both students and teachers, but the point might be more about control:
Jay Doubleyou: foucault's discipline and punish made easier
Jay Doubleyou: schools as 'total institutions'
And the point made in the following piece is that the control mechanisms we see today might feel 'freer' than before, but they are not:
Panopticon of the Second Kind
Alexander M. Sidorkin
The top-down reform is gradually replaced with… well, another, much more powerful version of top-down reform that has an outward appearance of a bottom-up reform. What one may call “self-reforming” seems to be the evolutionary trend of the Era of Excellence [in American education]. Self-reforming is closely related to the family of quality improvement methodologies developed by global industry. Total Quality Management, or TQM is associated with ideas of W. Edwards Deming (1900-1993)...
For the purposes of this paper, I want to emphasize the self-regulating aspect of these systems. Essentially, an organization devises its own set of goals, operational practices, and methods of quality control, and then shows to a third party how it carries out these procedures. The modern quality control is an exercise in meticulous, preplanned self-policing. Even more importantly, it is an exercise in designing the self-policing procedures...
A sizeable body of writing in organization theory examines quality control methods within Foucault’s theory of power relations. Sewell and Wilkinson8 point out that the TQM (for simplicity, I will use this as a generic term for all quality control methodologies listed above) is an extension of Foucault’s Panopticon. It looks like workers get more control over their own work and the organization. In fact, the means of control become less visible, and power more precisely distributed. Surveillance substitutes hierarchy and bureaucracy.
Indeed, there is something in TQM that reminds Foucault’s notion of disciplines as a technologies of domination: the meticulous self-control, the rationing of small doses of punishment, the impersonal character of submission. TQM made inroads first in higher, and now in K-12 education. Higher education accreditation procedures more and more rely on the TQM-type methodologies.
Pseudo-empowerment
The key evolutionary trend of the reform is toward delegating the responsibility to states, school districts, and individual schools, in connection with certain procedural controls. The reformers will not or cannot tell schools what to do; they simply provide standards, give or promise funds, and let the educators figure out their own course of actions. On the matters of structural and organizational change, districts and schools are more and more often left alone to decide what is best. In theory, such an arrangement should produce widespread enthusiasm among educational practitioners, which somehow is not happening. The self-reforming is turning out to be neither democratic nor empowering...
The underlying idea here is a belief that empowering teachers and administrators will know the context better, will be more flexible, and finally, more motivated to implement programs they author. I would like to share such a belief; however one is forced to face the reality of selfreforming. The individualized, locally-controlled reforming is not necessarily democratic or liberating. The educational reform debate now seems to concentrate on the forms of accountability (standardized tests versus more “authentic” forms of accountability). Yet I venture to predict that even locally controlled forms of accountability like those proposed by Deborah Meier,12 will not diminish the perverse domination of self-reforming. The theorists of educational reform may have missed the danger of Foucault’s Panopticon...
Right now, the tendency is to allow schools to figure out how exactly they want to change, and provide evidence of improvement. Thus, the combination of self-reforming and accountability more or less defines the landscape of K-12 educational reforming. Yet, as Elizabeth Ellsworth once famously put it, why doesn’t this feel empowering? A short answer is that an important component of self-reforming is the pseudo-empowering, which is a discipline technique based on delegating authority down the hierarchy without changing the nature of that authority...
We are witnessing an instance of the old confusion of choice with freedom. Pseudoempowerment relies on an ability of individuals and groups of people to choose. However, the circumstances and limitations of the choice make those who choose less free in their future abilities to choose. In a sense, this is true for all choices; almost every choice reduces future choices. True empowerment enlarges the scope of possible choices, and should not be too closely tied with an opportunity to choose. Pseudo-empowerment is an act of choice that limits subsequent choices. It is an act of choice that acquires great significance as such, regardless of the content and consequences of choice. There exists a whole range of manipulative technologies that can produce any needed results through careful organization of group choices. I have had an opportunity to witness a school restructuring process, where teachers went through a whole year of seminars, group activities and exercises in order to develop their own vision of restructuring. At every step of the process, they were asked to think, to write down their preferences, to reflect on their own personal experiences and beliefs. Never once did university helpers forced the teachers to do something they did not want to do. It appeared that the very logic of this collective thinking process dictated the next step. Large sheets of paper and color markers brought into a meeting room more often than not set a stage for pseudo-empowerment.
The result of this long process was a multi-page framework, no better and worse than any other, with some changes to scheduling, governance, with a new system of incentives for good students, etc. The crucial difference is that the teachers felt some authorship over this document. In the past, when governments prescribed exactly what to do, teachers could blame the government if the reform went wrong. The forcibly empowered teachers and administrators are given only a multitude of standards, but are free to decide which specific model of reform to undertake. Therefore, if anything goes wrong, they have no one to blame but themselves. They are put in a situation of perpetual guilt. “But you decided on all this yourselves!” – became a leitmotif of the new relationship with authorities. The pseudo-empowerment brings individual conscience into the relationship of power. Instead of ineffective ways of coercion through purely administrative means, we can now shame teachers into the active obedience.
The idea of Panopticon from the beginning relies on some sort of autonomy. According to Foucault, the prisoner does not know whether he is watched, therefore, he gets in a habit of watching himself: “the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment: but he must be sure the he may always be so.” It takes an autonomous decision-maker to make a good Panopticon prisoner. Yet now the prisoner gets to design the Panopticon for himself. The ghost of J. Bentham, the inventor of the original Panopticon, now wants every prison, factory, and school to get busy designing the blueprints for their own custom-built panotpicons. Besides watching oneself, the new Panopticon creates a sense of community among the prisoners. The collective body of prisoners becomes the guard; each individual remains a prisoner. Standardized panopticons are out; individually designed are in. The community exerts certain peer pressure, and therefore makes watching almost omnipresent. The prisoners can no longer conspire against the authorities, because the authority belongs to all other prisoners. Why would anyone want such a thing? For three primary reasons: so that each Panopticon fits to specific circumstances; so that it is flexible and constantly perfected, and so that the inmates consider it their own.
Panopticon of the Second Kind
Panopticon of a Second Kind: Self-Reforming during the Era of Excellence on JSTOR
.
.
.
Wednesday, 19 June 2019
learning english from films - an overview
What are your favourite film genres?
Jay Doubleyou: film noir
Jay Doubleyou: the mockumentary
Jay Doubleyou: blockbusters don't have to be stupid
Jay Doubleyou: shakespeare
Jay Doubleyou: animation
Jay Doubleyou: fight club: how many film genres in one film?
What's your favourite film?
Jay Doubleyou: what's your favourite film - we love lists of favourite films...
What sort of effect do films have on us?
Jay Doubleyou: "i think this is one of the few movies that might actually be able to inspire someone to lead their life a little differently."
Why watch films in the original?
Jay Doubleyou: how to learn english from movies
How do you watch: with or without subtitles?
Jay Doubleyou: how watching films can help your english
With a specific technique here:
Jay Doubleyou: learn english from movies
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.
.
Jay Doubleyou: film noir
Jay Doubleyou: the mockumentary
Jay Doubleyou: blockbusters don't have to be stupid
Jay Doubleyou: shakespeare
Jay Doubleyou: animation
Jay Doubleyou: fight club: how many film genres in one film?
What's your favourite film?
Jay Doubleyou: what's your favourite film - we love lists of favourite films...
What sort of effect do films have on us?
Jay Doubleyou: "i think this is one of the few movies that might actually be able to inspire someone to lead their life a little differently."
Why watch films in the original?
Jay Doubleyou: how to learn english from movies
How do you watch: with or without subtitles?
Jay Doubleyou: how watching films can help your english
With a specific technique here:
Jay Doubleyou: learn english from movies
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Tuesday, 18 June 2019
pointless work, artificial intelligence and the universal basic income
What is the point of work?
BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, Work - what is it good for?
Unfortunately, there is a lot of pointless work:
STRIKE! Magazine – On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber review – the myth of capitalist efficiency
Is your job one that makes the world a better place? If not, it is probably bullshit, part of a system that is keeping us under control
Eliane Glaser
Fri 25 May 2018 07.30 BSTLast modified on Sat 26 May 2018 00.10 BST
Ihad a bullshit job once. It involved answering the phone for an important man, except the phone didn’t ring for hours on end, so I spent the time guiltily converting my PhD into a book. I’ve also had several jobs that were not bullshit but were steadily bullshitised: interesting jobs in the media and academia that were increasingly taken up with filling out compliance forms and time allocation surveys. I’ve also had a few shit jobs, but that’s something different. Toilets need to be cleaned. But to have a bullshit job is to know that if it were to disappear tomorrow it would make no difference to the world: in fact, it might make the world a better place.
When I read David Graeber’s essay On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs in Strike! magazine in 2013, I felt somehow vindicated. I had sat in the pub on many a Friday evening moaning to colleagues about data entry and inefficient meetings. But with the Martian gaze of the anthropologist, Graeber managed to articulate my plight in a way that made me feel part of some grand, absurdist outrage.
I wasn’t alone. The essay went viral, receiving more than 1m hits, and was translated into a dozen languages. “Guerrilla” activists even replaced hundreds of ads in London tube carriages with quotes from the essay, presumably in order to jolt commuters out of their apathetic stupor. As is the way in the world of reactive non-fiction publishing, a book followed.
