StickWithANose

One moment that will forever stick in my mind is the night that “Shock & Awe” was unleashed upon Iraq. Our fearless leader stood before the camera in the White House and announced that we were, in effect, going to war to ensure peace. It was a moment of both clarity and cognitive dissonance that surely made Baudrillard chuckle, cry, or both. For me, it was the moment in which I was forced to face the sad reality that my world was not simply up-side down but hollow.

The problematic of Western modernity is one of simulation. The concepts we employ to understand the complex totality of our social world are not perversions of reality nor do they even convey the pretense of representing objective reality. The sad truth is that the concepts we use bear little to no resemblance to any reality what so ever. We inhabit a world of socio-political fantasy in which the play of power moves within the minutiae of the everyday simulation of a reality. As Baudrillard  noted:

It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality [ideology], but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle.

One of the most troublesome concepts in modern political speech is ‘progressive’ or ‘progressivism’. Historically, progressive was always a tricky idea that represented all manner of political perspectives from the political right to left. In today’s lingo, progressive has become a general substitute for what was once called ‘liberal’ or, by American standards, the political left. Yet, this modern incarnation of a left politics is notable for being little more than the simulation of a left politics. The politicians and organizations that represent the institutional mandate of ‘progressivism’ pursue policies that are both corporatist and elitist in nature. Beneath the patina of a left politics we find the same exercise of power that animates the entire political spectrum.

So, where am I going with this? These observations are my round-about way of pointing you toward a clear example of the simulation of a left politics within the institutional framework of a ‘progressive’ institution. Pointing toward Kevin Carey’s post at Quick and the Ed about the promise of online education as a way of expanding university training, in which Carey observes that “The challenge is to create an educational experience that’s of high enough quality to be associated with the globally recognized academic tradition of the University of California. It can be different, as long as it’s good.”, Matt Yglesias offers the following observation:

I would go stronger. It’s not just okay if it’s different, it’s okay if it’s actually worse. Historically, a lot of important improvements involve downgrades in technology. Ready to wear shirts are not as good as tailored or handmade ones. Nonetheless, developing the technology of mass produced ready to wear shirts was a huge advance in improving the world’s stock of apparel. Frozen vegetables aren’t as good as fresh ones, but again the advantages in convenience still make them an important advance. One very important reason we’ve seen such disappointing productivity in the health and education sectors over the past few decades is precisely that we’ve tended to lack these kind of quality-degrading innovations. But if you could find a means of educating students that’s 80% as good as what Berkeley currently does at 10% of the per capita cost, then you’d be opening up vast new frontiers of potential learning.

There is so much to tear into here that I honestly don’t know where to begin. So, I will offer the following. It is amazing to me that Ivy League graduates carrying the mantle of a left politics that offers the hope of providing a high-quality education to all regardless of her/his position in the social hierarchy would openly advocate for offering educative opportunities to the lower classes that they themselves would never accept for their own children. The “quality degrading innovation” in question here is one of institutional context. The reason elite schools are so desirable is that students are given the opportunity to meaningfully engage with highly-regarded experts in academic fields and to associate with other high caliber students in the pursuit of knowledge creation.  While online technology certainly offers promise for advancing education opportunities, the idea that we should pursue “quality-degrading innovations” in order to expand educational opportunity is to, in effect, advocate for a 21st century version of separate but equal… well almost equal.