The strangest ethnic group in Britain is the upper class. Most of us in this country spend our lives without meeting an aristocrat, let alone attending an expensive private boarding school, the royal enclosure at Ascot, or any of the various other places that the upper class gather. But every so often our paths cross at a distance, and we have a chance to observe them, and note their outlandish forms of behaviour, dress and speech.
One example from my own life shows how this can happen. In the late 1960s, I was a very poor student in London. Without money, my only entertainment at weekends was to walk. I walked hundreds of miles across London, and at the end of the summer term on a Saturday afternoon one year (I forget which one), I arrived in Knightsbridge. In those days, posh shops closed on Saturday afternoon, and the streets were quiet. I entered a narrow street with a church at one end. Suddenly, the doors of the church opened and a wedding party emerged. The groom and most of the male guests were in the military uniform of officers in the Guards, and they walked, almost marched, arm-in-arm with their wives along the street to a hall at the other end where, I assume, the reception was to take place. Far from the noisy family weddings I was used to, this march took place in complete silence. The only discrepant sight among the military and Georgian buildings was a single scruffy student - myself. This experience, with its discipline, conformism and utter lack of spontaneity, reminds me of the scene at Royal Ascot in the film My Fair Lady.
I was raised in a left-wing working-class family, and so I inherited a suspicion of the upper class, and even a hostility to them. But, looking back, I think these ideas were wrong. There was no reason to believe that the people in the wedding party lacked kindness, consideration or charity towards others. Judging by the performance of the British Army, the men I saw did not lack courage. We should instead regard the upper class as one of many different cultures that may be incomprehensible to each other, but can live together in harmony. Rather than judging people by accent or appearance, we should assess their personal virtue as shown by their deeds to others, their skills, and their opportunity to occasionally bewilder the rest of us.
Monday 28 June 2010
Wednesday 23 June 2010
The status wars in universities
Henry Kissinger (quoting several earlier writers) once remarked that disputes in universities are bitter because the stakes are so small. This is true if, perhaps like Kissinger, you regard money and power as the only stakes worth playing for. But academics are not usually greedy or power-hungry - what they seek is status. More specifically, they seek to have status attributed to them by those who already have status in their area of study. There are three signals of academic status: research publications, research grants, and membership of esteemed academic societies. Status in all three is graduated in an extended hierarchy of infinitely small steps. In each academic field, there is an array of learned journals, ranked mathematically according to how many times the papers they publish are cited by other papers in similar learned journals. This makes it possible to rank the status of individual academics (and the academic departments they work in) according to which journals they publish in, and the ‘citation score’ for their papers. Research grants are of course ranked by size, but also by source. One million pounds from a prestigious peer-reviewed research fund (such as the Medical Research Council or the Wellcome Trust) counts for more in terms of academic status than the same sum from central government or the Lottery. Academic societies are also deliverers of status, in a hierarchy of esteem all the way up to the Royal Society, each with their own rankings of fellows, prizes and other awards.
At the very bottom of this academic hierarchy is teaching. This confers no status in any of these three measures, and, because it involves committing time and energy to meet the needs of other people, also fails to satisfy the essential egoism of many academics. In the past, when universities operated on a more collegiate basis, teaching was seen as a burden to be shared among academic staff in each department. This may still be the case in universities which have maintained a sense of collegiate self-government. But most universities have adopted a corporate model, in which individual academics are set targets for research grants and publications, thereby driving ambitious academics to avoid teaching at all costs. This is not, however, possible for all staff. Competition for research funds is severe (with some only funding 10% of grant applications) and many academics reach a point in their career when the money no longer arrives. In this case, they sink down the hierarchy of academic status and take on more and more teaching and managerial tasks. Some rationalise their diminished status by saying they have so much teaching that they have no time for research.
