The Long Rot
The corpse of the university floats face down in the water. We are all poking it with sticks. Is it really dead, the university? Is that really its bloated, blue-faced corpse? Yes, it is dead, and there it is floating, face down. In the end, there is no point pretending, not anymore. The university is dead and there is its corpse.
Now the swelling and the rotting. Now it will swell and will rot, devoured from the inside. Now begins the rot and the creatures of the rotting, the maggots who will hatch into flies and leave the corpse. Now come the maggots, the managers who will devour what is left to feed themselves and fly away. How their salaries are rising, the managers! How much money they earn!
The lid has been taken off their salaries, that's what is said. The lid has been taken off to encourage competition. Now there is no lid and no limit. Now begins the rot and the creatures of the rot, who live off the corpse that rots. Now the rot, the long rot, how long will it take? Now comes the long rot, and really it could take forever.
Now the long rot, now comes the eternal rotting and the creatures who live from the rot. There it is, the corpse of the university, blue-faced, swollen. But this is only the beginning. There are creatures who live from death, who are drawn to it. There are parasites who live from death and are produced from death. For the corpse, in truth, is a breeding ground. The corpse is where Capital comes to leave its eggs. The university is that rotten place where Capital deposits its eggs. Eggs in rotten flesh. Spores in zombied flesh. They are here, the ones who live from death and the long rot.
The Old Elite
But was it ever alive, the university? Isn't it the worst kind of nostalgia to think it was once alive? After all, wasn't it over ever the breeding ground for State-Thought, for State-Philosophy and State-Criticism and State-Sociology and State-Political-Science? Wasn't it only ever a breeding group for the State and for Capital? The old professor said, it wasn't always like that. The professor said, it wasn't always like this. Once the meeting rooms were full, once the senior common rooms were full, once there were seminars everyone attended.
But is that how it was? Is that really how it was? Who were they, who filled the meeting rooms and common rooms? Who were they, who filled the seminars, the old crowd? The old elite, no doubt of that. The old elite, who are disappearing now. The old elite, who, stunned at what happened, are disappearing to the countryside and to their houses. The new breed replace them. The new breed, harassed and harried, take their places. But who have they replaced? The power of their predecessors has gone. The power they might have had is gone. The power is in the hands of the management, there's no doubt of that. The power has passed out of the hands of academics and into those of the management.
Who have they replaced? No one at all; they have no ancestors. For it was then that the university died, in that gap between the old and the new, between one breed and another. It died - but wasn't this death something liberating? Wasn't the dispersal of the old elite something marvellous? Wasn't there at least an afternoon or two when the university seemed to open to a new future, a future of the non-elite, a future welcoming those who would never have belonged in the university?
The dinosaurs had gone, and now the new breed had come, those who would never had had a chance in the old system. Then the death of the university was welcome, for this death was only that of the old elite. This death was welcome, and even the capitalisation of the university was welcome for a time, because it meant courses had to be offered to students outside the old paternalism and the old canon.
Yes, for an afternoon or two, a breath of wind passed through the university. The university had died; capital had killed it, but this was welcome, for the king was dead and there was no king to replace it. Capital swelled in the corpse. Capital ran in its veins, which meant, for a time, students had to be appeased: if they wanted to be taught Nietzsche or Hegel, that was at last possible.
In the late 80s, in most university philosophy departments, it was impossible to study Nietzsche or Hegel however much we wanted to, but now, in the mid 90s, it was possible, because the students brought in revenue and the students had to be appeased. Capital ran in the dead veins of the university, but this was welcome; it was novelty itself. But what happened? Capital was captured. Capital lent itself to new forces of accountability and quality.
Sublime Capital
There is no question but that there is a sublimity to Capital, a deathly beauty. It commands awe, like a starry sky. So the starry sky opened for a time over the dead university. The old elite were now irrelevant; whether they knew it or not, their time was up. The old paternalism was defunct. Students had a voice because they brought revenue to the university. Now they had to be appeased, whatever the old elite wanted. It was the new regime; the former polytechnics had research money for the first time.
This was welcome, at first: the former polytechnics, which were soon to become the new universities, had money to give to staff for research and to potential students for research. This was the new regime. The university had died, but it was opening and transforming and becoming something marvellous. Granted, it didn't last long. It barely happened, but there was a moment when something marvellous began to open. Staff grumbled, but they were forced to widen participation. Staff moaned, but the university had to reconnect to the local community, if only to attract students. People who would never have gone on to postgraduate study were given grants to study. People who never would have gone onto academic jobs were permitted to do so.
