I’ve been following in the footsteps of a lot of people, Aronowitz included, in my concerns over the vocationalization of education: Aronowitz writes that “Even for those schools that lay claim to the liberal intellectual tradition, the insistent pressure from many quarters to define themselves as sites of job preparation has. . . clouded their mission and their curriculum”, and goes on to suggest that “Perhaps the most urgent questions today concern whether the academic system has a genuine role in providing the space for learning, whether or not its curricula are useful to the corporate order” (125). I’m happy to see Aronowitz arguing against a lot of what Allan Bloom has to say, but Aronowitz does agree with Bloom on one significant point: the conventional notion of the “comprehensive and rigorous core” of the liberal education has devolved today into an sloppy shambles of elective courses with no intellectual consistency or center (135). Even the University of Chicago’s vaunted core curriculum is an incoherent and feather-light mess, Aronowitz — following Bloom — suggests. What Aronowitz longs for — but sees little chance of achieving — is “a radical intellectual project that comprehends historicity without falling into the pit of relativism. . . and that supports student choice, but does not submit to the commodification of knowledge or require ‘usefulness’ as a justification for study” (134). As you might guess, that word ‘usefulness’ got my attention, since the privileging of simple utility over all else is something I’ve been trying to struggle against.
Aronowitz doesn’t let me down, pointing out that “One clue to the instrumental orientation of core curricula in major universities is their universal privileging of ‘skills’ acquisition” (139). Again, this is all pretty familiar ground, and it isn’t even all that surprising when he notes that “many universities “include ‘information literacy’ among the basic skills, alongside language learning, writing, and what is quaintly labeled ‘quantitative reasoning'” (139-140).
What I do find interesting, though, is when he uses this as a transition to some questions: “Is ‘writing’ a skill, an art, or a kind of critical literacy? Are its various forms — fiction, poetry, discourse, and argument, embodied in memos, papers, essays, and treatises — mastered by learning techniques and rules? If writing is a skill, then it can be compared to the instrumental activity of tying a shoelace, replacing a lightbulb, operating a computer, a lathe, or a photocopying machine” (140). While I find his definitions a little odd, the progression of ideas — vocationalization, commodification, utility, instrumentality of information literacy, instrumentality of writing — is familiar and comforting: I’ve tried to work this stuff through myself, and arrived at a similar place, so maybe this dissertation thing is actually doable.
The conclusion Aronowitz arrives at, of course, is that literacy is not solely a skill: with writing, “making meaning is not a skill but both an art and a form of critical learning” (141). Now here’s where I have some questions that mostly come out of trying to push a comparison too far: writing is also a technology, right? So can one say the same thing about computers that Aronowitz says about writing? And — the tough one — how might this go beyond mere instrumental use value?
Furthermore, what is a skill other than something with concrete utility? One can contrast learning a skill with other forms of education by which one is the beneficiary of intangibles much more difficult to quantify, and perhaps that’s why I’m having such a hard time articulating an alternative to instrumentalism: because such an alternative is necessarily less tangible, less immediately obvious in its payoff, less easily translatable into individual economic benefit. Which brings me to the last thing: Aronowitz argues that “The ‘self-interested individual’ is today the pervasive subject of postsecondary schooling” (142) and that everyone is interested in grabbing the thing that provides the obvious payoff — in other words, skills. It strikes me that our understanding of this self-interested individual — the much-critiqued Homo Economicus — is a part of the problem laid out above.
Does “concrete utility” mean of immediate application with material results? This word “utility” seems a bit slippery to me. I was working in the computer lab with my Honors students today, trying to get them all functioning with their blogs. A few have already customized them and one had posted a piece about blogging and community. On the other hand, one was resisting the whole process, grumbling about why he never messes with computers.
What’s the utility of these blogs? Well, I’m not sure. I think when we get to the research work and they are in groups the format will pay off–that is, it will facilitate their process of sharing research information and ideas. But maybe it won’t. Isn’t it my attitude toward this what would reflect the liberal learning values? Namely that it’s an inquiry looking to provide a group of humans with a deeper understanding of their thinking in language.
Handling a mouse well is a skill. Typing fast and accurately is a skill. Writing is not a skill.
Finally, doesn’t even the self-interested individual make investments in herself with hopes of future, but unguaranteed, results? Hasn’t that always been the argument for liberal learning? You will develop perspectives and frameworks that will deepen your understanding of yourself and others–and that will give you value in unpredictable ways and some time in the future. [With “value” defined in self-interested terms.]