The funding system for higher education in the UK exactly matches and thus confirms this hierarchy. Research grants are allocated to designated ‘principal investigators’, who can take their grants with them if they transfer to another university. Since their grants usually fund a team of researchers and research students, these too usually transfer, like medieval peasants following their liege lord. This places the most successful principal investigators in a strong position with their university. If they object to policy changes or resent being asked to accept part of the ‘burden’ of teaching, they can move to another institution and take staff, money and prestige with them.
A major source of research grants are the various research councils, which are publicly-funded. But a second stream of public funding is allocated to universities rather than individuals, in accordance with the type and quality of research they undertake. ‘Quality’ is assessed in an infrequent series of assessments previously called the ‘RAE’ but now renamed the ‘REF’. This process involves a series of panels of senior researchers from each academic discipline, who allocate a score on a five-point rating scale for the research carried out in their discipline by each university over the period since the preceding assessment. The scores are awarded, needless to say, on a combination of citation scores for research papers, research grants awarded, and measures of esteem received by staff from their learned societies. The whole process requires a great many panels (67 in the last RAE), and is a massive diversion of funds and precious staff time from research itself. But it is eagerly supported by most research academics because, in a society obsessed by status, the results of the research assessments play the same role that Burke’s peerage or the Almanach de Gotha occupied in aristocratic societies.
Funding for teaching, by contrast, is awarded neither to named individuals or even for specific courses. Instead, each university is given a block grant for a designated number of students, with this sum topped up by student fees. The block grant is higher if the student attends a clinical or a laboratory-based course (because these are more expensive to deliver), but the same sum arrives if the course is excellent or poor, or whether it is taught intensively or neglectfully. As a result, no status or corporate power attaches to staff who specialise in teaching, and few academics could name the leading teachers in their field of study.
There is, however, one real problem with this hierarchy. Just as status-obsessed aristocrats could bankrupt their countries, so research can undermine the finances of their universities. This is because much research does not cover its costs. Funding from research councils meets only 80% of the its full cost, while many charitable bodies cover little more than the direct costs of the research projects they support. Income from the RAE covers some of this deficit, but many universities subsidise research from funds allocated for teaching. This size of this subsidy is likely to increase because funding from charities and payments for research from central government is likely to decline in response to the economic recession and the consequent poor state of public finances in the UK. Faced by this problem, universities have proposed that student fees be raised while the cost of teaching be reduced. This latter can be achieved by accelerating the existing trends of reducing the number of staff specialising in education, transferring teaching tasks to research students, and cutting back teaching hours.
If this strategy is successful, it will have catastrophic effects for this country. Virtually all professional training now takes place at universities. A poorer quality of higher education would therefore mean less skilled lawyers, doctors, engineers, economists, librarians and so on. Whether or not students are in professional training, they would be less likely to have their ideas challenged, to learn to assess and analyse evidence, or develop skills in the laboratory. The strategy of subsidising research at the expense of teaching would thus have the paradoxical outcome of depriving us of the researchers of the future.
See also: http://stuartcumella.blogspot.com/2009/10/great-crackpot-ideas-of-past.html
At the very bottom of this academic hierarchy is teaching. This confers no status in any of these three measures, and, because it involves committing time and energy to meet the needs of other people, also fails to satisfy the essential egoism of many academics. In the past, when universities operated on a more collegiate basis, teaching was seen as a burden to be shared among academic staff in each department. This may still be the case in universities which have maintained a sense of collegiate self-government. But most universities have adopted a corporate model, in which individual academics are set targets for research grants and publications, thereby driving ambitious academics to avoid teaching at all costs. This is not, however, possible for all staff. Competition for research funds is severe (with some only funding 10% of grant applications) and many academics reach a point in their career when the money no longer arrives. In this case, they sink down the hierarchy of academic status and take on more and more teaching and managerial tasks. Some rationalise their diminished status by saying they have so much teaching that they have no time for research.
The funding system for higher education in the UK exactly matches and thus confirms this hierarchy. Research grants are allocated to designated ‘principal investigators’, who can take their grants with them if they transfer to another university. Since their grants usually fund a team of researchers and research students, these too usually transfer, like medieval peasants following their liege lord. This places the most successful principal investigators in a strong position with their university. If they object to policy changes or resent being asked to accept part of the ‘burden’ of teaching, they can move to another institution and take staff, money and prestige with them.