The argument of both essay and book is this: in 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that technological advances would enable us to work a 15-hour week. Yet we seem to be busier than ever before. Those workers who actually do stuff are burdened with increasing workloads, while box-tickers and bean-counters multiply.
In an age that supremely prizes capitalist efficiency, the proliferation of pointless jobs is a puzzle. Why are employers in the public and private sector alike behaving like the bureaucracies of the old Soviet Union, shelling out wages to workers they don’t seem to need? Since bullshit jobs make no economic sense, Graeber argues, their function must be political. A population kept busy with make-work is less likely to revolt.
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber review – the myth of capitalist efficiency | Books | The Guardian
The Rise of Bullshit Jobs - Jacobin Magazine
Bullshit Jobs - Wikipedia
.
5 Types of Bullsh*t Jobs with David Graeber - YouTube
.
David Graeber - Bullshit Jobs - YouTube
[Bullshit Jobs] | C-SPAN.org
Others have thought about this:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Golgafrincham - YouTube
Colonising A New Planet - The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - BBC - YouTube
The FT looks at 'the solutions':
Why do pointless jobs exist?
‘Bullshit Jobs’ provides a thought-provoking examination of our working lives
The solution he proposes will be familiar to many readers: the universal basic income. An unconditional lump of cash for all citizens would, he thinks, free people from meaningless jobs and allow them to pursue lives of real purpose.
It is a concept that already has advocates from across the political spectrum. Leftists think it could help end poverty and advance female equality. Silicon Valley billionaires such as Elon Musk think it will eventually become necessary as machines steal human jobs. Graeber’s aim is more radical. He wants to shatter the link between livelihood and work entirely.
He may be waiting some time. Pilot basic income programmes have been launched around the world in recent years, from Kenya to Canada and the US. The results are still coming in. Finland announced last month that its closely watched trial of the concept would not be extended beyond its planned two-year lifetime.Why do pointless jobs exist? | Financial Times
Here these ideas are further expanded by someone from Silicon Valley:
Roy Bahat and Bryn Freedman: What is the meaning of work? | TED Talk
For a little more:
Futures Forum: Automation and the future of work > How secure are East Devon's new warehousing jobs?
Futures Forum: Creating/destroying jobs >>> Creative Destruction and Artificial Intelligence
Futures Forum: Power-relations and control > "Who will own the future?" > on Artificial Intelligence, Universal Basic Income and the potential threats from automation
Futures Forum: Artificial Intelligence on the farm > software, hydroponics and reducing costs
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.
.
BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, Work - what is it good for?
Unfortunately, there is a lot of pointless work:
STRIKE! Magazine – On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber review – the myth of capitalist efficiency
Is your job one that makes the world a better place? If not, it is probably bullshit, part of a system that is keeping us under control
Eliane Glaser
Fri 25 May 2018 07.30 BSTLast modified on Sat 26 May 2018 00.10 BST
Ihad a bullshit job once. It involved answering the phone for an important man, except the phone didn’t ring for hours on end, so I spent the time guiltily converting my PhD into a book. I’ve also had several jobs that were not bullshit but were steadily bullshitised: interesting jobs in the media and academia that were increasingly taken up with filling out compliance forms and time allocation surveys. I’ve also had a few shit jobs, but that’s something different. Toilets need to be cleaned. But to have a bullshit job is to know that if it were to disappear tomorrow it would make no difference to the world: in fact, it might make the world a better place.
When I read David Graeber’s essay On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs in Strike! magazine in 2013, I felt somehow vindicated. I had sat in the pub on many a Friday evening moaning to colleagues about data entry and inefficient meetings. But with the Martian gaze of the anthropologist, Graeber managed to articulate my plight in a way that made me feel part of some grand, absurdist outrage.
I wasn’t alone. The essay went viral, receiving more than 1m hits, and was translated into a dozen languages. “Guerrilla” activists even replaced hundreds of ads in London tube carriages with quotes from the essay, presumably in order to jolt commuters out of their apathetic stupor. As is the way in the world of reactive non-fiction publishing, a book followed.
The argument of both essay and book is this: in 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that technological advances would enable us to work a 15-hour week. Yet we seem to be busier than ever before. Those workers who actually do stuff are burdened with increasing workloads, while box-tickers and bean-counters multiply.
In an age that supremely prizes capitalist efficiency, the proliferation of pointless jobs is a puzzle. Why are employers in the public and private sector alike behaving like the bureaucracies of the old Soviet Union, shelling out wages to workers they don’t seem to need? Since bullshit jobs make no economic sense, Graeber argues, their function must be political. A population kept busy with make-work is less likely to revolt.
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber review – the myth of capitalist efficiency | Books | The Guardian
The Rise of Bullshit Jobs - Jacobin Magazine
Bullshit Jobs - Wikipedia
.
5 Types of Bullsh*t Jobs with David Graeber - YouTube
.
David Graeber - Bullshit Jobs - YouTube
[Bullshit Jobs] | C-SPAN.org
Others have thought about this:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Golgafrincham - YouTube
Colonising A New Planet - The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - BBC - YouTube
The FT looks at 'the solutions':
Why do pointless jobs exist?
‘Bullshit Jobs’ provides a thought-provoking examination of our working lives
The solution he proposes will be familiar to many readers: the universal basic income. An unconditional lump of cash for all citizens would, he thinks, free people from meaningless jobs and allow them to pursue lives of real purpose.
It is a concept that already has advocates from across the political spectrum. Leftists think it could help end poverty and advance female equality. Silicon Valley billionaires such as Elon Musk think it will eventually become necessary as machines steal human jobs. Graeber’s aim is more radical. He wants to shatter the link between livelihood and work entirely.
He may be waiting some time. Pilot basic income programmes have been launched around the world in recent years, from Kenya to Canada and the US. The results are still coming in. Finland announced last month that its closely watched trial of the concept would not be extended beyond its planned two-year lifetime.Why do pointless jobs exist? | Financial Times
Here these ideas are further expanded by someone from Silicon Valley:
Roy Bahat and Bryn Freedman: What is the meaning of work? | TED Talk
For a little more:
Futures Forum: Automation and the future of work > How secure are East Devon's new warehousing jobs?
Futures Forum: Creating/destroying jobs >>> Creative Destruction and Artificial Intelligence
Futures Forum: Power-relations and control > "Who will own the future?" > on Artificial Intelligence, Universal Basic Income and the potential threats from automation
Futures Forum: Artificial Intelligence on the farm > software, hydroponics and reducing costs
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.
.
Monday, 17 June 2019
brexit: experts, elites and hedgefund managers
Have you heard the joke about the British?
Jay Doubleyou: european jokes about the british
Here's another:
Jay Doubleyou: brexit: and punctuation
So, why did the Brits vote for Brexit?
BBC Radio 4 - The Briefing Room, Why Did People Vote Leave?
We seem not to want to trust the 'expert any longer':
Futures Forum: The people's voice and expertise > How democracy is about respectful discussion, not just voting
.
Gove: Britons "Have Had Enough of Experts" - YouTube
Simply put, people are ignorant. The ignorance is underscored in Britain by lots of people scrambling after the vote to learn what this European Union business is all about. It is underscored in the United States by Trump declaring after one of his primary election victories, “I love the poorly educated.”
Brexit and the Transnational Triumph of Ignorance | The National Interest
This is the 'age of stupid':
Living in the Age of Stupid: How to comprehend Brexit, Trump and the Anti’s – The Risk-Monger
And the people are revolting against 'the expert':
What is happening in the United States has also been happening in the UK. The Brexit campaign had its own Trumpian moment, courtesy of Michael Gove, who told Faisal Islam in an interview on Sky News on 3 June that “the British people have had enough of experts”. Gove was also widely mocked – if not experts, who was he proposing to get to repair his car, fix his teeth, teach his kids?
The United States is tumbling fast toward a dangerous place. In just the last twenty years or so it has become increasingly acceptable for national political candidates to be openly and obviously dumb about things that matter. More than okay, dumb is now a selling point, an admirable quality that separates uninformed politicians from despised scientists, historians, and other educated experts. Empty-headed politicians and their handlers were once tasked with figuring out how to fool voters into believing that the candidate was smart and competent. Today it no longer seems necessary to hide or pretend. Vote for me because I’m as dumb as you are!
Can’t say we weren’t warned. The prophecy was given in Idiocracy, a 2006 film about a future America where loud, obnoxious morons are ruled by a louder, more obnoxious moron. What was once a forgettable comedy has morphed into a brilliant and relevant cautionary tale.
Trump Is Only the Symptom | Psychology Today UK
Welcome to:
Idiocracy - Wikipedia
Idiocracy - Trailer - YouTube
So, much of the reason for voting for Brexit was about voting against the 'elite' - because people feel that the system isn't working:
Futures Forum: Is 'meritocracy' really all it's made out to be?
Futures Forum: How meritocracy and populism reinforce each other's faults
Or, perhaps this is a myth:
Futures Forum: Brexit: and the "myth of the left-behind":
Brexit: a coup by one set of public schoolboys against another
Jay Doubleyou: european jokes about the british
Here's another:
Jay Doubleyou: brexit: and punctuation
So, why did the Brits vote for Brexit?
BBC Radio 4 - The Briefing Room, Why Did People Vote Leave?
We seem not to want to trust the 'expert any longer':
Futures Forum: The people's voice and expertise > How democracy is about respectful discussion, not just voting
.
