TORONTO REPORTBACK: PEGIDA had a very, very rough reception at their second attempt to hold a rally in Canada. It turns out that when you advertise an Islamophobic pep rally in the city with the largest Muslim population in the country, people are going to take notice. And your banner is going to get snatched! More details to follow. GREAT WORK TORONTO ANTIFA!
It’s always a bit strange to be at a point in your life where you feel at a bit of a crossroads. For me, the existential nature of it all takes on an almost absurdist quality. It feels as though my life slowly is stretched and wound around particular aspects of itself, unwinding with a snap--a snap into a new shape of sorts. Unchanged, then, but entirely different.
Four years ago, I made the choice to come to Toronto and everything felt like that--but more sharp and shaken, due to the change in surroundings. Now... well, now I feel like a chapter has shut and I stand at the interlude. I've made a lot of mistakes along this last chapter and had a lot of successes too. I've lost more than I've won, I think--which is something that comes hard to me. That said, what I have gained is worth more than what I had before. Quality over quantity, as it were.
Part I
I got in a fight with my mother a few days ago. She’s the type that doesn't particularly like vulgarity--as her father before her, and so forth. Someone, as tends to be the case in my small-townish-bubble-of-a-life back home, mentioned to her that I was particularly harsh on a politician or administrator. It was apparently laiden with expletives (of which, I’m generally sparing) and she wasn't particularly happy about it.
Well, ok, she threatened to “destroy me”--in a case of typical verbal flourish gusto that both she has and I inherited, somewhat gleefully, even though such flourish is just that--so perhaps that was an understatement. I was, admittedly, also kind of a jerk. Like, really. I get really anxious when my parents call of late and, really, find they are the only people in the world who can quick break my supposed veneer of calm. But that doesn't excuse being a jerk and being equally sharp in my (usual) verbosity.
But, that’s not important. What is is what she said later. In my hyper-defensiveness, she noted that she felt I was “always against something” and not for anything these days. My mother values a sense honesty in words and expresses herself so (well, at least to the extent in which she believes something is true)... so I tend to take that seriously (even when I scarcely admit that I do).
Had I really changed so much? Had I become something so ‘negative’?
It’s a tough set of questions. I don’t think I’ll ever have the perspective to truly answer them in full. But, perhaps these aren't the right questions to ask. I mean, we all change a lot over time and our emotional perspectives shift with the hours, let alone the years. But, that also doesn't mean certain trends in one’s ideals are negative (if sometimes negatively expressed). Since I was a kid, I was always the type to question things in society, in life, in people. I was a pain and I know it.
Certain aspects of myself are certainly more prominent than in the past--but they've always been there. Hell, some of them are my mother’s fault. I mean, where do you all think I got my stubborn, self-righteous and empathetic sides? Haha, all from her. By the way, my mother’s pretty amazing, like beloved by so many for her flawed, goofy, and aggressively loving nature--she’s going to kill me for writing this.
But, really. I’m the kind of person who stands for what I choose to and do so as uncompromisingly as I can manage... so it is good, but also causes some problems.
Part II
My political allegiances are always a subject of debate with people around me. I know this. Ok, maybe I'm projecting. I tend to title myself as a socialist to get out of committing to absolute partisanry while still committing somewhere vaguely... but I also am just terrible a following a line of any kind. It chafes and I tend to get a bit grumpy under such constraints. Moving to Toronto, though, has made me lose even the taste for much of that--much of politic.
I've written a lot, I think, about the loss of my faith in certain things--be it my faith in the electoral system or in certain organizations and what have you. It’s hard, then, to be for something when you don’t what exactly what you can trust in the shifting sands of this place, this City.
I mean, I can’t say I don’t know where I think I fit--I do--but I’m not sure how I go about making that political ideal into lived reality. Even now, the facades of certain spaces get peeled away and revealed to be--what exactly? Well, not what I’d hoped. It’s pretty disheartening.
