26 Comments
Aug 25, 2022·edited Aug 25, 2022Liked by FFatalism

Br. F- Firstly, architecture like that is as soul-deadening as it is ubiquitous and banal. I agree that it is culturally funerary in its meaninglessness.

I often want to shake off my para-scholarly tendencies, such as they are. Mainly because, with some notable exceptions, scholarship seems so empty. Just as you describe here. But your post makes me wonder if a true scholarship might survive and even flourish outside the postmodern structures at the twilight of its reign. A kind of guerrilla scholarship. One can hope. -Jack

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It will be interesting to see how this evolves in the next few decades. I know a few profs/academics who are acutely aware of the decline, and wondering what the alternatives might be. Some are considering the development of online institutions that might be more free to pursue those “three gifts of history”. Others are thinking of building brand new physical institutions (with whose money, I’m not sure). I suspect they will be tolerated only if they are small and unobtrusive.

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Almost 20 years ago my University experience left me feeling like a useless cog in a broken clock. It took me the better part of a year to reshape myself. I love the idea of guerrilla scholarships Jack. Something that helps to develop roots in place and people. I hope they exist if and when my children are ready to study.

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Aug 25, 2022Liked by FFatalism

In Ammanford our local town stands the old Victorian Arcade. It's facade has some fine ornamental brickwork that surrounds the doorways and windows of the buildings that face the street. If one looks carefully at one window in particular you will see that one of the ornamental tiles is upside down. It was pointed out to me a few years ago that the builder when erecting this fine building placed the tile on purpose. It was said that 'He was pleased with his work yes, but only the Almighty can claim perfection'.

In contrast just behind stands the 'Poundstretcher' a monolith to mediocrity.

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Interesting, I particularly like the Sphinx.

I also see the decline and broadening of universities as very visible in their Ikea-ised appearance

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A bit more about the hideous architecture side of things. I've worked 10 years or so in academia, down in the South East, as a wretched administrator type of person. Until two years ago there was always a building site (sometimes two) somewhere nearby where some identikit monolith, mostly reminiscent of stacked shipping containers if a little shinier, took shape. An Economics block, a Medical School, prestigious new <s>airport terminal</s> home for the Business School....

I ended up working in the last of these, a grandiose £25m+ battery hen shed where, no matter how many times you walked around the corridors, you ended up turning left when you meant to turn right. Everything the same apart from a few brave tenured souls who rebelliously posted UCU posters on their doors. (It was forbidden to post notices or stick up posters: there were large high-wattage plasma screens for displaying IMPORTANT STUFF 24/7. Cafe menus, how to wash your hands, who to email if no one answers the 'phone.)

One of the few things that broke up the homogeny, a little, were some cute curved glass structures on the mezzanine level. These were created to provide that airy/fresh/modern/panopticon setting for all the glossy website photographs. Regrettably these had a tendency to suddenly explode. The gaps would be cordoned off with "Caution: wet floor" boards and yellow and black tape. Some obscure factory in the Czech Republic somewhere, I think, would eventually deliver more sleek curved structures. After much excitement these would be discovered to be a crucial few millimetres too large to fit... etc etc. It really was like working inside a David Lodge novel.

Since then, and mid-Covidmania, I moved to another job in a slightly more established part of the campus: brutalist concrete but the windows DO actually open. Which is just as well as the heating system is stuck "on" for three-quarters of the year.

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Aug 25, 2022Liked by FFatalism

Thank you Mr. F. A poetic read. But I hope its not as bad as you write - I have a son about to study philosophy at a British university. I will be sure to ask him abou the syllabus,

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There's nothing wrong with uprooting 18 year olds.

Think of the Amish tradition of Rumspringa.

The point is that they have to have a solid, cohesive culture to return to once they've done their gadding about and are ready to settle into adulthood.

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"Now a university is just a machine for uprooting humanity" is quite a line!

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Deeply poignant, and given added depth by the long quotation from that yearning, elegiac Anglo-Saxon poem. Were you a student of literature?

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