Gove: Britons "Have Had Enough of Experts" - YouTube
Simply put, people are ignorant. The ignorance is underscored in Britain by lots of people scrambling after the vote to learn what this European Union business is all about. It is underscored in the United States by Trump declaring after one of his primary election victories, “I love the poorly educated.”
Brexit and the Transnational Triumph of Ignorance | The National Interest
This is the 'age of stupid':
Living in the Age of Stupid: How to comprehend Brexit, Trump and the Anti’s – The Risk-Monger
And the people are revolting against 'the expert':
What is happening in the United States has also been happening in the UK. The Brexit campaign had its own Trumpian moment, courtesy of Michael Gove, who told Faisal Islam in an interview on Sky News on 3 June that “the British people have had enough of experts”. Gove was also widely mocked – if not experts, who was he proposing to get to repair his car, fix his teeth, teach his kids?
But what he said struck a deep chord, because it contained a large element of truth. The experts Gove was deriding had been telling the British public that the risks of Brexit far outweighed any potential benefits. Gove insisted that the voters should decide this for themselves, on the basis of their own experiences, rather than listening to elite voices that had a vested interest in the outcome. Those voices came trailing educational qualifications, which had put them in their positions of authority – at the IMF, the Bank of England, the Treasury. Gove was asking voters lacking anything like the same educational qualifications to feel empowered to reject what they were being told. And in the referendum on 23 June, that is what they did.
...
Educated v less educated may be even more toxic than rich v poor, because it comes laden with assumptions of moral superiority. These days the rich find it quite hard to get away with the presumption that their wealth is proof of their virtue. When they seek protection from the system, it is pretty clear what they are up to: they are looking after their interests. But when the educated look out for themselves they can dress it up as something ostensibly better than that: expertise.
To those on the receiving end, that stinks. It stinks of hypocrisy, and it also stinks of self-interest. The fact that the educated are not always the beneficiaries of the social attitudes that they hold – Corbyn’s supporters, like Bernie Sanders’s, would rightly insist that many of the positions they adopt are designed for the benefit the socially excluded – does not help. It just makes them sound even more self-righteous.
The EU referendum was seen by educated optimists – including some of the people around David Cameron – as just another way for democracy to let off steam: a means of giving vent to anger without letting it run out of control. That is what the optimists have been saying about Trump too. But the steam is still rising.
To those on the receiving end, that stinks. It stinks of hypocrisy, and it also stinks of self-interest. The fact that the educated are not always the beneficiaries of the social attitudes that they hold – Corbyn’s supporters, like Bernie Sanders’s, would rightly insist that many of the positions they adopt are designed for the benefit the socially excluded – does not help. It just makes them sound even more self-righteous.
The EU referendum was seen by educated optimists – including some of the people around David Cameron – as just another way for democracy to let off steam: a means of giving vent to anger without letting it run out of control. That is what the optimists have been saying about Trump too. But the steam is still rising.
In the end, we want our politicians to be dumb:
A simple solution. This is an easy fix. No overhaul of the entire educational system is needed because dumb voters are not the key problem. The truth is, all voters are dumb about most foreign and domestic policy matters and they always have been. Who has time to learn all that stuff while working, raising children, and watching forty hours of TV per week? Fortunately, we don’t have to elevate the IQ of every American voter to solve this problem. All we need is a new awareness movement to sell the public on an old idea. Spread the word: Presidents should be smart and well informed.
Welcome to:
Idiocracy - Wikipedia
Idiocracy - Trailer - YouTube
So, much of the reason for voting for Brexit was about voting against the 'elite' - because people feel that the system isn't working:
Futures Forum: Is 'meritocracy' really all it's made out to be?
Futures Forum: How meritocracy and populism reinforce each other's faults
Or, perhaps this is a myth:
Futures Forum: Brexit: and the "myth of the left-behind":
Brexit: a coup by one set of public schoolboys against another
‘The traditional climax of a Union election was one Etonian backstabbing another for the presidency’
THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF, MAY EXPLAIN REES-MOGG LOVE OF HARD BREXIT
The driving theme of this book is the information revolution, ‘the most sweeping in history’, liberating individuals at the expense of the 20th century nation-state. Indeed, the authors argue that microprocessing will subvert and destroy the nation state, creating new forms of social organisation in the process. It will be faster than any previous revolution, and not without pain.
The ‘Sovereign Individuals’ who will gain most from this liberation are ‘the brightest, most successful and ambitious’ among us, ‘those who can educate and motivate themselves …. Genius will be unleashed, freed from both the oppression of government and the drags of racial and ethnic prejudice.’
...
Of course Rees-Mogg Jr may not share every part of the Rees-Mogg Sr worldview. But we know from his own mouth that he shares much of it, and reading The Sovereign Individual, it is easy to see why he so loves Brexit, and the chaos and disorder, and opportunities for disaster capitalism and super-elitism, that it may provide. At least his father was honest in his depiction of that vision – the commercialisation of sovereignty, Bermuda in the sky with diamonds – as a good one for people of wealth who can put their assets wherever they like, so that taxes and inflation are for the ‘left-behinds’ not the Sovereign Individuals born to rule, but freed from all rules themselves. Lord Mogg would be very proud of his son’s role in trying to get Britain to the hardest Brexit of all, whatever the impact on the ‘left-behinds’ whose votes were just a necessary support on the journey, but whose needs will be forgotten as soon as the vision of Bermuda in the sky with diamonds is upon us.
The most important book you have never heard of, may explain Rees-Mogg love of hard Brexit | Alastair Campbell
Alastair Campbell: Resist Jacob Rees-Mogg’s vision of a brave new world | Latest Brexit news and top stories - The New EuropeanFutures Forum: Brexit: and leaving behind the left-behind
This is the true 'elite':
Wall Street’s 0.01%: The Guru Who Only Talks to Hedge-Fund Elite - Bloomberg
Elite men and inequality in the hedge fund industry – Work in Progress
10 Elite Hedge-Fund Managers Made a Jaw-Dropping $7.7 Billion in 2018
Finally, there's profit to be made from 'dislocation':
Why are hedge funds supporting Brexit?
Two billionaire ‘hedgies’, Crispin Odey and Michael Hintze, have backed the out campaigns in EU referendum
Hedge funds like the sort of stock market volatility predicted this week by a US investment bank: Morgan Stanley claimed that if the UK votes to leave the European Union, shares in the FTSE 100 could underperform by 20%. In the hedge fund industry based in London’s Mayfair, that prospect has profit potential.
Any drastic movement in the share prices of Britain’s biggest listed companies could be a trigger for hedge fund managers to perform a classic manoeuvre: making profits by betting on slumping share prices. Known as shorting, a fund borrows shares from a City investor who charges a fee for the service. The fund then sells the shares in the expectation of buying them back more cheaply when the price falls, and then returning them to their rightful owner. The difference between the two prices is pocketed as a profit by the hedge fund.
But the prospect of some profitable trading is not the key reason why many of those in the hedge fund business – led by billionaires Crispin Odey and Sir Michael Hintze – are backing Brexit.
Most of the big City firms and institutions – from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to the Lloyd’s of London insurance market and the City of London Corporation – believe Britain is better off staying in the EU. Leaving, they argue, would endanger the status of the City as Europe’s financial centre, and growth prospects across the wider economy.
But many of the Mayfair-based hedgies have no such worries and are backing Brexit with both words and cash. They have clear professional reasons why they want the UK to leave the EU: a dislike for what they regard as overburdensome – and profit-reducing – regulation.
According to one source close to the industry: “I think there’s a genuine conviction they have that all regulation is rubbish.” But, he says, the profit potential from leaving is also a factor: “They love taking a view ... Market dislocation is fine if you’re a hedge fund guy.”
Why are hedge funds supporting Brexit? | Business | The Guardian
For example, what about the leader of UKIP?
Why did Nigel Farage tell the world he thought remain had won?
Bloomberg raises important questions about whether Farage, a former commodities broker with many friends and backers in the financial sector, said remain had won with the intention of benefiting hedge funds who stood to gain from a sudden drop in the pound.
Farage told Bloomberg his concessions were not aimed at moving the markets for anyone, and told MailOnline that he did not try to mislead people by conceding defeat. But speculating on Brexit has made at least one very rich Brexiteer that bit richer. Crispin Odey was one of the largest donors to leave, handing over just shy of £900,000 to the campaign.
On hearing the referendum result, Odey said: “I feel fantastic. It’s a fantastic decision by the electorate.” Odey had a special reason to feel “fantastic”. He’d bet on Brexit hitting the pound by “shorting” sterling and moving 65% of his fund into gold in anticipation. Odey’s fund made £220m in the space of just a few hours. As he said at the time: “I think I may be the winner.”
Hedge funds make money by betting on economic events, and hit the big time during the turbulence caused by the 2008 financial crisis. EU policies designed to restore stability to financial markets, such as the 2012 short selling regulation , are anathema to this sort of investor. Odey has voiced his objection to tighter EU regulation of hedge funds and has claimed that new EU banking rules will contribute to a “terrifying” environment for “investors”, although a distinction between investors and gamblers might be helpful here.
Hedge funds, including the one run by Odey, made some big wins by betting on the damage Brexit would do to the pound and UK stock markets. Some of his hedge funds have since lost significant value, but if the UK actually leaves the EU, the ensuing volatility will create excellent conditions for them to roll their dice again. He’s already banking on Britain’s largest firms performing badly in the wake of Brexit. But such is financial engineering that you don’t even need to bet on something going in a particular direction – you can also bet that uncertainty itself will go up or down.