But, also relieving. Maybe, I don't really have to fit somewhere? Maybe I can just be and build whatever I can with people that want to as well. The realization that I can just build a project or two from the ground up isn't a recent one--but it’s one that recurs a lot to me. No idea what that is, yet--but it’s one that takes me outside of academia (as mentioned a few posts ago).
I think, too, something I do often is blame the place I’m in for this sense of things--rather than the sum total of my experiences here. I even have done it above. That’s not entirely fair. While Toronto does have a tad of atmospheric gloom compared to where I'm from... it’s in part due to the associations I've built. I can’t keep running from past depressions and let-downs to putting all of the fault on some existential curse laden on this place. I do that from time to time.
Part III
Trust, though, is one of those things. And while I feel this way about some things in my life--so do others. It’s hard for me to accept the gulfs of trust that exist in certain communities in this place and harder still for me to not fall into sheer paranoia that often seems to grip all of it. I mean, having some of the experiences I've had over the past few years would push me to that. Watching that play out on a systemic level though--beyond the individual, even if justified--is still something I’m not entirely used to.
Such things cross into my life again and again as people question wider systems, but also individuals generally--even me. The latter I find the hardest to deal with, obviously. Yet, what keeps me grounded are the people in my life that transverse those trends and are forthright with me. Those are the people I have faith in and can be for, as it were. The simple honesty and care I've gotten back from my true friends, over these years here, has been a centering force like no other. Especially when love finds its way into my life, as it has now while I write this.
With these people in my life, I can see beyond the snapshot. I may have gone through a lot these past years, I may be entirely different... but yet unchanged. I tend to speak out a lot. But, these years have shorn away much to show me the kinds of people--across the years--who will stick with me to do so. I can be downright harsh about things I have issues with, while retaining that spark of empathy that makes me who I am.
I can’t deny things haven’t been easy, but I shouldn't get too grim about myself either. It’s not going to be easy for awhile, perhaps, but I’ll find my way along--both in life and in politic. And, I’m not doing it alone. So, perhaps it’ll work out alright.
In a few weeks, I’m planning to move (but not too far). Time to break with old places and symbolism, I guess. New chapters are coming for me, I hope. I wonder where we’ll go?
All the best and existentially yours,
- Brad.
PS. Don’t ask why I referenced Too Many Cooks for the image. I really have no idea... but I guess you have to watch it now? I guess so.
PPS. Also, because I know you'll be reading this at some point:
I miss you. I'm the world’s biggest cornball.
Ok, so I know I’ve said I’m moving on from academia, but before I’m out the door, I want to address something that has been bothering me for years, but I didn't have the spoons to deal with while at UTGSU. Graduate student politic at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE).
OISE is an interesting place. I could talk about my own issues with the institution for days, but the reality there is that many there see it was a world apart from the rest of UofT. And, this is fair to an extent. OISE was--in its various incarnations--independant from UofT until 1997 (if affiliated to grant degrees).
However, OISE is no longer this. It has spent the last eighteen years merging with the University--a painful task, but one that is done. Unlike the university, though, the same cannot be said of its student bodies. OISE students are simultaneously distanced from UofT-at-large, yet have a disproportionate control of bodies like UTGSU. With an unrivaled number of representatives, a common presence on UTGSU Executive, and more direct UTGSU-funding than any other group in UTGSU, how could this not be so?
Indeed, according to the UTGSU-OISEGSA Memorandum (found in the UTGSU Policy Handbook) 60% of all regular fees are given back to the GSA for its own use. As well, they have a murkily defined status as an ‘affiliated organization’.
To compare, most course unions in the UTGSU receive only 25% of their union fees, while Aerospace Mississauga, and Scarborough receives 35-40% of these fees. (UTGSU Policy Handbook).
As shown in the above article (The Varsity, 24 Sept. 1969, p18), threats to leave the UTGSU were made by the GSA which led to the establishment of this arrangement. However, this was entirely premised upon OISE’s then uniquely affiliated status. A status (that as earlier described) has long ended.
