Many doctors never forget their first cadaver. To them, the experience of slicing up a human body while gagging on the stench of formaldehyde and decay is a right of passage in medical training. Soon, however, fewer students may participate in that ritual as medical schools turn to virtual cadavers to save money. Institutions that go the virtual route brag about the state-of-the-art 3-D technology, complete with 3-D glasses, that bring the computerized dead bodies to life. But some medical officials say a computer simulation is no substitute to the real thing. (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
12 Responses to A Dead Ringer
Steve Griffin - October 17, 2011 at 5:32 pm
I would hope that a history professor would have offered some historical examples of where citizen action did work outside the political process. A posse comitatus comes to mind immediately, but there are other examples. The neighborhood watch you describe seems to even be such an organization.
tenured_radical - October 17, 2011 at 6:44 pm
This history professor was more interested in recording observations this time around. But I am happy to accept interpretation and context in the comments section. I thought the Marx quote, and the reference to the Diggers was a good start on that…anyway, I try to avoid being in lecture mode *all* the time.
historiann - October 17, 2011 at 9:36 pm
“I would hope that a history professor would have offered some historical examples of where citizen action did work outside the political process. . . “
I continue to hope that the commenters over here stop being d!cks. I guess I’ll just have to continue to live in hope.
Laurel Lehl - October 17, 2011 at 10:19 pm
I just finished reading “Triangle: The Fire That Changed America” and it described many ways people attempted to get things changed. There were a few methods people utilized to get around the corrupt politicians and large corporate interests predominating. And lots of different issues were from labor, feminists, socialists, to grafting politicians–lots of examples. I’m not certain if it has answers for today’s troubles, but it’s a good read at any rate.
sibyl - October 18, 2011 at 9:30 am
I think TR has put her finger on the key problem: if you reject the political process as corrupt, then what is the end of your action? Extrapolitical action is remembered in history only when it has a political end: the Chinese Revolution, for example. (The American Revolution, by contrast, was an exceedingly political action, being waged by elected bodies whose formal grounds for opposition was exclusion from the established political process.) Citizen protest is helpful to attract attention, but it doesn’t result in change unless it connects with political ends, whether it’s by inducing government regulation (the Pure Food and Drug Act, wage-and-hour legislation) or replacing government (the Mexican Revolution). The Tea Party, to which the Occupy movement is often compared in this country, was more successful because its extrapolitical action had a political objective: vote out the Democrats and “wrong-minded” Republicans. The Occupy movement, so far, seems to do nothing more than protest the influence of large institutions, without offering alternatives. Unless it develops an action plan it will likely remain a pleasant, entertaining sideshow.
Guest - October 18, 2011 at 11:51 am
Thanks for this interesting dispatch, Claire. I think the activism in your area is probably more productive than what’s happening in the large cities. Discussion is probably the best place to begin right now, unless people have specific demands around which to structure hardcore disruptive protest.
You ask what academics should be doing, and on this I have a few thoughts I’d like to share. I sympathize with the Occupy movements when they address higher ed issues since I have found that tuition gouging, the abusive practices of college administrations, the corrupt business deals between higher ed and the student loan industry, elitism in general, and wasteful spending of parents’ hard-earned support money are ALL issues that unite both leftist and rightist discontents these days.
I think higher education is the key to many problems, not the least of which is the class segregation that both predetermines and results from the elitist pecking order of higher education institutions.
The problem is that we professors are often thoroughly steeped in the problems we ought to be trying to address. My theory is that professors can help both the tea parties and the Occupy movements by actually risking their careers — to speak out within their institutions. We need to be whistle blowers about the following things:
1. Wasteful spending on prestige projects, even when we convince ourselves that this is part of community relations building or we justify the projects because they are financed through separate funding sources (ostensibly). This causes a nuclear arms race and loads up colleges with liabilities that end up spilling over into the instructional budget and therefore inflaming tuition.
2. Elitism within our profession. We serve on hiring committees. We grade students. We write recommendation letters and vet articles for journals. We have to throw the wooden shoe into the machine already and STOP our colleagues from being the assholes they have a natural tendency to be. Confront people about their obsession with pedigreed schools, blue-ribbon publications, effete avant-garde jargon, and/or celebrity status. This means angering your colleagues and risking your jobs. RISK YOUR JOB.
3. Exploitation of adjunct labor and temporary labor. The unions aren’t going to be able to solve this problem so stop referring to academic professional unions and talking about going on strike. Confront your own departments and colleges about their adjunct pool and demand that they develop plans to bring as many of them onto the tenure track as possible (See #2, in case your colleagues say they want to do a national search to find “the best person.”) This means angering chairs, deans, provosts, and people who can do you favors. RISK YOUR JOB.
4. The bogus attention to admissions standards. Inclusivity is excellence. Exclusivity is a sign of laziness because it means you don’t have the balls (or breasts) to go the extra mile to bring people who are struggling up to a point of excellence. Colleges should not be interested in soliciting large numbers of applicants so they can reject as many as possible. Confront the people in your graduate programs about this, since you can confront it at your department. Confront the people in the larger university even if this means standing up in front of colleagues and alienating them about their class discrimination. RISK YOUR JOB.