To understand the situation the UK has got itself into, it helps to know that Brexit isn’t simply an anti-elitist revolt. Rather, it is an anti-elitist revolt led by an elite — a coup by one set of public schoolboys against another.
I went to university with both sets, and with hindsight I watched Brexit in the making. When I arrived at Oxford in 1988, David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove had just left the place. George Osborne and the future Brexiters Jacob Rees-Mogg and Daniel Hannan were all contemporaries of mine.
Futures Forum: Brexit: and democracy: "Ordinary voters never took much interest. Perhaps they didn’t care whether they were ruled by a faraway elite in Brussels or ditto in Westminster."
There are actually other 'elites' at work, as reported again by the Financial Times:
Tories raise cash and laughs, but Labour’s not smiling
The chance to play doubles tennis with David Cameron and Boris Johnson fetched £160,000 at this year’s Conservative summer fundraiser, where the dress code was “glamorous” and the venue was the home of polo.
Leading business people and City financiers mingled with cabinet ministers at the Hurlingham private members’ club in Fulham, west London, on Wednesday night for the Tory party’s penultimate fundraising event before next year’s general election.
Many of the guests arrived at the exclusive venue – the Hurlingham Club has a 20-year waiting list and set the rules of polo – in Rolls-Royces and Jaguars with blacked out windows in an effort to remain low-key.
Mr Cameron gave a speech to an audience containing some of Britain’s wealthiest business people and financiers. Sir Michael Hintze, the CQS hedge fund manager; Lord Fink, former party treasurer and grandee of the hedge fund industry; and James Lupton, party treasurer and former Barings banker, were among the dozens of industry figures at the party.
Hugo Swire, Foreign Office minister and one of the leading charity auctioneers, presided over the sales. When it came to the tennis lot, Mr Swire joked that the ball boys serving the prime minister and London mayor would be Lynton Crosby, the Tory campaign chief, and Andrew Feldman, the party’s co-chairman. “They will be picking up David’s balls and then give them to Nick Clegg, who hasn’t got any,” Mr Swire joked, according to one guest. Mr Swire also sold off a pot of his own honey, dubbing it a “most unusual, rare gift which only four people have got” – David and Samantha Cameron and George and Frances Osborne. “It is a jar of my own honey. . . It will be the most expensive jar of honey bought in the world.” His sweet talk paid off,with the honey said to have sold for double its £15,000 starting point.
Tories raise cash and laughs, but Labour’s not smiling - FT.com
PMQs: Corbyn blasts Tories 'in pockets of elite few' over £2.9m hedge fund donations - Mirror Online
Futures Forum: "Thanks to the hard work of people in East Devon and across Britain the economy is now above its pre-crisis peak"
And it's still happening, according to the Telegraph:
Inside the secret City battle for donors as Tory leadership hopefuls seek to rebuild party links with business
Mere minutes after Theresa May formally announced her resignation as prime minister last month, the inbox of one of Britain’s best-known investors pinged with an invitation on behalf of Boris Johnson.
Jon Moulton, the former Tory party donor and Brexit backer, was asked to breakfast with Johnson in the coming weeks. The race for the City’s support had begun.
“It was clearly ready and waiting,” says Moulton, who has already been invited to five breakfasts and one coffee with Conservative leadership hopefuls but has rejected them all. “So far I’ve been asked to six ‘do’s’ for three candidates, one who hasn’t even declared. Boris is most organised it seems. I really lack much enthusiasm for any...
Inside the secret City battle for donors as Tory leadership hopefuls seek to rebuild party links with business
Follow the money:
For two years, observers have speculated that the June, 2016, Brexit campaign in the U.K. served as a petri dish for Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign in the United States. Now there is new evidence that it did. Newly surfaced e-mails show that the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Cambridge Analytica, the Big Data company that he worked for at the time, were simultaneously incubating both nationalist political movements in 2015.
Emma Briant, an academic expert on disinformation at George Washington University, has unearthed new e-mails that appear to reveal the earliest documented role played by Bannon in Brexit. The e-mails, which date back to October of 2015, show that Bannon, who was then the vice-president of Cambridge Analytica, an American firm largely owned by the U.S. hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, was in the loop on discussions taking place at the time between his company and the leaders of Leave.EU, a far-right nationalist organization. The following month, Leave.EU publicly launched a campaign aimed at convincing British voters to support a referendum in favor of exiting the European Union.
New Evidence Emerges of Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica’s Role in Brexit | The New Yorker
Futures Forum: Brexit: and new evidence emerging over the role of Cambridge Analytica > follow the money
But many Brits feel they can make it:
Futures Forum: Brexit: and the fleet-footed, clever trading nation
Including those who are pushing for a very different scenario of low tax - which the US is keen on:
The Beauty of Tax Competition: Will US Cuts Prompt Other Countries to Follow Suit? - Foundation for Economic Education
But the EU is not:
The Anti Tax Avoidance Directive - European Commission
I've seen how the EU tackles tax evasion versus the US – and if Brexit Britain follows Trump, we're headed for disaster | The Independent
From last month:
The Brexit undertones of the EU's impending anti tax avoidance legislation
And from last year:
At What Point Do We Admit Brexit Was About Tax Evasion?
There are actually other 'elites' at work, as reported again by the Financial Times:
Tories raise cash and laughs, but Labour’s not smiling
The chance to play doubles tennis with David Cameron and Boris Johnson fetched £160,000 at this year’s Conservative summer fundraiser, where the dress code was “glamorous” and the venue was the home of polo.
Leading business people and City financiers mingled with cabinet ministers at the Hurlingham private members’ club in Fulham, west London, on Wednesday night for the Tory party’s penultimate fundraising event before next year’s general election.
Many of the guests arrived at the exclusive venue – the Hurlingham Club has a 20-year waiting list and set the rules of polo – in Rolls-Royces and Jaguars with blacked out windows in an effort to remain low-key.
Mr Cameron gave a speech to an audience containing some of Britain’s wealthiest business people and financiers. Sir Michael Hintze, the CQS hedge fund manager; Lord Fink, former party treasurer and grandee of the hedge fund industry; and James Lupton, party treasurer and former Barings banker, were among the dozens of industry figures at the party.
Hugo Swire, Foreign Office minister and one of the leading charity auctioneers, presided over the sales. When it came to the tennis lot, Mr Swire joked that the ball boys serving the prime minister and London mayor would be Lynton Crosby, the Tory campaign chief, and Andrew Feldman, the party’s co-chairman. “They will be picking up David’s balls and then give them to Nick Clegg, who hasn’t got any,” Mr Swire joked, according to one guest. Mr Swire also sold off a pot of his own honey, dubbing it a “most unusual, rare gift which only four people have got” – David and Samantha Cameron and George and Frances Osborne. “It is a jar of my own honey. . . It will be the most expensive jar of honey bought in the world.” His sweet talk paid off,with the honey said to have sold for double its £15,000 starting point.
Tories raise cash and laughs, but Labour’s not smiling - FT.com
PMQs: Corbyn blasts Tories 'in pockets of elite few' over £2.9m hedge fund donations - Mirror Online
Futures Forum: "Thanks to the hard work of people in East Devon and across Britain the economy is now above its pre-crisis peak"
And it's still happening, according to the Telegraph:
Inside the secret City battle for donors as Tory leadership hopefuls seek to rebuild party links with business
Mere minutes after Theresa May formally announced her resignation as prime minister last month, the inbox of one of Britain’s best-known investors pinged with an invitation on behalf of Boris Johnson.
Jon Moulton, the former Tory party donor and Brexit backer, was asked to breakfast with Johnson in the coming weeks. The race for the City’s support had begun.
“It was clearly ready and waiting,” says Moulton, who has already been invited to five breakfasts and one coffee with Conservative leadership hopefuls but has rejected them all. “So far I’ve been asked to six ‘do’s’ for three candidates, one who hasn’t even declared. Boris is most organised it seems. I really lack much enthusiasm for any...
Inside the secret City battle for donors as Tory leadership hopefuls seek to rebuild party links with business
Follow the money:
For two years, observers have speculated that the June, 2016, Brexit campaign in the U.K. served as a petri dish for Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign in the United States. Now there is new evidence that it did. Newly surfaced e-mails show that the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Cambridge Analytica, the Big Data company that he worked for at the time, were simultaneously incubating both nationalist political movements in 2015.
Emma Briant, an academic expert on disinformation at George Washington University, has unearthed new e-mails that appear to reveal the earliest documented role played by Bannon in Brexit. The e-mails, which date back to October of 2015, show that Bannon, who was then the vice-president of Cambridge Analytica, an American firm largely owned by the U.S. hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, was in the loop on discussions taking place at the time between his company and the leaders of Leave.EU, a far-right nationalist organization. The following month, Leave.EU publicly launched a campaign aimed at convincing British voters to support a referendum in favor of exiting the European Union.