With OISE so involved in UTGSU and with funds not being as crucial as at the farther away UTM, UTSC, and Aerospace to supplement service provision, why should this remain as the status quo?
If anything, the broader funding and political influence of the GSA overlooks the equally politically engaged departments of UofT for this political monolith--making engagement through OISE an easier proposition. As well, as OISE is so close to UTSG proper, is it just to direct funds in such a fashion when UTM. UTSC, and Aerospace surely need it more?
These are questions for incoming years of graduate students, but it’s one I have contemplated deeply since getting to know Aerospace, UTSC, and UTM members and leaving my ‘OISE bubble’.
So, as you might have noticed I have changed the name of my blog from The Academicist to Towers Other Than Ivory.
And there are a few reasons for the change.
One being that, apparently, there is a word similar to this one in Spanish that implies a sense of being a head-in-the-clouds academic. Which, I don't and have never really seen myself as. I mean sure, I've been an academic like the best of ‘em, but I try to tie myself to some reality (even if my topic seems esoteric and my patent optimism is often mistaken for near-surrealism).
Ironically, for me, the title Academicist was always one I've taken pretty tongue-in-cheekily as a shot against the jargon-heavy academic life (one I've been aware of since high school) and as a mea culpa to my nerdy nature. Primarily then, either way, a joke.
But, more and more often of late, I find myself in dissonance with academia. I love most of what I do, you know, as a historian or analyst of theory or policy--but I have grown to reject the academic life and governance. I mean, I know more about this stuff than most, but it’s like if you watch sausages being made--after awhile you just lose your zeal for it. Just yesterday I described this process as getting a Masters’ in Meta (which is what it is, really).
So too am I tired of chittering over departmental gossip, or wrangling over academic committees, or dealing with the incessant student politic, or just being around the gears of governance that I am personally invested in. Like, if paid I know I can do a good job in and around such spaces, but I have lessening passion for being within post-secondary education, as it stands (if not involved in--if that makes sense).
OISE has been part of that. I've grown tired of how much it falls short of what I’d hoped it would be for me--instead, buried in all the things I've noted above and more. So has the CFS, the UTGSU, everything related to the University of Toronto. I'm just tired.
Yet, all this scares me too. I've made my life in academia for eight years. It was at one time the plan. But, it hasn’t been of late (over a year) and I’m always working to build alternative ways of being and living.
This doesn't mean, mind you, that I don’t have new plans (or even older plans set aside for if I didn't want to go forward in the academic way). But, for me, I feel a break between stages of my life ahead.
How I move forward in that means a lot to me. I have more to say on that in my next post (though, I hesitate to say I’m going to write something, as every time I do... well, I don’t) in terms of where I want to move forward but part of that is separating academia from my core identity.
So, here we start. I’m going to start knocking down other towers and--if slowly--put my own investments in the ivory one aside. It’s going to be an interesting journey.
You know, it’s been around four years since I finished up by Bachelor’s Degree in Historical Studies and, in turn, my time at the Grenfell Campus Student Union. Good times, those. However, something did cross my mind of late that I wanted to share...
Terry, Robert, Brittany, Jodie et al:
I have not forgotten. I will have my revenge.
There may be... balloons. :D
1991: The “NDP government faced with extreme fiscal pressures from the 1991 recession identified funding for postsecondary education and the shifting of costs from the provincial treasury to students as a path of less resistance in its struggle to bring the deficit under control. Students’ share of the costs of postsecondary education had begun to increase even prior to the 1995 election”.[1]
Early 1990s: The Ontario Council of Graduate Studies releases its white paper document, Toward a Graduate Tuition Fee Policy for Ontario Universities. “This paper recommends the dismantling of the present residency/post-residency tuition fee schedule, where after a certain period of time in university, usually three semesters in a master's degree and six semesters in a doctorate degree, you pay tuition fees 40% of what you would normally pay. What they're recommending is that all universities move to a maximum tuition for every semester of graduate school by 1995-96”.[2]
April 29th 1992: GSU Council passes the following motion…[4]
BIRT the GSU Council categorically reject the proposed removal of the Post Program fee differential, and do everything in our power to prevent it .