The New Elite
Yes, the university was dead, but this was welcome. The chance of a new kind of educational system opened. No longer the divide between one institution and another, between school and university, between college and university, but a new whole. But what happened? The old universities organised themselves to make sure they would get all the money from government research funding. They quickly put together departments responsible for drawing up funding bids, and attracted money to themselves. The old elite, shaken, began to reform, albeit without the old set of values, the tedious old conservatism.
Wily professors, marginal in the old elite, came forward. Wily professors linked with wily administrators drew research money to themselves. The old distinction between old and new universities was reinforced; the old distinction between Oxbridge and the rest confirmed itself. But it was too late: the myth of the old elite had dispersed, and there was nothing to hold anyone staff but competitive bids for research income. The old elite was dispersed, staffing had been significantly reduced, student numbers were increasingly rapidly, and nothing held anyone together.
Now was the time of great movement and no achievement. Now there was only the long decay, the decomposition of the corpse and of the creatures of the decomposition. How quickly they came, the flies, to lay their eggs. How quickly they hatched, those eggs. Until the university was full of maggots, blind and wriggling. Until the university became a hatching place for the maggots who would grow fat from money. Now maggots appeared wherever there was surplus value. The maggots, non-academics, managers appointed from industry, soaked up all the money. And the academics, those who were left, were full of resentment.
Now the two great forces of the university were capital and resentment. A few wily professors were left, and a few of the new breed, who would exploit the chaos and open up small departments in the midst of the decay. New disciplines appeared here and there, operating very precariously. This was welcome; it was impressive, but these were local operations and very precarious. Meanwhile, for the rest of us, there is the great hubbub, the great activity. Meanwhile, there is only activity, albeit the activity of the decay.
Recourse to the Pub
What did you do today at work? What happened today? The philosopher bids for research money and the historian bids for research money. The political scientist bids for research money and the historian of art bids for research money. What happened at work? A little teaching, but that was nothing. Some teaching, pleasant enough, but that was nothing. Some teaching, some administration related to teaching, but what was that, really?
First of all, there was money to be raised. Firstly, the attempt to raise money. Then the attempt to consolidate your position as a teaching unit. Secondly, the attempt to lodge yourself more deeply in the rotting corpse of the university. Secondly, the insecurity, the contract you are on, which demands you lodge yourself more deeply in what-calls-itself-a-university.
Of what else do we speak, we the new breed? Of the insecurity of contracts and rsearch funding. Of the impossibility of any security, and the impossibility of attracting research income. And of our resentment, and the resentment of others, as it turns on those who attract research income. We would like to be the little-department-who-could, but in reality we are the little-department-who-can't. We'd like to succeed, but in fact we are failing, as we must fail.
For, in truth, what's in it for us? Paid on the lowest possible point on the scale, publishing as much or more as the professors, nothing matters but income generation, but who can be bothered. For a time, the quantity of research counted for something. I am of the generation in whom it was drilled that a great deal had to be published, and I published a great deal. But I am already antiquated, for this no longer matters, in fact it is irrelevant. You can publish whatever you like, but that's something you do in your leisure time. Publish whatever you like, that's up to you, but it is an activity for evenings and weekends and no longer the concern of the university.
What does it matter what you publish? What does it matter what you read or write? There's no incentive to read and write. Reading? I've given up reading. Writing? Why bother? I prefer the pub to writing and the pub to reading. After work, to the pub, and to laugh at the impossibility of reading and writing, and the folly of those who thought we might survive in the new regime. For in time, we'll go to the wall. In time, it won't be long, we'll be put out of our misery, and we'll take our place on the dole. In the meantime, the pub, the glory of the pub. In the meantime, work's over, so let's go to the pub and laugh about the money we haven't raised.
Corpse of the University
The corpse of the university floats face down in the water. I'm glad it was murdered. But why couldn't it have mutated into something new? Why has it reorganised itself in a ghastly parody of the old elitism? Sometimes I dream of the great privatisation that will allow capital to loosen up the rigor mortis. But this is only a symptom of the disappearance of the old socialist dream - of the government that would force the university to connect with the region in which it is based and with the people of that region. And perhaps the government that would dissolve the university-form and the school-form and dream up a new educational system. (This is not idle utopianism: think of The Open University ...)