5. The corrupt process of grants, sabbaticals, and fellowships. All the perks we get for course reduction and to do research that nobody will read come at a cost. The result is that tenure-track people get a lighter load and cushiony assignments while adjuncts and teaching assistants have to cover their largesse. Confront this system. This means giving up the notion that our scholarship is a transcendent societal good. If Occupy protestors are attacking bankers’ selfishness, why not attack ours? This may mean endangering the cushions that help us do research that’s currently necessary under the medieval elitist tenure review system–endanger the cushions! RISK YOUR JOB.
Higher education is a swamp that has to be drained and I am delighted that both the Tea Party and Occupy USA are putting pressure on higher ed to start draining it. But I see a lot of grandstanding from professors who want to go to Wall Street and rally against bankers while they cover up or deflect from what they do in their own departments: They’re elitist, they’re “selective,” they block people’s tenure, they abuse adjuncts, they risk nothing to stop their colleges from gentrifying ghettos, charging $65,000 a year in tuition, and using precious tuition money to build football stadiums, unnecessary laboratories, and sabbatical programs.
On these matters I feel fairly confident in my own status because I have always been one to stand up and challenge things that are wrong. My Army training might have helped me because I had to enlist knowing I might die. Once you confront death you can handle the prospect of being turned down for tenure. But all these things that professors are scared of jeopardizing are some of the key things that keep our swamp undrained.
dukephillips - October 18, 2011 at 1:54 pm
Just some comments on what you wrote:
“The organizing model is anarchist, with a high focus on de-centralization, ideas being articulated organically at the grassroots, reform agendas filtering upward and enacting change outside formal structures that have been historically oppressive.”
I don’t think the organizing model of these current “occupy” protests is anarchist, at least from what I’ve experienced personally in NY and Philadelphia. The difference becomes especially stark when you compare them to organizing for protests like the WTO Protest in Seattle in 1999 and IMF/World Bank Protest in D.C. in 2000. In these actions from a decade ago people organized themselves into affinity groups (small groups of friends made who decisions autonomously from the rest of the protest). Affinity groups coordinated themselves through spokes councils which served not to legislate how a protest should run, but to share information and not get in each other’s way.
In contrast, the “occupy” groups make decisions that are binding on the group through a General Assembly. Sometimes consensus is used, but majority decision-making also takes place.
These “Occupy” groups are also not anarchist in that many participants have a deep respect for the law (in Philly, protesters have a permit to camp out at City Hall). In the WTO and IMF actions groups of protesters (even the ones peacefully blockading the streets) thought that their objective (shutting down these large institutions) was more important than what the law stated.
To me, these “Occupy” protests started out more like flash mobs. Organized hastily through social media without being centered around a clear direct action. However, they are starting to develop more infrastructure now. The reason I raised this criticism is to deepen people’s awareness of how decentralized organizing can take place.
”But these aren’t the kids in black hoodies kicking in the windows of J Crew so we can grab some free tees.”
Also for someone who calls themselves “tenured_radical” you seem to reference dismissive stock images of anarchists pretty readily.
llamadmeismael - October 18, 2011 at 10:44 pm
“Do I have to point out that the entrepreneur’s position was lodged in an
intellectual tradition of African American self-sufficiency, perhaps
best articulated by Booker T. Washington, that seeks independence from
powerful institutions, not their elimination?”
How can demanding loans from Big Capital be part of a tradition of “self-sufficiency” and “independence”? Or maybe I should ask: what kind of independence do you mean, and whose?
tenured_radical - October 19, 2011 at 10:01 am
Washington’s model of entrepeneurship was always reliant on the support of a white politico-economic structure which would facilitate the creation of uniquely Black institutions and economic networks. He did not regard this as a form of dependency, but rather sponsorship that would ultimately make African Americans independent of whites.
llamadmeismael - October 19, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Fair enough. But can this neo-Washingtonian tendency form a productive coalition with the myriad other sectors of the Occupy phenomenon? I don’t know. If the mood is indeed Marxist, movement radicals would be inclined to stake out their own independence from those “who now call themselves ‘red’ and
’social-democratic’ because they cherish the pious wish to abolish the
pressure exerted by big capital on small capital.” That is precisely my impression of Occupy the Hood’s approach, which emphasizes fair housing, jobs, and welfare policy:
http://vimeo.com/30146870
Many conjured spirits are afoot. Exciting times.
Steve Griffin - October 24, 2011 at 11:57 am
Absolutely. Sorry, that comment reads far less constructively than I intended it to be.
Steve Griffin - October 24, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Yeah, I apologize for the tone. I still think its important to share the benefit of all that knowledge and research towards a practical end whenever possible. The questions offered at the end of the article have some tentative answers that could be helpful, at least to my local occupy movement.