May 11th 1992: By this time, administration had already eliminated the post-programme fee which was 40% of full tuition, for students in their post-residency period, and raised it to full, 100% tuition. The University of Toronto was the first university to do so in the province. [4]
1993: Following the recommendations of OCGS and the lead of UofT, other universities in Ontario begin to end post-residency/program fees, including York University.
December 13, 1994: GSU Council passes the following motion… [4]
BIRT the Council of the GSU applaud the Administration of the U of T for committing 82.5% of new revenue from both the 1994/95 tuition increase and the elimination of the post-program fee differential to graduate assistance and scholarships.
BIFRT the Council of the GSU recognize that the Governing Council of the U of T has enshrined this practice in policy.
BIFRT the Council of the GSU call upon the Administration of the U of T and the Governing Council of the U of T to commit the U of T to dedicating at least 82.5% of the revenue from all future increases to graduate tuition to graduate assistance and scholarships.
BIFRT the Council of the GSU call upon the Admin. of the U of T and the Governing Council of the U of T to commit the U of T to dedicating at least 82.5% of the revenue generated from the elimination of post-program fees to a post-program scholarship fund to create fellowships for students in all of their post-program years of research.
BIFRT this post-program fellowship not be restricted to the first two years of a student’s post-program research.
October 31 1996:
The provincial government struck a committee called “The Advisory Panel on Future Directions for Postsecondary Education”.The GSU Council approved our submission to the panel which included the recommendation: [4]
6. That a reduced post-program fee for graduate students be re-introduced.
1997: The University Task Force on Tuition and Student Financial Aid recommended to the University to provide all doctoral stream students with full support for four years.[3]
December 1999: The recommendations of the task force were unmet, but Provost Sedra and others began to build The Task Force on Graduate Student Funding, which would also discuss post-program fees. The decision to move in this direction is influenced heavily by CUPE workers on campus and by the advocacy of the UTGSU.[3]
January 3, 2000: CUPE 3902 Strike begins, raising attention on the issue of graduate student funding.
May 2000: The Report of The Task Force on Graduate Student Funding is released. One of its recommendations is to implement the graduate funding package. Instead of re-adopting post-program fees, the Task Force recommends post-4 (year) bursaries (ie. Doctoral Completion Grants; DCG) to off-set costs for students who would require them. The report notes:
In 1999, the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) proposed the creation of a reduced tuition fee regime or a post-4 fee to help offset the financial pressures on students in these years. As the data examined earlier in this report indicate, students in this group received considerably less funding, an average of $7,159/year as compared with $16,373/year for a student in years 1 – 4 (data exclusive of OISE/UT and Medicine). The proposal was for students in years 5, 6, and 7 of their PhD programs to receive an as-of-right bursary of $2,500. With approximately 1,000 PhD students in this category, the cost to the university of the bursary is $2.5 million. The Task Force invited feedback from the university community on the advisability of introducing a post-4 bursary, and received numerous responses.
2008: The graduate funding package is increased, following UTGSU lobbying and activism, alongside actions taken by CUPE.
2010: Following discussions with the UTGSU to review the DCG, the School of Graduate Studies—under Dean Brian Corman—and Provost Cheryl Misak unilaterally dissolve the DCG and create the Doctoral Completion Award (DCA), a merit-based bursary that does not comply with the original purpose set out by the Task Force Report as an alternative to post-residency fees.
2012: Following great acrimony and debate, the School of Graduate Studies determines to allow academic departments to use funds allotted for doctoral completion to, based on their own metrics and consultations, use either a system of DCAs or DCGs. As well, following CUPE 3902’s latest round of bargaining, a new Provostial Committee on Graduate Student Financial Support is created.
2014: The report of PCGSFS is approved by all parties, but UTGSU and CUPE leave the committee following due to the inability of the administration to discuss matters around post-program fees.