New Evidence Emerges of Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica’s Role in Brexit | The New Yorker
Futures Forum: Brexit: and new evidence emerging over the role of Cambridge Analytica > follow the money
But many Brits feel they can make it:
Futures Forum: Brexit: and the fleet-footed, clever trading nation
Including those who are pushing for a very different scenario of low tax - which the US is keen on:
The Beauty of Tax Competition: Will US Cuts Prompt Other Countries to Follow Suit? - Foundation for Economic Education
But the EU is not:
The Anti Tax Avoidance Directive - European Commission
I've seen how the EU tackles tax evasion versus the US – and if Brexit Britain follows Trump, we're headed for disaster | The Independent
From last month:
The Brexit undertones of the EU's impending anti tax avoidance legislation
And from last year:
At What Point Do We Admit Brexit Was About Tax Evasion?
Back in 2015, Britain rejected plans announced by Brussels to combat ‘industrial-scale tax avoidance by the world’s biggest multinationals’.
Britain had built a corporate tax haven for multinationals that included slashing corporation tax from 28 per cent to 20 per cent — new favourable tax regimes for multinationals with offshore financing subsidiaries, and tax breaks for patent-owning companies. As a result, Britain saw a number of large corporations like Aon, Fiat Industrial, and Starbucks’ European operations set up headquarters in the UK with a small number of staff in order to take advantage of these tax laws …
The common tax regulations would have clamped down on offshoring and removed many of these elements of Britain’s competitive tax advantages over other EU member states. Then European Commissioner for Tax, Pierre Moscovici, stated that: ‘The current rules for corporate taxation no longer fit the modern context, as corporate tax planning has become more sophisticated and competitive forces between member states have increased, the tools for ensuring fair tax competition within the EU have reached their limits’.
Earlier in 2015, Conservative, UKIP and DUP MEPs also voted against EU plans to crack down on corporate tax dodging, by making companies report where they make their profits and pay taxes. The plan included a requirement for all member states to agree on a common EU position for the definition of tax havens and for coordinated penalties to be imposed upon countries or territories across the world that are uncooperative in tackling tax evasion.
Then just two weeks ago, the EU revealed that they were set to launch an investigation into a British Government scheme that could help multinational firms pay less tax. The EU believes that the special exemptions for multinationals in Britain do not comply with EU competition rules as they allow them to pay less tax than their domestic-only competitors. So with the release of the Paradise Papers last week, it is useful to examine the relationship that Britain has with tax avoiders and evaders and the UK’s stance on the EU clamp-down on tax dodging tactics.
The crux of the investigation centres around the UK’s ‘controlled foreign company’ (CFC) rules that George Osborne implemented in 2013. It allows a multinational company that resides in the UK to reduce its tax bill by moving some taxable income to an offshore subsidiary (or CFC)...
At What Point Do We Admit Brexit Was About Tax Evasion? | Shout Out UK
Britain had built a corporate tax haven for multinationals that included slashing corporation tax from 28 per cent to 20 per cent — new favourable tax regimes for multinationals with offshore financing subsidiaries, and tax breaks for patent-owning companies. As a result, Britain saw a number of large corporations like Aon, Fiat Industrial, and Starbucks’ European operations set up headquarters in the UK with a small number of staff in order to take advantage of these tax laws …
The common tax regulations would have clamped down on offshoring and removed many of these elements of Britain’s competitive tax advantages over other EU member states. Then European Commissioner for Tax, Pierre Moscovici, stated that: ‘The current rules for corporate taxation no longer fit the modern context, as corporate tax planning has become more sophisticated and competitive forces between member states have increased, the tools for ensuring fair tax competition within the EU have reached their limits’.
Earlier in 2015, Conservative, UKIP and DUP MEPs also voted against EU plans to crack down on corporate tax dodging, by making companies report where they make their profits and pay taxes. The plan included a requirement for all member states to agree on a common EU position for the definition of tax havens and for coordinated penalties to be imposed upon countries or territories across the world that are uncooperative in tackling tax evasion.
Then just two weeks ago, the EU revealed that they were set to launch an investigation into a British Government scheme that could help multinational firms pay less tax. The EU believes that the special exemptions for multinationals in Britain do not comply with EU competition rules as they allow them to pay less tax than their domestic-only competitors. So with the release of the Paradise Papers last week, it is useful to examine the relationship that Britain has with tax avoiders and evaders and the UK’s stance on the EU clamp-down on tax dodging tactics.
The crux of the investigation centres around the UK’s ‘controlled foreign company’ (CFC) rules that George Osborne implemented in 2013. It allows a multinational company that resides in the UK to reduce its tax bill by moving some taxable income to an offshore subsidiary (or CFC)...
At What Point Do We Admit Brexit Was About Tax Evasion? | Shout Out UK
And in particular we're talking about hedge-fund managers:
His father wrote a book back in 1997:
THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF, MAY EXPLAIN REES-MOGG LOVE OF HARD BREXIT
The driving theme of this book is the information revolution, ‘the most sweeping in history’, liberating individuals at the expense of the 20th century nation-state. Indeed, the authors argue that microprocessing will subvert and destroy the nation state, creating new forms of social organisation in the process. It will be faster than any previous revolution, and not without pain.The ‘Sovereign Individuals’ who will gain most from this liberation are ‘the brightest, most successful and ambitious’ among us, ‘those who can educate and motivate themselves …. Genius will be unleashed, freed from both the oppression of government and the drags of racial and ethnic prejudice.’
...
Of course Rees-Mogg Jr may not share every part of the Rees-Mogg Sr worldview. But we know from his own mouth that he shares much of it, and reading The Sovereign Individual, it is easy to see why he so loves Brexit, and the chaos and disorder, and opportunities for disaster capitalism and super-elitism, that it may provide. At least his father was honest in his depiction of that vision – the commercialisation of sovereignty, Bermuda in the sky with diamonds – as a good one for people of wealth who can put their assets wherever they like, so that taxes and inflation are for the ‘left-behinds’ not the Sovereign Individuals born to rule, but freed from all rules themselves. Lord Mogg would be very proud of his son’s role in trying to get Britain to the hardest Brexit of all, whatever the impact on the ‘left-behinds’ whose votes were just a necessary support on the journey, but whose needs will be forgotten as soon as the vision of Bermuda in the sky with diamonds is upon us.
The most important book you have never heard of, may explain Rees-Mogg love of hard Brexit | Alastair Campbell
Alastair Campbell: Resist Jacob Rees-Mogg’s vision of a brave new world | Latest Brexit news and top stories - The New EuropeanFutures Forum: Brexit: and leaving behind the left-behind
This is the true 'elite':
Wall Street’s 0.01%: The Guru Who Only Talks to Hedge-Fund Elite - Bloomberg
Elite men and inequality in the hedge fund industry – Work in Progress
10 Elite Hedge-Fund Managers Made a Jaw-Dropping $7.7 Billion in 2018
Finally, there's profit to be made from 'dislocation':
Why are hedge funds supporting Brexit?
Two billionaire ‘hedgies’, Crispin Odey and Michael Hintze, have backed the out campaigns in EU referendum
Hedge funds like the sort of stock market volatility predicted this week by a US investment bank: Morgan Stanley claimed that if the UK votes to leave the European Union, shares in the FTSE 100 could underperform by 20%. In the hedge fund industry based in London’s Mayfair, that prospect has profit potential.
Any drastic movement in the share prices of Britain’s biggest listed companies could be a trigger for hedge fund managers to perform a classic manoeuvre: making profits by betting on slumping share prices. Known as shorting, a fund borrows shares from a City investor who charges a fee for the service. The fund then sells the shares in the expectation of buying them back more cheaply when the price falls, and then returning them to their rightful owner. The difference between the two prices is pocketed as a profit by the hedge fund.
But the prospect of some profitable trading is not the key reason why many of those in the hedge fund business – led by billionaires Crispin Odey and Sir Michael Hintze – are backing Brexit.
Most of the big City firms and institutions – from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to the Lloyd’s of London insurance market and the City of London Corporation – believe Britain is better off staying in the EU. Leaving, they argue, would endanger the status of the City as Europe’s financial centre, and growth prospects across the wider economy.
But many of the Mayfair-based hedgies have no such worries and are backing Brexit with both words and cash. They have clear professional reasons why they want the UK to leave the EU: a dislike for what they regard as overburdensome – and profit-reducing – regulation.
According to one source close to the industry: “I think there’s a genuine conviction they have that all regulation is rubbish.” But, he says, the profit potential from leaving is also a factor: “They love taking a view ... Market dislocation is fine if you’re a hedge fund guy.”
Why are hedge funds supporting Brexit? | Business | The Guardian
For example, what about the leader of UKIP?
Why did Nigel Farage tell the world he thought remain had won?
Bloomberg raises important questions about whether Farage, a former commodities broker with many friends and backers in the financial sector, said remain had won with the intention of benefiting hedge funds who stood to gain from a sudden drop in the pound.
Farage told Bloomberg his concessions were not aimed at moving the markets for anyone, and told MailOnline that he did not try to mislead people by conceding defeat. But speculating on Brexit has made at least one very rich Brexiteer that bit richer. Crispin Odey was one of the largest donors to leave, handing over just shy of £900,000 to the campaign.
On hearing the referendum result, Odey said: “I feel fantastic. It’s a fantastic decision by the electorate.” Odey had a special reason to feel “fantastic”. He’d bet on Brexit hitting the pound by “shorting” sterling and moving 65% of his fund into gold in anticipation. Odey’s fund made £220m in the space of just a few hours. As he said at the time: “I think I may be the winner.”