A major source of research grants are the various research councils, which are publicly-funded. But a second stream of public funding is allocated to universities rather than individuals, in accordance with the type and quality of research they undertake. ‘Quality’ is assessed in an infrequent series of assessments previously called the ‘RAE’ but now renamed the ‘REF’. This process involves a series of panels of senior researchers from each academic discipline, who allocate a score on a five-point rating scale for the research carried out in their discipline by each university over the period since the preceding assessment. The scores are awarded, needless to say, on a combination of citation scores for research papers, research grants awarded, and measures of esteem received by staff from their learned societies. The whole process requires a great many panels (67 in the last RAE), and is a massive diversion of funds and precious staff time from research itself. But it is eagerly supported by most research academics because, in a society obsessed by status, the results of the research assessments play the same role that Burke’s peerage or the Almanach de Gotha occupied in aristocratic societies.
Funding for teaching, by contrast, is awarded neither to named individuals or even for specific courses. Instead, each university is given a block grant for a designated number of students, with this sum topped up by student fees. The block grant is higher if the student attends a clinical or a laboratory-based course (because these are more expensive to deliver), but the same sum arrives if the course is excellent or poor, or whether it is taught intensively or neglectfully. As a result, no status or corporate power attaches to staff who specialise in teaching, and few academics could name the leading teachers in their field of study.
There is, however, one real problem with this hierarchy. Just as status-obsessed aristocrats could bankrupt their countries, so research can undermine the finances of their universities. This is because much research does not cover its costs. Funding from research councils meets only 80% of the its full cost, while many charitable bodies cover little more than the direct costs of the research projects they support. Income from the RAE covers some of this deficit, but many universities subsidise research from funds allocated for teaching. This size of this subsidy is likely to increase because funding from charities and payments for research from central government is likely to decline in response to the economic recession and the consequent poor state of public finances in the UK. Faced by this problem, universities have proposed that student fees be raised while the cost of teaching be reduced. This latter can be achieved by accelerating the existing trends of reducing the number of staff specialising in education, transferring teaching tasks to research students, and cutting back teaching hours.
If this strategy is successful, it will have catastrophic effects for this country. Virtually all professional training now takes place at universities. A poorer quality of higher education would therefore mean less skilled lawyers, doctors, engineers, economists, librarians and so on. Whether or not students are in professional training, they would be less likely to have their ideas challenged, to learn to assess and analyse evidence, or develop skills in the laboratory. The strategy of subsidising research at the expense of teaching would thus have the paradoxical outcome of depriving us of the researchers of the future.
See also: http://stuartcumella.blogspot.com/2009/10/great-crackpot-ideas-of-past.html
Wednesday 16 June 2010
The New Era of Good Feelings
Britain has now entered a new era of good feelings. Two of our political parties are in coalition, and outwardly agree on the fundamentals of policy. The third party is in opposition and electing a leader from a range of candidates with a shared lack of any policies at all. There may be disagreements for the sake of form, but all party leaders agree that there should be budgetary cuts (a bit more or a bit less), that Britain needs to ameliorate climate change by ‘green’ policies, that schools should have greater autonomy (usually involving the private sector), and that the UK should remain engaged in the endless war in Afghanistan.
The first ‘Era of Good Feelings’ was a period of about eight years in the USA after the end of the War of 1812. One of the two main political parties had collapsed, and the other soon ceased to function. Many of the outstanding issues of the day (particularly the geographical expansion of slavery and the creation of a national bank) which had previously divided politicians were, for a time, resolved. Most leading politicians were either slave owners or tolerated slavery, and shared a commitment to territorial expansion and aggressive dominance of the USA in the Americas. Lack of party competition resulted in falling turnout at elections, and in 1820 President Monroe was re-elected (by the electoral college) with only one dissenting vote.