PCGSFS Report:
http://www.provost.utoronto.ca/public/reports/pcgsfs.htm
UTGSU/3902 Response:
https://www.utgsu.ca/2013/06/14/student-recommendations-on-the-provostial-committee-on-graduate-student-financial-support/
[1] Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Committee Transcripts: Standing Committee on Social Development - Student Assistance. Toronto, May 11, 1992 . http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/committee-proceedings/committee_transcripts_details.do?locale=en&Date=1992-05-11&ParlCommID=500&BillID=&Business=Student+Assistance&DocumentID=17816
[2] Hugh Mackenzie, FUNDING POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION IN ONTARIO: BEYOND THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE. Toronto: The Ontario Coalition for Postsecondary Education, December 2004. http://ocufa.on.ca/wordpress/assets/funding_postsecondary.pdf
[3] Governing Council Minutes, December 1999.
[4] All references are found in the appropriate date in the UTGSU General Council Minutes.
Or, all the things I wish people would stop doing to door canvassers.
Hi folks,
So, as you may have heard, I have a new job! I'm currently working as a direct dialogue canvasser for Greenpeace Canada, ie. I go to people's doors and ask them to become members of the org.
Now, I've not been doing this too long, but I have been compiling--in my head-- a list of things that I really wish people would stop doing when we come to your doors. Really, people just need to think--this isn't easy work and it isn't done, in our cases, because we're followers of some great giant hippie love cloud. Ok?
1. "Didn't you see the sign?"
For myself, I generally really respect folks who have 'No Solicitation' signs about their house. People have every right to just want to be left alone. But look, if someone misses the sign--don't be a jerk about it. Long hours and constant weather bear down while wandering about your street isn't exactly always the recipe for cognizance. Listen, though, if you have a no solicitation sign placed in small print on a mailbox aside the door or have it tucked in a weird spot (I remember you, no solit. sign under top step guy) that would be hard to see at night--well, fuck you. If you can't reasonably see it at dusk, you're asking for me to knock on your door. Big print, on your door or near it. I can see that. Ok.
2. "It's Cold"
It's February as I write this, so I've been hearing this a lot. I knock, a person opens the door and simply says: "It's too cold for me to talk to you right now" or the like. Um, sir? You've already opened the door and determined to speak with me and tell me that's its cold. I think you can spare a second. Maybe invite me in if you want to talk? If you wanted to just tell me to bug off? Fine! I do that all the time. But, do you think I don't know that it's cold out? I'M THE ONE WORKING OUT HERE. Whenever I get more than a door to the face in this instance, really these folks were never interested at all (consistently).
3. "Do you get paid for this?"
Ahh, see, I find some value in this question. If I was with a smaller, grassroots non-profit, being miffed that folks are being paid for tasks could well be a reasonable thing, sure if the org. is directly democratic or run on a very horizontal model. But, for national, structured organizations..? Look, someone is going to get paid somewhere to do something.
And, yes, sometimes that means frontline tasks aren't done by magical volunteers. I get paid for my labour, time, and effort. Folks who do this work for awhile become really good at it--I've met 'em--and bring in resources for the broader org. If they weren't being paid, it would be blatant exploitation. So, look, I'll always be polite when someone asks this, but don't ask this (because you look like an arse).
4. *Series of Hand-Waving Gestures*
I actually don't mind this too much, but people really give some interesting reactions when they see me at the door. There is an interesting subset of humans that the moment they see some poor sod like me on their doorstep, they act as if I have eaten all of their children and shot the family pet. I accept that this is a thing and that (a lot) of these people are in over-canvassed neighbourhoods. But, you could be nice about it? Or at least say more than a hurried 'No, no, no!' while flailing your arms about.
Very rarely, there are language barrier issues in this role--but I don't want folks to read the above and make the presumption that's what I'm describing here. ESL speakers we run into are almost always really nice about communicating their (in)ability to follow our chat or turn us away pretty clearly. The above is usually an older, white person with the perma-scowl etched well upon their brow. I'm sure you know the type.
So yeah.