Hedge funds make money by betting on economic events, and hit the big time during the turbulence caused by the 2008 financial crisis. EU policies designed to restore stability to financial markets, such as the 2012 short selling regulation , are anathema to this sort of investor. Odey has voiced his objection to tighter EU regulation of hedge funds and has claimed that new EU banking rules will contribute to a “terrifying” environment for “investors”, although a distinction between investors and gamblers might be helpful here.
Hedge funds, including the one run by Odey, made some big wins by betting on the damage Brexit would do to the pound and UK stock markets. Some of his hedge funds have since lost significant value, but if the UK actually leaves the EU, the ensuing volatility will create excellent conditions for them to roll their dice again. He’s already banking on Britain’s largest firms performing badly in the wake of Brexit. But such is financial engineering that you don’t even need to bet on something going in a particular direction – you can also bet that uncertainty itself will go up or down.
Brexit Big Short: How Pollsters Helped Hedge Funds Beat the Crash - Bloomberg
The Big Brexit Short - YouTube
But perhaps these are not particularly 'clever' people...
Jay Doubleyou: 'I have met many people who earn way more than £30,000 and have literally no discernible skills, not even one.'
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.
.
The Big Brexit Short - YouTube
But perhaps these are not particularly 'clever' people...
Jay Doubleyou: 'I have met many people who earn way more than £30,000 and have literally no discernible skills, not even one.'
.
.
.
Sunday, 16 June 2019
the quirks and eccentricities of english
English spelling doesn't make any sense:
Why is English Spelling So Weird? - YouTube
And the spellcheckers are not always helpful:
Susie Dent: Even AI spellcheckers are no match for English’s quirks and eccentricities
No amount of intervention by artificial intelligence would pick up the difference between a “revue” and “review
Who put the “b” in doubt, or the “l” in salmon? Why doesn’t “plumber” rhyme with “lumber”? The “blame”, in many cases, lies with Renaissance scribes, eager to show off their classical education and to bolster language’s Latin inheritance. Before these scholars looked to the Romans’ “dubitum”, English-speakers were perfectly happy with feeling an element of “dowt”. These same scribes put the “b” in plumber as a vigorous nod to the Latin “plumbum”, meaning “lead pipe”. Spelling moved on, but our sounds refused to budge.
...
Susie Dent: Even AI spellcheckers are no match for English's quirks and eccentricities - inews.co.uk
.
.
.
Why is English Spelling So Weird? - YouTube
And the spellcheckers are not always helpful:
Susie Dent: Even AI spellcheckers are no match for English’s quirks and eccentricities
No amount of intervention by artificial intelligence would pick up the difference between a “revue” and “review
...
Who put the “b” in doubt, or the “l” in salmon? Why doesn’t “plumber” rhyme with “lumber”? The “blame”, in many cases, lies with Renaissance scribes, eager to show off their classical education and to bolster language’s Latin inheritance. Before these scholars looked to the Romans’ “dubitum”, English-speakers were perfectly happy with feeling an element of “dowt”. These same scribes put the “b” in plumber as a vigorous nod to the Latin “plumbum”, meaning “lead pipe”. Spelling moved on, but our sounds refused to budge.
...
Susie Dent: Even AI spellcheckers are no match for English's quirks and eccentricities - inews.co.uk
.
.
.
Saturday, 15 June 2019
european jokes about the british
From BBC Radio 4:
And finally, this one came from my wife, who’s Swedish (thanks darling):
BBC Radio 4 - Funny in Four - The best European jokes about the British
.
The best European jokes about the British
Humour, like Marmite, tea and overpriced rail travel, is one of the cornerstones of Britishness. From the Blitz to Brexit, we’ve prided ourselves on our ability to laugh through a crisis. But as our preparations for leaving the EU unravel faster than a pound-shop sweater, we’re faced with the sobering realisation that we may now be the butt of the joke.
Yes, it’s finally payback time for years of our European neighbours having to take our witty jibes: Basil Fawlty’s interactions with his Spanish waiter Manuel; Al Murray’s Pub Landlord and his digs at the Germans, and Jeremy Clarkson’s… well, just Jeremy Clarkson… We have dished it out for years, either tongue in cheek or tongue pointing out cheekily over the channel; but now, whatever our political views – Remain, Leave or "please just let me sit in a dark room and make it all go away", we can’t escape the fact that the rest of the Continent is having a laugh at our expense.
But, then, perhaps, they’ve been laughing at us for years, and we just haven’t noticed? Perhaps – shock, horror – we’re that kid at school who always wondered why the room went so quiet when he came in…
So, what is so funny about us Brits? Apart from our jokes, obviously… Here are some of Europe’s finest comic minds giving their take on us, from our eccentricities and our bathroom habits, to sporting passions and our current Brexit dilemmas…
Germany’s Henning Wehn on Britain’s passion for swearing:
Henning Wehn
“With stand-up in Britain what you have to do is bloody swearing. In Germany, we don’t have to swear. Reason being, things work.”
French phenomenon Marcel Lucont on English cuisine:
“What is black and white and red all over? An English steak hideously overcooked and ruined further by the addition of ketchup and mayonnaise.”
Irish stand-up Andrew Maxwell cuts to the chase on our grasp of geography:
“Number one, it's not the Irish border, it's the British border in Ireland. The Irish border is the beach.”
Finnish comedian Ismo Leikola on pub toilets:
“Why on earth do the cubicles open inwards? The door is banging against the toilet seat and it's really tricky to get in and out. So a local guy told me, ‘well, stupid, so that when the lock is broken, you can with your other hand hold the door like this’… Then I said, ‘We in Finland have it different; in our country they open outwards, and then if the lock is broken, someone comes and fixes the bloody lock!’”
Stand-up Steve Hili from Malta (I suppose that make him a Malt-teaser):
Marcel Lucont
“Theresa May to the Tories – ‘We must unite or history will judge us.’
Tories – ‘But you told us we were taking back sovereignty of our own courts!'”
Tories – ‘But you told us we were taking back sovereignty of our own courts!'”
Ireland’s great playwright George Bernard Shaw on cricket:
“The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.”
Traditional French joke:
“A plane crashes on a desert island. There are only a few survivors: three Spanish people, three French people and an Englishman. Six months later: one of the Spanish men has killed the other and is now living with the Spanish woman, the three French people have decided to become a threesome and the Englishman is still waiting to be introduced to the others.”
German stand-up Christian Schulte-Loh @germancomedian find allies in high places:
“I’m not afraid of Brexit – they can’t kick all the Germans out of the UK. That would mean the Royal Family would have to leave too. I would like to be on that ferry!”
And finally, this one came from my wife, who’s Swedish (thanks darling):
“What do you call a good-looking guy in Britain? A tourist.”
BBC Radio 4 - Funny in Four - The best European jokes about the British
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Thursday, 6 June 2019
conspiracy theories
There are a lot of them about - and most of them are rubbish:
The Ultimate Conspiracy Debunker - YouTube
Including:
alex jones conspiracy - YouTube
And there is no 'hidden pattern' most of the time: - according to the Ramsey Theory:
The origin of countless conspiracy theories - PatrickJMT - YouTube
But it depends what you mean by 'conspiracy':
George Carlin - Conspiracy Theorists and Powerful People - YouTube
George Carlin on Conspiracies - YouTube
For example:
Jay Doubleyou: conspiracy!
Planned obsolescence:
Jay Doubleyou: the men who made us spend
Russia's invasion of the Ukraine:
Jay Doubleyou: english language media as propaganda in the ukraine
Jay Doubleyou: information wars
The liberal media:
Jay Doubleyou: fake news
Shakespeare's identity:
Jay Doubleyou: there are several questions around Shakespeare
Gun control:
Jay Doubleyou: gun and violence issues
How America went to war:
Jay Doubleyou: propaganda, public relations and manufacturing consent
Sport:
Jay Doubleyou: bread and circuses today
Jay Doubleyou: sport and politics
.
.
.
The Ultimate Conspiracy Debunker - YouTube
Including:
alex jones conspiracy - YouTube
And there is no 'hidden pattern' most of the time: - according to the Ramsey Theory:
The origin of countless conspiracy theories - PatrickJMT - YouTube
But it depends what you mean by 'conspiracy':
George Carlin - Conspiracy Theorists and Powerful People - YouTube
George Carlin on Conspiracies - YouTube
For example:
Jay Doubleyou: conspiracy!
Planned obsolescence:
Jay Doubleyou: the men who made us spend
Russia's invasion of the Ukraine:
Jay Doubleyou: english language media as propaganda in the ukraine
Jay Doubleyou: information wars
The liberal media:
Jay Doubleyou: fake news
Shakespeare's identity:
Jay Doubleyou: there are several questions around Shakespeare
Gun control:
Jay Doubleyou: gun and violence issues
How America went to war:
Jay Doubleyou: propaganda, public relations and manufacturing consent
Sport:
Jay Doubleyou: bread and circuses today
Jay Doubleyou: sport and politics
.
.
.
Monday, 3 June 2019
foucault's discipline and punish made easier
What's this?
Panopticon - Wikipedia
The French philosopher Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michel Foucault - Wikipedia
... looked at the idea:
An Introduction to Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish - A Macat Sociology Analysis - YouTube
This book looks at power:
Discipline and Punish - Wikipedia
Foucault: power is everywhere | Understanding power for social change | powercube.net | IDS at Sussex University
Foucault, panopticism and digital power
While power is often thought of as something someone important (like a king) “holds”, Foucault saw it very differently. He revealed power to be highly distributed, diffuse and relational. In the modern world, the pressure we feel to behave in certain ways is often disconnected from any particular person or organization. Instead it’s embedded in social norms, social structures, institutionalized rules, networks and even physical spaces.
