tommsabb.bsky.social
Music historian (19c theatre). Opinions my own, not my employer's. Pour le pain, la paix, la liberté.
Book: global.oup.com/academic/product/music-the-market-and-the-marvellous-9780197267738
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It's not just betrayal — they're sowing division from which it will be very hard to come back:
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If only there had been cautionary tales to learm from!
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Pas qu'en France… 😩
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This triggers memories of Valls, the supposed Macronist ‘left’ and their deeply cynical use of ‘(valeur) travail’.
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This time it's worse in that it risks permanently shattering the left-of-centre electorate and paving the way for the far right 👇🏻
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Guess this was my warning, in the plainest and least controversial language I could come up with, hoping that, unlike 5 years go, the worst doesn't materialise! Inspired by this column by the excellent @nesrinemalik.bsky.social:
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7/7
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That's a lot of damage that has to be undone in order to fight fascism. Not doing it in the first place, though, would be a better option. That's why it's not counterintuitive to say that you should put an end to the Starmer project if you don't want to see Farage (or a Faragist Tory) as PM. 6/
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And on the other hand, how can you win back middle-class and retired voters whose embrace of pro-business, pro–status quo ideas has been rewarded with symbolic benefits (the respectability that comes with holding opinions within the mainstream) and often material benefits? 5/
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Worse, they led those better-off, older progressive voters to support policies that hurt their worse-off, younger former allies. And that wound is not easily healed. How do you get precariously employed, racialised, vulnerable people to trust again those by whom they feel betrayed? 4/
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The rise of the far right has been possible because the continental Starmerisms fractured existing coalitions of progressive voters along class and generational lines. They drove a wedge between voters who identified as progressives but did not need progressive policies and voters who did. 3/
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Both Italy and France had their equivalent of Starmerism (2011–18 and 2014–20, though we can quibble with chronology and definitions). Italy now has a far right–led govt, in France the far right is the largest party in Parliament and de facto in the majority. And yes, one thing led to the other. 2/
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I mean, the vast majority of people more or less admit that a market approach has been terrible for rail and water, why wouldn't we be able to make the case that the same goes for higher education?
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I don't doubt that you care about them (us). I just think that accepting the premise that universities can be run like businesses is not helping us. It lets the government off the hook and leaves the door open for a bloodbath of job losses.
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Can I humbly suggest that academics with secure employment spend less time putting themselves in the shoes of university management and more in those of their junior colleagues? Also, the former are likely to try and sack you, the latter to stand up for you when you're at risk of being sacked.
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That sentence 👇🏻 😩
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Toute une génération de chercheurses (la mienne) se voit privée d'avenir dans l'université, et une partie de la génération précédente va devoir se reconvertir professionellement.
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Il y a aussi une offensive contre l'ESR ici au Royaume-Uni, dont malheureusement on parle moins car ça prend la forme de plans sociaux et d'un gouvernment qui laisse le marché faire le sale boulot.
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
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Good! Also this, please: 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
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Can we stop saying ‘early career’ please? Most of us won't have any career past this. As to whether my work counts towards the REF, I have no idea, as my university never bothered telling me in 5 years, and at this point I guess I don't care.
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Silicon Valley, la Hoover Institution, la tradizione di eugenetica… Il problema delle humanities è che contano poco, come so avendo un titolo di Chicago (persone squisite, e luminari, nel mio campo; istituzione malvagia). 😬
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D'altronde, se devo pensare a un ateneo che può guardare con simpatia a un regime libertarian-autoritario, Stanford è la prima che mi viene in mente 🤷🏻♂️