In the end, I do enjoy my job, but these stick in mind. Though not more than the warm tea and smiles from so many this season. :D DFTBA, people who act like folks are human.
All the best,
- Brad.
BY MR. CARSTEN : Q. What about the: "...IT HAS BEGUN..."
A. That is, I think, to be honest, a fairly accurate statement, but also, if you look at the emoticon... if we're going to, like, get into this, like, level of granularity, I want you to look at the emoticon, and I want to be very clear about it. It is not a smiley face. It is a colon with an S. A colon with an S generally is a face of uncertainty, a face of... I wouldn't say necessarily...
Q. We'll have experts on this at the application.
A. I'm sure, I'm sure, but it is by no means an expression of joy. Rather, the: "...IT HAS BEGUN..." Is representative of the undertaking that this begins. It begins this process, and it creates, I think, for me personally, a sense of the realization of the level of work that I would have to be involved in as per the documents that are before you.
The processes that this opens are heavy undertakings, and to note that, "IT HAS BEGUN," would be the case.
Q. Okay.
A. It is...that is how I read my writing there, and it is how to read...
From Cross-Examination with Tudor Carstern (CFS-O counsel) and I.
May 2014. Highlight: Top Quips of my Year.
-------
In the end, the struggle of the past year has been great. This has been, without question, the best worst year of my life. In it, I have lost much--many friends, many acquaintances, and my sense of peace with whole parts of my past. This is the cost of my life here in Toronto, as I've lived it.
I regret not of it. But... but, I recognize what it is for what it is. That is loss and that is the consequence of standing firm in belief. But, I regret nothing.
Still, this year has been one of great joy. While I depleted so much of myself to get there, I am freed from despair--finding both love and vindication waiting for me here. These are things I'd thought, both, might be out of reach. But, apparently not.
The chapter I closed months ago, finally sealed, perhaps?
I do hope so, I feel so. Life from here feels like its taking a new direction (hopefully one with podcasts) and one that I know could well set the pace of whole new sections of life. That's a scary, deep kind of exciting. Particularly that parts that involve the love of my life (and, in case you're reading that, I mean that entirely).
So many roads ahead, all of them brighter than before.
If everything this year has been has led me to many more years of that... well then, perhaps it was worth it after all. :) I think so.
So, normally around this time of year, I'm writing a lot about things for the year--feelings and that kind of stuff. And, while that's nice and all, I've only had one project on my mind lately (outside of work, school, and general survival--as essential as those projects are): I really, really want to do a podcast again.
It might be vanity or general silliness, but I love podcasting.
I've experimented with it a few times (some of which I will never in my life ever stake my actual name to--high school--thank god), but ever since forging a radio-doc. piece on free education for a class at OISE, it's been kicking around in my brain more loudly than usual.
I can't tell you how many community-campus radio stations and podcasting platforms I've been culling over to see if I could do something like that. But, I'm a humble human and know I can't set out to forge such a project alone. That'd be: 1.) too much work for me to sustain, 2.) kind of boring (working with others is fun, y'all).
And yeah, while I like to talk about the esoteric sometimes (ie. student politics, canadian history, the Internet, and other stuff) I really want to get back into a thing like that, forge a structure, and get something going... with a consistent structure and uploading.
So, yeah, this is a thing I want to do.
Make it happen, 2015. You're on notice, year.
So on a whim, I've decided to write a blog post of three solid recommendations of... well, stuff. Just go with it, ok? I don't ask much of you, really. And if you're already reading this for the cynicism and political soapboxing, then you won't mind a bit of fun.
1. ) Aivi Tran & Steven "surasshu" Velema
So, if you hadn't guessed, I'm a fan of the cartoon Steven Universe. Because I can get away with that unironically. Anyways, in addition to some solid art direction, the show is capped off with a great score provided by the folks noted above. The pair's work on Steven Universe (which can be found here) and on their own album is just a splendid treat for the ears, friends.