In his book Discipline and Punish, Foucault famously refers to utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham’s invention the “panopticon” as a metaphor for decentralized power through surveillance and self-surveillance.
The panopticon is a prison design in which individual cells surround a tower at the centre from which a guard could, at any point in time, be looking. The prisoners never know when the guard is looking (like with a one-way mirror), but because it’s always possible, they behave as if watched, thus, disciplining themselves.
Bentham saw his invention as stupendously excellent design for its economical efficiency, and he imagined it should be applied to schools, hospitals and other institutions as well. For Foucault, this panopticon is a metaphor demonstrating how power, at one time associated with a sovereign, became embedded into the very institutions, and architectures of the spaces we live in.
Foucault, panopticism and digital power – The Dead Philosophers' Guide to New Technology
This includes all sorts of related issues:
Panopticism - Wikipedia
Surveillance capitalism - Wikipedia
Normalization (sociology) - Wikipedia
And has thrown up all sorts of responses - and all very recent responses:
Unlike the Panopticon, citizens don’t know they are being watched
What does the panopticon mean in the age of digital surveillance? | Technology | The Guardian
On BBC Radio 4:
Who is watching you?
Start the Week
Society is at a turning point, warns Professor Shoshana Zuboff. Democracy and liberty are under threat as capitalism and the digital revolution combine forces. She tells Andrew Marr how new technologies are not only mining our minds for data, but radically changing them in the process. As Facebook celebrates its 15th birthday she examines what happens when a few companies have unprecedented power and little democratic oversight.
Although behavioural data is constantly being abstracted by tech companies, John Thornhill, Innovations Editor at the Financial Times, questions whether they have yet worked out how to use it effectively to manipulate people. And he argues that the technological revolution has brought many innovations which have benefitted society.
Start the Week - Who is watching you? - BBC Sounds
Futures Forum: Surveillance capitalism
Welcome to China:
Nosedive (Black Mirror) - Wikipedia
No, China isn’t Black Mirror – social credit scores are more complex and sinister than that
China’s ‘social credit’ system is a real-life ‘Black Mirror’ nightmare - NYPost
Credit as a Social Technology: Black Mirror, China, and the Case for Social Credit
Welcome to Black Mirror:
Black Mirror S03E01 Airport scene - YouTube
Black Mirror | Nosedive Featurette [HD] | Netflix - YouTube
Black Mirror's 'Nosedive' episode may have predicted the future in China | Buzz.ie
'Black Mirror' Recap: 'Nosedive' Is a Sharp Satire About Social Media - The Atlantic
There are other such episodes:
The Entire History of You | Black Mirror - YouTube
Black Mirror and Control Society | Narrative and Technology, Spring 2015
Black Mirror: subjectivity and technology in “The Entire History of You”
.
.
.
Panopticon - Wikipedia
The French philosopher Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michel Foucault - Wikipedia
... looked at the idea:
An Introduction to Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish - A Macat Sociology Analysis - YouTube
This book looks at power:
Discipline and Punish - Wikipedia
Foucault: power is everywhere | Understanding power for social change | powercube.net | IDS at Sussex University
Foucault, panopticism and digital power
While power is often thought of as something someone important (like a king) “holds”, Foucault saw it very differently. He revealed power to be highly distributed, diffuse and relational. In the modern world, the pressure we feel to behave in certain ways is often disconnected from any particular person or organization. Instead it’s embedded in social norms, social structures, institutionalized rules, networks and even physical spaces.
In his book Discipline and Punish, Foucault famously refers to utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham’s invention the “panopticon” as a metaphor for decentralized power through surveillance and self-surveillance.
The panopticon is a prison design in which individual cells surround a tower at the centre from which a guard could, at any point in time, be looking. The prisoners never know when the guard is looking (like with a one-way mirror), but because it’s always possible, they behave as if watched, thus, disciplining themselves.
Bentham saw his invention as stupendously excellent design for its economical efficiency, and he imagined it should be applied to schools, hospitals and other institutions as well. For Foucault, this panopticon is a metaphor demonstrating how power, at one time associated with a sovereign, became embedded into the very institutions, and architectures of the spaces we live in.
Foucault, panopticism and digital power – The Dead Philosophers' Guide to New Technology
This includes all sorts of related issues:
Panopticism - Wikipedia
Surveillance capitalism - Wikipedia
Normalization (sociology) - Wikipedia
And has thrown up all sorts of responses - and all very recent responses:
Unlike the Panopticon, citizens don’t know they are being watched
Internet of things: morals reformed? Health preserved? Industry invigorated?
What does the panopticon mean in the age of digital surveillance? | Technology | The Guardian
On BBC Radio 4:
Who is watching you?
Start the Week
Society is at a turning point, warns Professor Shoshana Zuboff. Democracy and liberty are under threat as capitalism and the digital revolution combine forces. She tells Andrew Marr how new technologies are not only mining our minds for data, but radically changing them in the process. As Facebook celebrates its 15th birthday she examines what happens when a few companies have unprecedented power and little democratic oversight.
Although behavioural data is constantly being abstracted by tech companies, John Thornhill, Innovations Editor at the Financial Times, questions whether they have yet worked out how to use it effectively to manipulate people. And he argues that the technological revolution has brought many innovations which have benefitted society.
Start the Week - Who is watching you? - BBC Sounds
Futures Forum: Surveillance capitalism
Welcome to China:
Nosedive (Black Mirror) - Wikipedia
No, China isn’t Black Mirror – social credit scores are more complex and sinister than that
China’s ‘social credit’ system is a real-life ‘Black Mirror’ nightmare - NYPost
Credit as a Social Technology: Black Mirror, China, and the Case for Social Credit
Welcome to Black Mirror:
Black Mirror S03E01 Airport scene - YouTube
Black Mirror | Nosedive Featurette [HD] | Netflix - YouTube
Black Mirror's 'Nosedive' episode may have predicted the future in China | Buzz.ie
'Black Mirror' Recap: 'Nosedive' Is a Sharp Satire About Social Media - The Atlantic
There are other such episodes:
The Entire History of You | Black Mirror - YouTube
Black Mirror and Control Society | Narrative and Technology, Spring 2015
Black Mirror: subjectivity and technology in “The Entire History of You”
.
.
.
Sunday, 2 June 2019
schools as 'total institutions'
The philosopher and critic Ivan Illich was interested in key features of modern life:
Jay Doubleyou: ivan illich on education and health
Especially the feature of the 'institution':
Ivan Illich - Deschooling Society - Institutional Spectrum
Here's a course on 'critical pedagogy':
The origins of critical pedagogy are outside the classroom, indeed, outside the common imagination of a school. Many critical pedagogues today continue to see the school itself, and not just the classroom, as an institution to be challenged, subverted, undermined, or ultimately, completely dismantled. Schools as a model for organizing learning are fundamentally oppressive: they force learning into a narrow schedule and space and simultaneously reinforce the notion that learning does not happen in important ways anywhere else.
Ivan Illich writes that "a … major illusion on which the school system rests is that most learning is the result of teaching. Teaching, it is true, may contribute to certain kinds of learning under certain circumstances. But most people acquire most of their knowledge outside school, and in school only insofar as school, in a few rich countries, has become their place of confinement during an increasing part of their lives."
As a place of confinement, both physically and psychologically, schools become a place where students learn to look to authority figures and experts for answers and come to recognize only a certain set of knowledges as legitimate.
And here's some recent comment from an education blog:
Ivan Illich published Deschooling Society in 1970. The concept of deschooling has moved on from Illich’s initial definition. However, many of the ideas in his book are worth revisiting.
No amount of reformation, according to Illich — adjustments to the ways schools are constructed and run, changes in teachers’ attitudes to students, the use of technology in the classroom, and even a change in how students are engaged — will alter the outcomes of schooling. Schools can only school. And they can only school, and not educate, because they are total institutions that are designed to control every participant and process within them towards a stated end: egalitarianism and unquestioning submission to the state or some other dominating institution, i.e. an organized religion. This is not an education, it is indoctrination. It breeds narrow-mindedness, and an incapacity to think independently. Schools are not to be reformed, they are to be abandoned altogether, and the vast resources that are taken from families and businesses (through taxation) to fund the schooling industry should remain with the families and the businesses to fund home-based education and more financially viable private enterprise.
(PDF) Ivan Illich: Yet Again Revisited | Lance A Box - Academia.edu
Certainly today's universities can be considered to be 'total institutions':
Billion dollar institutions now police students' Halloween costumes, their private text messages, their social media posts, and even their external voluntary associations. Faculty and staff, too, are finding their words—written, spoken, and even sung—subject to formal, and more often secret, investigation. Almost every aspect of life on many campuses is now subject to unprecedented surveillance and potential sanction.
Total institution - Wikipedia
The University as a Total Institution - Quillette
As could primary schools:
ERIC - ED109817 - The Elementary School as a Total Institution., 1975-Apr
So, what is the 'total institution'?
A total institution is a closed social system in which life is organized by strict norms, rules, and schedules, and what happens within it is determined by a single authority whose will is carried out by staff who enforce the rules. Total institutions are separated from wider society by distance, laws, and/or protections around their property and those who live within them are generally similar to each other in some way. In general, they are designed to provide care to a population that is unable to care for themselves, and/or protect society from the potential harm that this population could do to its members. The most typical examples include prisons, military compounds, private boarding schools, and locked mental health facilities.
