A couple of thoughts that sound naive when I think them but keep bothering me. MOOCs and communes
I often wonder if how we radicals can play a useful role with regard to fights where we seem to be on the losing side of history. I keep thinking of debates over early capitalism smashing peasant communes, e.g. in Russia. Marx thought that capitalism in that era was historically progressive with respect to feudalism, so we should not mourn the peasant communes overly much; I’ve heard a number of folks who take Marx seriously lately criticizing him on precisely this point. Federici, for example, saying that capitalism was not historically progressive; it was always barbarous.
Of course resisting MOOCs may be ethically even more murky and seemingly less worthy of high stakes. If sub-elite research, comprehensive, and regional public universities in 15 years offer many lower-level, required courses in the form of MOOCs, employing fewer teachers to teach these courses, that is less optimal education than offering the courses, fully staffed, but how does it compare to offering the courses only half the time (which I take to be the status quo in many places)? Do we try to change the macro-political discourse through social movements that have a hub in the university? Do we mourn what is lost, with all its contradictoriness, and probably get smashed? What are the ethics of taking or not taking that stance? Or do we embrace innovation without embracing the (neo-)liberal techno-futurism of some versions of it; with the altermondialistes, is another MOOC possible? (Of course this is just one example ... one which has been on my plate recently.)
A much bigger question lurking here is whether capitalism still has “progressive” (whatever we take that to be) developmental potential or whether late capitalism is just an evolution in the rottenness of capitalism. The theory of late capitalism was always that capitalism has reached a point at which its development is just rot, but that seems hard to square with contemporary reality unless you take a pretty technophobic stance. (Not to mention ignore developments in social structures of gender and sexuality, which, while far from uniform, are certainly not uniformly negative or static.)
Of course resisting MOOCs may be ethically even more murky and seemingly less worthy of high stakes. If sub-elite research, comprehensive, and regional public universities in 15 years offer many lower-level, required courses in the form of MOOCs, employing fewer teachers to teach these courses, that is less optimal education than offering the courses, fully staffed, but how does it compare to offering the courses only half the time (which I take to be the status quo in many places)? Do we try to change the macro-political discourse through social movements that have a hub in the university? Do we mourn what is lost, with all its contradictoriness, and probably get smashed? What are the ethics of taking or not taking that stance? Or do we embrace innovation without embracing the (neo-)liberal techno-futurism of some versions of it; with the altermondialistes, is another MOOC possible? (Of course this is just one example ... one which has been on my plate recently.)
A much bigger question lurking here is whether capitalism still has “progressive” (whatever we take that to be) developmental potential or whether late capitalism is just an evolution in the rottenness of capitalism. The theory of late capitalism was always that capitalism has reached a point at which its development is just rot, but that seems hard to square with contemporary reality unless you take a pretty technophobic stance. (Not to mention ignore developments in social structures of gender and sexuality, which, while far from uniform, are certainly not uniformly negative or static.)