The Folly of Higher Education

So you’re reading this article? A bizarre question perhaps when one interprets it as ‘So you’re reading this article?’, which is not at all what I mean, I can after all assume that any one who has mentally digested these words has gone through that human process we call ‘reading’. What I mean by the question is perhaps enlightened by it being presented as ‘So you’re reading this article?’ Again… perhaps bizarre until I explain my intentions behind the statement. What I mean is to present the anonymous relationship we have established in what may have been thus far a perplexing paragraph. In all likelihood have no idea who I am, what I think or what I intend to discuss. This is why I say; ‘So you’re reading this article?’ Because you could be anyone from my perspective, anyone can find this blog – it is by no means invitation only. Your response to this article is going to be different to many other peoples, although of course it is unlikely that your response would be an entirely unique response across the entire population of the world, there is unlikely to be a unanimous or even majority response and thus your opinion to this could be practically anything and I have simply no idea what you are going to think to it’s content. So having established that I cannot establish much of a personal address to anyone reading this, I am going to present myself now. This is essentially what I have intended by this prologue; to demonstrate that this is simply one account, one view and one person bearing witness; superficially to events, and fundamentally to an overall deeper worldly understanding.

                How contrived and pretentious that previous paragraph must probably read as. So over with the prologue and onwards with what I see worthy of presentation to these readers, who I have indeed assumed to be readers…

                I am the Trolljägarn. I am a recent addition to the students of the University of Essex. I am here to study Drama. Originally I was studying Drama and Literature but I made the decision that changing a 3 year course in order to sidestep a Literature module I would have to deal with for 10 weeks was in fact a wise decision. So here I am as a Drama student. A requirement of my literature course was to undertake a 10 week module of ‘Writing Skills’. I am no longer obliged to do this, however I am still doing it because I think I am benefitting as a student from it, that I am benefitting as an external writer from it and moreover it has turned into something of a fantasy novel. It is a pain to have to awaken for in the same way as it is a pain to trudge through the more boring parts of middle earth, the two hours can seem a challenge beforehand in the same way thousands of pages about orcs and dragons et al may seem at first but crucially; I am intrigued as to how these lessons will pan out and the proverbial class hobbits, rings and wizards have got me interested. Too interested to put the book down now.

                I hate paragraphs like the previous one - anything where the phrase ‘I am’ is used on eight occasions seems self indulgent, basic, childish, boring, obsessive and pointless on so many different levels. It was a necessary inclusion however as this is only my second blog and it might make following my later discourse easier and perhaps more understandable.

                Last lesson I found myself faced with a discussion about student fees. It is worth noting here that I am (that phrase AGAIN) known in social circles as being one with infuriating opinions. I have thus become accustomed to ‘watering down’ my opinions so as to avoid being spoken to, I am a private human being (ironically with a publicly accessible blog) and thus I have little interest in being drawn into a debate with people. So most of the time I don’t present the more extreme ideas I have in public, as otherwise the debates rage for hours – not something I will willingly subject myself to.

                So I took the side of the discussion I agreed with, however my ideas were presented as thus;

The rise in university fees are just because:

Our country is in financial turmoil > Having education for everyone regardless of economic circumstance is the ideal > We should strive for the ideal but only if our necessities are met > In order to meet this ideal we have to compromise our necessities due to our financial turmoil > Thus we need to compromise our ideal (i.e. our students having access to education) in order to meet our necessity (i.e. the effort to get our country into a positive financial environment) > Thus the government cuts in university funding and subsequent rise in university fees are just, albeit regrettable.

                I actually still stand by most of this argument, however the views I kept reserved are more alternative and thus would have been met with less understanding and greater hostility were I to mention them in my class. So I would like to now use this anonymous relationship we have to relate to you my actual ideas.

                The entire argument was based on the terms ‘ideal’ and ‘necessity’. These form the basis of the views I chose to hide in public face to face. My view is that education is not always an ideal, we see education and qualification as a necessity, and that we would be making significant progress in society in returning to a society where our ideals are closer to our necessities.