What Is a Total Institution?
Total Institution | Encyclopedia.com
And how can a school be described as a 'total institution'?
The following thinks this is a good idea:
Second: the school is a rigid system which provides students with a standardized and organized way of life; At home, schedules are not as stringent or fixed as it is at school where events are scheduled for certain times.
Third: formal rules and daily schedules dictate when, where, and how students perform virtually every part of their daily routines; as previously mentioned, the rules in the classroom differ from those at home. Rules at school are in place to control what students do, how they do it and when they did it, as well as, with whom; whereas at home, routines are a little less structured.
Finally: a single rational plan exists to fulfill the particular goal of the institution.
‘De-socialization’ is the idea that individuals can ‘un-learn’ ideas and values, which most often takes place within the educational environment. This occurs when children, who share different traditions, beliefs and cultures, begin to unlearn what they have learned in the home. Students are eventually able to recognize “bad” values, such as racism and sexism, and unlearn them. School helps students do this by exposing them to these topics and issues and re-teaching them.
We see this process in our schools but what happens to students who immigrate and have not been exposed to western culture? Would this work when students have reached an older age or would the process of de-socialization and re-socialization still apply?
> It confuses the students. It presents an incoherent ensemble of information that the child needs to memorize to stay in school. Apart from the tests and trials, this programming is similar to the television; it fills almost all the "free" time of children. One sees and hears something, only to forget it again.
> It teaches them to accept their class affiliation.
> It makes them indifferent.
> It makes them emotionally dependent.
> It makes them intellectually dependent.
> It teaches them a kind of self-confidence that requires constant confirmation by experts (provisional self-esteem).
> It makes it clear to them that they cannot hide, because they are always supervised.[12]
Jay Doubleyou: dumbing us down
Jay Doubleyou: john taylor gatto: on video
To finish with another philosopher:
While power is often thought of as something someone important (like a king) “holds”, Foucault saw it very differently. He revealed power to be highly distributed, diffuse and relational. In the modern world, the pressure we feel to behave in certain ways is often disconnected from any particular person or organization. Instead it’s embedded in social norms, social structures, institutionalized rules, networks and even physical spaces.
Jay Doubleyou: ivan illich on education and health
Especially the feature of the 'institution':
Ivan Illich - Deschooling Society - Institutional Spectrum
Here's a course on 'critical pedagogy':
The origins of critical pedagogy are outside the classroom, indeed, outside the common imagination of a school. Many critical pedagogues today continue to see the school itself, and not just the classroom, as an institution to be challenged, subverted, undermined, or ultimately, completely dismantled. Schools as a model for organizing learning are fundamentally oppressive: they force learning into a narrow schedule and space and simultaneously reinforce the notion that learning does not happen in important ways anywhere else.
Ivan Illich writes that "a … major illusion on which the school system rests is that most learning is the result of teaching. Teaching, it is true, may contribute to certain kinds of learning under certain circumstances. But most people acquire most of their knowledge outside school, and in school only insofar as school, in a few rich countries, has become their place of confinement during an increasing part of their lives."
As a place of confinement, both physically and psychologically, schools become a place where students learn to look to authority figures and experts for answers and come to recognize only a certain set of knowledges as legitimate.
And here's some recent comment from an education blog:
Ivan Illich published Deschooling Society in 1970. The concept of deschooling has moved on from Illich’s initial definition. However, many of the ideas in his book are worth revisiting.
No amount of reformation, according to Illich — adjustments to the ways schools are constructed and run, changes in teachers’ attitudes to students, the use of technology in the classroom, and even a change in how students are engaged — will alter the outcomes of schooling. Schools can only school. And they can only school, and not educate, because they are total institutions that are designed to control every participant and process within them towards a stated end: egalitarianism and unquestioning submission to the state or some other dominating institution, i.e. an organized religion. This is not an education, it is indoctrination. It breeds narrow-mindedness, and an incapacity to think independently. Schools are not to be reformed, they are to be abandoned altogether, and the vast resources that are taken from families and businesses (through taxation) to fund the schooling industry should remain with the families and the businesses to fund home-based education and more financially viable private enterprise.
(PDF) Ivan Illich: Yet Again Revisited | Lance A Box - Academia.edu
Certainly today's universities can be considered to be 'total institutions':
Billion dollar institutions now police students' Halloween costumes, their private text messages, their social media posts, and even their external voluntary associations. Faculty and staff, too, are finding their words—written, spoken, and even sung—subject to formal, and more often secret, investigation. Almost every aspect of life on many campuses is now subject to unprecedented surveillance and potential sanction.
Total institution - Wikipedia
The University as a Total Institution - Quillette
As could primary schools:
ERIC - ED109817 - The Elementary School as a Total Institution., 1975-Apr
So, what is the 'total institution'?
A total institution is a closed social system in which life is organized by strict norms, rules, and schedules, and what happens within it is determined by a single authority whose will is carried out by staff who enforce the rules. Total institutions are separated from wider society by distance, laws, and/or protections around their property and those who live within them are generally similar to each other in some way. In general, they are designed to provide care to a population that is unable to care for themselves, and/or protect society from the potential harm that this population could do to its members. The most typical examples include prisons, military compounds, private boarding schools, and locked mental health facilities.
What Is a Total Institution?
Total Institution | Encyclopedia.com
And how can a school be described as a 'total institution'?
The following thinks this is a good idea:
First: teachers supervise all aspects of daily life; going to school means being separated from family and becoming a part of a new environment. Students are no longer under the supervision of a parent, rather under that of a teacher whose rules differed from those at home.
Second: the school is a rigid system which provides students with a standardized and organized way of life; At home, schedules are not as stringent or fixed as it is at school where events are scheduled for certain times.
Third: formal rules and daily schedules dictate when, where, and how students perform virtually every part of their daily routines; as previously mentioned, the rules in the classroom differ from those at home. Rules at school are in place to control what students do, how they do it and when they did it, as well as, with whom; whereas at home, routines are a little less structured.
Finally: a single rational plan exists to fulfill the particular goal of the institution.
‘De-socialization’ is the idea that individuals can ‘un-learn’ ideas and values, which most often takes place within the educational environment. This occurs when children, who share different traditions, beliefs and cultures, begin to unlearn what they have learned in the home. Students are eventually able to recognize “bad” values, such as racism and sexism, and unlearn them. School helps students do this by exposing them to these topics and issues and re-teaching them.
We see this process in our schools but what happens to students who immigrate and have not been exposed to western culture? Would this work when students have reached an older age or would the process of de-socialization and re-socialization still apply?
On the other hand, if 'socialisation' is what schools are all about, the educationalist John Taylor Gatto had something to say about what this particular institution is responsible for:
Gatto asserts the following regarding what school does to children in 'Dumbing Us Down':
> It confuses the students. It presents an incoherent ensemble of information that the child needs to memorize to stay in school. Apart from the tests and trials, this programming is similar to the television; it fills almost all the "free" time of children. One sees and hears something, only to forget it again.
> It teaches them to accept their class affiliation.
> It makes them indifferent.
> It makes them emotionally dependent.
> It makes them intellectually dependent.
> It teaches them a kind of self-confidence that requires constant confirmation by experts (provisional self-esteem).
> It makes it clear to them that they cannot hide, because they are always supervised.[12]
Jay Doubleyou: dumbing us down
Jay Doubleyou: john taylor gatto: on video
To finish with another philosopher:
While power is often thought of as something someone important (like a king) “holds”, Foucault saw it very differently. He revealed power to be highly distributed, diffuse and relational. In the modern world, the pressure we feel to behave in certain ways is often disconnected from any particular person or organization. Instead it’s embedded in social norms, social structures, institutionalized rules, networks and even physical spaces.
In his book Discipline and Punish, Foucault famously refers to utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham’s invention the “panopticon” as a metaphor for decentralized power through surveillance and self-surveillance.
The panopticon is a prison design in which individual cells surround a tower at the centre from which a guard could, at any point in time, be looking. The prisoners never know when the guard is looking (like with a one-way mirror), but because it’s always possible, they behave as if watched, thus, disciplining themselves.
Bentham saw his invention as stupendously excellent design for its economical efficiency, and he imagined it should be applied to schools, hospitals and other institutions as well. For Foucault, this panopticon is a metaphor demonstrating how power, at one time associated with a sovereign, became embedded into the very institutions, and architectures of the spaces we live in.
Foucault, panopticism and digital power – The Dead Philosophers' Guide to New Technology
See:
Jay Doubleyou: foucault's discipline and punish made easier
.
.
.
The panopticon is a prison design in which individual cells surround a tower at the centre from which a guard could, at any point in time, be looking. The prisoners never know when the guard is looking (like with a one-way mirror), but because it’s always possible, they behave as if watched, thus, disciplining themselves.
Bentham saw his invention as stupendously excellent design for its economical efficiency, and he imagined it should be applied to schools, hospitals and other institutions as well. For Foucault, this panopticon is a metaphor demonstrating how power, at one time associated with a sovereign, became embedded into the very institutions, and architectures of the spaces we live in.
Foucault, panopticism and digital power – The Dead Philosophers' Guide to New Technology
See:
Jay Doubleyou: foucault's discipline and punish made easier
.
.
.
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