Re: Mind's Eye What really lies in simple moral positions?

I had a sense of doing what seemed right as a cop Allan - even though
most situations were difficult to see a right side in. The academy
stinks as in the State of Denmark and I get to feel the only thing is
to retreat to the margins. My working guess is that it's
"meritocracy" that sucks.

On Feb 1, 8:30 pm, Allan H <allanh1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> not being obnoxious, The that comes to my mind is just what is your
> understanding of morality and how  it is applied in ones life.
>  Understanding morality on a personal level can be quite difficult,
> especially if you want it to make sense.
> Allan
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> On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 7:39 PM, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I hope to spend the next 5 years "not teaching" - a difficult
> > financial decision as this is my 'ready-to-hand' income.  Some years
> > back I tried to take and stick to a decision not to teach 'ideological
> > rot' - broadly the mainstream of business and economic subjects.  This
> > might seem a fairly easy personal, moral decision; yet it isn't.
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> > The interesting issues don't concern the easy morality of doing what's
> > right.  One can find plenty of material, from Critical Theory through
> > to deconstructive approaches to behaviour and critical psychology -
> > and once, very critical management books like Peter Anthony's
> > 'Foundation of Management' and sort programmes out on the basis of
> > these.  Thus one could teach material one might feel credible and
> > stretching, broadly aimed at students learning critical reasoning.  I
> > do offer modules based around writers like David Graeber, Steve Keen
> > and modern blogs at the moment.
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> > What muddies the waters is a combination of streamlining costs in HE
> > and more or less the extirpation of syllabus control by academics,
> > along with a massive dilution of student brain-power and the
> > connection of student success with the numbers we pass.    This
> > situation makes moral judgement very difficult and academe has
> > collapsed altogether as a moral place.
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> > Economics has long been taught as a science - an utter farce - and
> > management theories are only fit for ridicule (excellence, kwality and
> > anything with 'strategic' in it).  The world works around power and
> > rhetoric, and this is the only real content of such "theories".
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> > The madness that underlies all this is that we never address what the
> > real issues might be.  Accumulated wealth is clearly a problem for
> > democracy as it inevitably means some will benefit by doing nothing
> > while others work and that the wealth will be used to influence
> > politics and the very ground of commercial competition.  Yet with no
> > consideration of this we leap into "theorising" in a system that
> > applauds the creation of excess wealth in few hands as a 'good'.
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> > One can try to teach what one believes is true and in simple morality
> > this is what one ought to do.  The actual situation is much more
> > complex.  The jobs available in teaching (apart from a few little
> > eddies I have occupied) are nearly all to do with teaching the rot,
> > because this is the cheapest way universities can devise.  The moral
> > choice of not teaching rot changes to a choice not to teach (and get
> > paid) - partly because your own students will be examined on the rot
> > because you are teaching as part of a 'team' and all students are set
> > the same questions as part of standardisation.  If you don't teach the
> > muck you put your students at a disadvantage.
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> > I see no answers to the moral conundrum - other than just to walk
> > away, putting distance between oneself and the madness.
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> --
>  (
>   )
> |_D Allan
>
> Life is for moral, ethical and truthful living.