                By this I mean that in the past, back in agricultural England we did not have anyone with a degree in media studies or film studies (don’t you dare google that; it is a fact). Credit where credit is due; these qualifications have their purpose in the respective circles of media and film. They have their value. But they are not a necessity. If you take society down to a basic level you need, of course, the basic professions; those who bring food, those who bring protection, those who bring shelter etc. If I was to be put in a society where I was with fishermen, soldiers and builders, I can tell you for free that I would feel in a more workable situation than if I were in a society of media and film graduates. To have a basic society we don’t need universities as, to use an example from my previous discourse, a builder doesn’t need a degree. If you want total honesty; builders don’t even need to read and write. We were not always a literate society, literacy is not a necessity. I spent my seminar arguing as if it was an ideal, but I don’t even see it as that. We need thinkers in society, but we don’t need everyone to be a thinker.

                We have come to a point in society where to have a perceived simple trade, or to want to have a lifestyle which is not that of an academic thinker’s is shunned. Why was it that friends, family, strangers, tutors, and random, overly friendly, bus users expressed such disgust at my considering the army or the building trade as a future, and why did they treat a degree in Drama and Literature (as it was then) as an unquestionable article of goodness? I think most criticism of my points are going to be based on accusations of me being a nostalgic romantic, or being anti progress, or perhaps worse still; that I might be basic minded *swoon, shock, and horror!* However in a basic society there is not financial turmoil like in the stunted and flawed, yet ever so enlightened and progressive one that we live in now. Trade is more basic and there is not the same need to import so many things, thus we have a far lower expenditure and the output of the society is reaped by the simple society itself.

                Of course we can’t put our iPods, iMacs and iPrivelages down and return to the land now to reap crops where we have already built skyscrapers. However if we had never moved towards this society of complexity and pampering, then we would never have had the problems we have now. I would list the problems we have in order to really spell out my point, but I would not be so patronizing as to act as though you do not know yourself what these problems are. So whilst the view I presented suggested the government cuts are just because they are necessary, my view extends to seeing the monetary deterrent posed by these fees as a positive thing and the rise in people seeking jobs that will provide a more basic and solid future is a great happening for our country. If it can happen of course. The more complex careers, that I have already said there is a huge pressure to strive for, offer a fluid and weaker future, that does not help with what this country needs to function. We can function without media graduates (to use them in my example again, not that I have a specific hatred for them) and their impact. We cannot function without e.g. farmers. With more farmers there would also be less need to import, more to export and thus our country would be moving in the right economical direction.

                So allow me to conclude, as if I were Mark Anthony, and outline my point in the way Shakespeare would suggest he might:

Mainstream thought is based on the fact that we are benefitted by having many university graduates, therefore the heightening of university fees is regrettable and in order to progress we must lower the fees from what they are set to shoot up to. However, the reasons why a basic society operates on a more workable level than the one we live in now have been outlined in the previous text. In a basic society we do not need university graduates, and the rising of university fees are only regrettable in a society where university graduates are needed. Thus there is a flaw in one of the ‘factual’ premises of the mainstream argument.

                I am a hypocrite. Yes. I am a university student who has essentially just outlined every reason why my learning is entirely in vain and why it would be entirely just for the government to cut university funding and thus force my university to charge me far more money. Well I do question myself why I am here. I think I saw university as my only choice. I saw the opportunity to do something where I would only be charged a third of what those in the future would have to pay and perhaps regrettably I have taken it. Like Descartes, it has taken me to acquire this knowledge to see why the knowledge is pointless. Well – ‘pointless’ is an overstatement, perhaps ‘necessarily limited and virtually of no necessity’ represents my view better. Patient anonymous colleague, you have reached the end of this exhausting rant. Thanks from the Trolljägarn and goodbye.