This lack of organised political conflict did not of course mean that no issues divided Americans, merely that their leading politicians chose not to express them. Once the presidency became vacant in 1824, none of the four main candidates won a majority in the electoral college. The election was then decided in the House of Representatives, and John Quincy Adams was elected as a result of a backstairs deal. Andrew Jackson, who had won the largest number of votes, bitterly attacked this decision as corrupt, and began organising a political party to promote his candidature for the next presidential election. His rivals formed another party, and politics returned to an era of ill feelings as each party sought areas of discontent to exploit for votes.
The new era of good feelings in Britain does not follow a war or the collapse of one of the political parties, but it does correspond with the intellectual collapse of the traditional political parties. There is simply no intellectual content remaining in socialism, liberalism or conservatism. All parties proclaim they are ‘green’, and portray themselves as the more effective managers of the national consumer society. The party leaders (and the would-be party leaders in the Labour Party) are also remarkably similar. It is true that one of these candidates, Diane Abbott, is distinguished from the others on physiological grounds, but shares with them (and the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties) an education at either Oxford or Cambridge Universities, and a lifetime career in the media, public relations, and the junior ranks of politics. It is hard to think what any of these potential leaders would do differently in office from the two party leaders that currently control the Government.
It is difficult to predict how long this new era of good feelings will last. It is possible that one of the party leaders will spot an opportunity to speak on behalf of rising discontent. However, insurgent politics is probably more likely. This would arise if a politician from outside the three main parties was able to effectively articulate hostility to all of them. This has happened in the USA with the ‘tea party’ movement and Sarah Palin, whose apparent lack of sophistication combined with her startling ignorance of the wider world are taken as signs of authenticity by her followers. We await with terpidation her British equivalent.
The first ‘Era of Good Feelings’ was a period of about eight years in the USA after the end of the War of 1812. One of the two main political parties had collapsed, and the other soon ceased to function. Many of the outstanding issues of the day (particularly the geographical expansion of slavery and the creation of a national bank) which had previously divided politicians were, for a time, resolved. Most leading politicians were either slave owners or tolerated slavery, and shared a commitment to territorial expansion and aggressive dominance of the USA in the Americas. Lack of party competition resulted in falling turnout at elections, and in 1820 President Monroe was re-elected (by the electoral college) with only one dissenting vote.
This lack of organised political conflict did not of course mean that no issues divided Americans, merely that their leading politicians chose not to express them. Once the presidency became vacant in 1824, none of the four main candidates won a majority in the electoral college. The election was then decided in the House of Representatives, and John Quincy Adams was elected as a result of a backstairs deal. Andrew Jackson, who had won the largest number of votes, bitterly attacked this decision as corrupt, and began organising a political party to promote his candidature for the next presidential election. His rivals formed another party, and politics returned to an era of ill feelings as each party sought areas of discontent to exploit for votes.
The new era of good feelings in Britain does not follow a war or the collapse of one of the political parties, but it does correspond with the intellectual collapse of the traditional political parties. There is simply no intellectual content remaining in socialism, liberalism or conservatism. All parties proclaim they are ‘green’, and portray themselves as the more effective managers of the national consumer society. The party leaders (and the would-be party leaders in the Labour Party) are also remarkably similar. It is true that one of these candidates, Diane Abbott, is distinguished from the others on physiological grounds, but shares with them (and the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties) an education at either Oxford or Cambridge Universities, and a lifetime career in the media, public relations, and the junior ranks of politics. It is hard to think what any of these potential leaders would do differently in office from the two party leaders that currently control the Government.
It is difficult to predict how long this new era of good feelings will last. It is possible that one of the party leaders will spot an opportunity to speak on behalf of rising discontent. However, insurgent politics is probably more likely. This would arise if a politician from outside the three main parties was able to effectively articulate hostility to all of them. This has happened in the USA with the ‘tea party’ movement and Sarah Palin, whose apparent lack of sophistication combined with her startling ignorance of the wider world are taken as signs of authenticity by her followers. We await with terpidation her British equivalent.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)