2. ) Bad Machinery and the Bobbinsverse
John Allison's Bad Machinery is a fantastic webcomic. He describes it as such:
Bad Machinery tells the stories of three schoolgirl sleuths and three schoolboy investigators, attending Griswalds Grammar School in Keane End, Tackleford. While not exactly enemies, a mixture of pride, mistrust and pig-headedness keep them at cross purposes.
The whole ongoing story is really, well, just a boatload of fun with an injection of mystery and comedy. Also, the whole thing is part of the wider Bobbinsverse (but this series can indeed be read solo).
3. ) Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Woah. This show could well have been an HBO-funded retread of the Daily Show with one of their more popular correspondents, but dang is this show sharp. Oliver brings his A-game to a show that consistently casts its eye more broadly than its friends and competitors -- with a focus on the world beyond a centering in American political dynamics. It's genuinely one of the best shows in the genre, already!
Anyways, that's enough for now. Hope that was fun. Also, if you're looking for image sources, click the image.
So, this might come as a surprise, but I'm not particularly Marxist. I mean, as an academic I am certainly Marxian and cannot deny the influence of broadly Marxist thinking in my own -- that is all the case. But, I'm not a Marxist politically. While I've dabbled in such theory, my socialism isn't really Marxist (for reasons I'll get to).
See, I was reminded about this line of thought recently. My friend David -- as is his want to do when things intersect with the PSE sector -- sent me an article on the recent critiques of 'destructive innovation' by Jill Lepore and of those responding to her (like Christopher Newfield). Now, Lepore's critiques of said economic theory and its key proponent Clayton M. Christensen can be best put one of the closing paragraphs. Herein, Lepore states:
Disruptive innovation is a theory about why businesses fail. It’s not more than that. It doesn't explain change. It’s not a law of nature. It’s an artifact of history, an idea, forged in time; it’s the manufacture of a moment of upsetting and edgy uncertainty. Transfixed by change, it’s blind to continuity. It makes a very poor prophet.
I think, though, the one expansion I'd make on this point is that the failures of the capitalistic theory of Christensen is yet another example of 'progress narrative' failing. Said example stands to serve as a warning against attempting to use the past (and the study of history) as the basis of predictive theory.
Now, mind you, Lepore demolishes Christensen for cherry-picking and shortsightedness in his determination of examples to back his theory, but this doesn't detract from the generality of such a warning. This is not the milieu solely of shoddy craftsmen, but indeed many historians and political theorists.
Upon reading Margaret MacMillan's The Uses and Abuses of History (see a video from 2009 with MacMillan about it), my long suspicions as a historian (and lover of historiography) of such narratives were crystallized, As one reviewer put it, MacMillan highlights that "[i]f there is one thing that unites people of all backgrounds, it is an ability to get history seriously wrong". It's an excellent book and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for an introduction to these subjects.
And this brings us back to Marx. Marx, like Christensen (albeit, much, much more successfully) brings forth an intensive theory that is based in a historical narrative. The notion of the 'End of History'.as it were and the ultimate triumph to a final state of the human condition, while laudable in its idealism, is indeed foolish.
Francis Fukuyama (another who engages in such theorizing), explains the Hegelian and Marxist notion of the end of history well:
This did not mean that the natural cycle of birth, life, and death would end, that important events would no longer happen, or that newspapers reporting them would cease to be published. It meant, rather, that there would be no further progress in the development of underlying principles and institutions, because all of the really big questions had been settled.
Now, if one is to condemn Christensen and embrace (at least some) of the perspective of folks like MacMillan, how can one truly be a Marxist either? What is described above is a fundamental principle of said whole school of theory and, as I reject such a principle, I can never be a Marxist.
Instead, I look to understand the past and theorize about the immediate present, so that I and others can step into a future that can be built not according to some iron laws that guide the spirit of human development, but by collective choice. I think that's a brighter view of the world, in the end.
The Toronto G20 Summit of June 26-27, 2010, hosted by Stephen Harper, was an incredibly expensive undertaking that resulted in massive human rights violations against members of the public at the hands of the police. Despite this, politicians refuse to call a full public inquiry and hold police—as...
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