I am in higher level education in the public university system. I used to view academia as a source of hope in society, and perhaps a progressive institution in someways, or some kind of source of hope with their supposed focus on science and research. After some years here, this “image” I had of academia has been shattered.
What are your perceptions of academia and research institutions, as Marxists?
I’m a horticulturist. My university is completely coopted by the largest agribusinesses in the region. Our buildings, our grants, the consulting that underpaid staff do on the side- it’s all tied in some way to major corporations and the admins setting the curriculum are all directly paid by them. As a result, none of the natural science courses have any kind of radicalism or actual environmentalism to them. They heavily push neoliberal solutions to systemic problems that they refuse to identify as such. The research is guided by corporate interests and whims, and if it identified them as the people directly destroying the land here then I have no doubts it’d be suppressed and the researchers responsible purged. The product of that research is therefore how best to abuse a cow and how to get the most wheat out of a plot of land in the shortest amount of time.
My spouse was taking animal science classes, teachers saying things like, “The way the system works is pretty bad for the animals and the people who work with the animals… but there’s nothing to be done about it.”
My spouse standing there in a barn outside of the main campus thinking/saying out loud, “But here is where we’re supposed to figure out what’s wrong and how to do it better…”
Day 2 of the revolution, after all of the hospital administrators are shot in the stomach and left on the ground, all of the liberal academics are going to be made to write “If education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor” 100 times in front of their class. This is the happybadger promise.