After-postmodern University – Part 4

The postmodern period can be divided in two parts: the first from 1950 to 1989 and the second from 1990 to 2008 approximately. Historical periodization is not exactly determined. The transition between eras is a blurred zone. So, some characteristics of the precedent period can persist in the next.

When Bill Readings writes about University he is in the nineties of the 20^th century. At this time, postmodern ideas and practices were in the apex, with the so called “excellency criteria” cited by Readings as the main target of that institution. He criticizes that criteria and sees the “modern University”, from the modern era, lost in its original meaning as a focus of Culture linked to nation-state; with the economic “globalization” of the end of the 20^th century, the nation-state was weaker more and more.

With the end of the postmodernity, globalization became weaker and entered in a new step that we do not know yet where it will go. The nation-state regained a new form that we also do not know where it will go.

In that way, after-postmodern University is not anymore in that entire “excellency standard” even with the continuing use of that word in international rankings. Nevertheless, current internationalization of university is not quite the same as the former “globalization”; that internationalization can be seen under the net and complexity theories.

Maybe the after-postmodern University could have some mixed characteristics of modern and postmodern universities, looking for a kind of “Humanized Excellency”.   

   

After-postmodern University – part 3

Bill Readings wrote that the “modern” University founded by Humbolt in the beginning of 19^th century had “Culture” in its center and had relation with the creation of the nation-state. In postmodern times the University became a bureaucratic institution and, instead of Culture, “Excellency” was the main reference to evaluate University. The modern University of Culture worked around ethnicity and the construction of the nation-state. The postmodern University of Excellency was a space where administrators became more important than the professors, functioning more as a corporation intended “to sell its products”; excellency was something not related to anything except “excellency itself” in a world with weaker nation-state and stronger “globalization”. Readings thought that postmodern or posthistorical University became something empty of meaning, like a kind of “University in ruins”. So, in after-postmodern times, with “the end of efficiency” and interrogation about Excellency, will the pendulum of history bring the modern University back, or something new and different is coming?     

After-postmodern University - part 2

In the Introduction of The University in Ruins, Bill Readings writes that “the University no longer participates in the historical project for humanity that was the legacy of the Enlightenment: the historical project of culture”. So, he asks if it is a new beginning or an end of the social function of the University, in a kind of “postmodernity” of the University. In that way, he cites the emblematic book The Postmodern Condition, by Jean-François Lyotard, where “the question of the postmodern is a question posed to the University as much as in the University”. Readings prefer to use the word “posthistorical” rather than “postmodern” to the contemporary University, because it is an institution that keeps itself existing beyond its own historical identity. He do not agree with some kind of “more modern” University than the modern one, that could be the argument for a postmodern University.

Anyway, in the end of the 20^th century Readings saw that posthistorical postmodern University in the ruins of its cultural function. Now, in the second decade of the 21^st century, what can we think about a “after-postmodern” University? 

After-postmodern University

University is an institution whose origin was in Middle Ages. Its configuration and purposes changed from time to time and in the beginning of the 19^th century it followed a “modern” model associated to the establishment of the state-nation, with some characteristics of the emergent science. That modern model became different in postmodern era.

In the book “University in Ruins” (posthumous publication – 1996), Bill Readings argued that the University with strong cultural tendencies became controlled by consumerism and international bureaucracy, where the administrators were more important than the professors; everything under the so called “globalization”. The aims were excellency, quality, efficiency, and other similar impressive words all conditioned by that consumerism and bureaucracy. So, university lost its cultural finality.

We can add to it the weakening of subjectivity. Guattari wrote that if one cannot take care of its own subjectivity, other will do it instead and inner freedom of each one can be lost.

In after-postmodern times it is all mixed: modern and after-postmodern conditions together with the end of the efficiency in the productive sense of the end of the 20^th century. After all, young people are questioning what kind of job they can take after years of study, or maybe they do not feel anymore that the university can bring meaning and understanding of life in full sense.

At the same time, the university expanded in the virtual space and achieves much more people in the world, although subjectivity is something more difficult to cultivate far from some kind of mentor…

The university in after-postmodern times is an opened question looking for after-postmodern paradigms.

The five pillars of Third Industrial Revolution of Jeremy Rifkin

Jeremy Rifkin wrote that the third industrial revolution has five pillars that are connected each other and need to come all together:

1 – Changing for renewable energy.

2 – Local micro generators of energy.

3 – Storing of energy in all buildings and constructions.

4 – Sharing of energy among those “small” generators.

5 – Change the transporting vehicles to a kind o energy source that can be exchanged in a net of energy.  

The Third Industrial Revolution of Jeremy Rifkin

Jeremy Rifkin wrote about a “third industrial revolution” that is coming in this time that we call “after-postmodern era”. Rifkin thinks that a “lateral power” is emerging in a “collaborative economy”. The current crisis is closing the strength of the second industrial revolution that achieved its apex in the postmodern end of the 20^th century.

Creativity in Science can apply sustainability to obtain energy from other sources than the traditional ones. Computation can optimize this process and innovate most of all human activities. All of it together is going to lead to a new balance in politics and power beyond old polarizations. Decentralization and auto-sufficient micro-communities can establish new relations inside and outside the nations.

After-postmodern paradigms for society are under construction…     

Why some (not so old) tools do not work anymore?

The cycles in nature, in history, are inevitable. Even now, that we know about it, we can discuss about it, it is inevitable. There are forces in nature, and even in human history, that are beyond rationality and predictability.

In true, emotionality rules the world. We think that Science is pure rationality and so we have the illusion that rationality puts Science on the highest level of knowledge; at the same time Science puts rationality on the highest level of knowledge, denying emocionality...

Maybe this concept could be an assertion in the apex of postmodern times, the nineties of the 20^th century. The pragmatism of that assertion worked very well, apparently. But under a Jungian vision, human life and human person have light and shadow. Emotionality works more in the shadows of unconscious, mainly when we think that rationality is the only domain of conscious, and emotionality is restrained to fleeting and consumerist pleasures.

In true, emotionality ruled the world ever. The question is what people did or what we do with emotionality.  In postmodern times, pragmatism, efficacy, objectivity made subjectivity only a space of consumerism. As Guattari said, when anyone do not take care of its own subjectivity, another one will domain it.

But something happened in the first decade of the 21^st century and still continues. We are all in a “Macro Shift”, as said Erwin Lazlo. The tools of economic globalization did not work very well anymore.  

In after-postmodern times, respect for subjectivity may recover or even start new models of economy. Objectivity is necessary but it is not sufficient to embrace all sides of human being and human life.  We hear that “the stock market is nervous” or things like that, but that emotionality is only saw as a kind of “economic thermometer”, and the subjective side does not receive attention, except for the investor when he gets a myocardial infarction…

So maybe it is necessary create or find new tools, new paradigms, new correlations between rationality and emotionality, objectivity and subjectivity, all of that among human needs and dreams.