I
think we can all admit that at some point during our Rhodes experience, we’ve
been given an assignment that we really have no use for, no interest in, or
that we simply did not care about. I was reminded of this experience during our
discussion on Marx last Thursday. Although Rhodes is ridiculously far from a
sweatshop or an assembly line, there are times where we’re told what to
produce, without that product matching up to our personal academic/educational
values. To me, this resembles the alienation of a worker from a product, as
well as alienation from the labor itself. Personally, I am either daunted by
the task to the point of complete torment, or I try to suck it up and go
through the motions, somewhat checking out mentally. Indeed, it’s a miserable
process in which I do not affirm myself whatsoever, and it’s certainly not a
free activity either. Unfortunately, all of our schoolwork is somewhat coerced,
and it is curious how grades serve as incentives in the academic economy. All
of these conditions point to an alienation from intellectual labor, and
personally I have felt absolutely alienated as a student. I don’t know who the bourgeoisie
is here (perhaps our professors), but we sure as hell are the intellectual proletariats.
So why even do the dreadful assignments? To make good grades, to get into
graduate school, to get a good job, to afford everything that will convince me
I am ‘besting the system’…It seems as though it’s very capitalist logic.
But
let’s focus on the good times—the work I’ve done that’s been very
self-actualizing, that I’ve felt allowed me to discover an insight, that I
haven’t felt whatsoever alienated from the process or product. And what do we
do with these kinds of works? We publish them, for the whole world to know that
they are ours. Dr. J mentioned briefly last week how we have expanded our
notion of private property from material property to ownership of more abstract
things, such as ‘intellectual property’ demonstrates. We’ve discussed
pre-capitalist conceptions of private property, according to which if you put
labor into raw material to make a product, then the product of your labor is
yours. I think the same idea applies here, if you put your time and effort into
an idea or assignment, then you’ll claim ownership when somebody else comes
along and tries to take it. But in our modern conception of claiming ownership,
we transform this product of our free conscious activity into a commodity to be
bought and sold. Is this property really ours? Or since it’s the product of a
human activity, does it truly belong to collective society? Marx would probably
insist that ideas contribute to the general human intellect and should be
shared.
I, like you and most of our peers, have experienced this intellectual alienation, but I've never thought of it in this light. I love the idea that we are being alienated from ourselves when we are forced into doing work we are not passionate about, I feel like it is the only accurate way to describe the level of disinterest. You're right that the whole process of becoming educated is just so that we are able to thrive in our capitalist society, education and economics play closely together. Ownership of ideas, and the publishing of our ideas, is a concept that Marx would find disturbing, however I find this less of a problem than physical labor. In this case people are not alienated from themselves, they are able to pursue their passions and then sell them to others in the form of publishing. Those who read their ideas gain a higher pleasure, and thus the trade is good for all. It is only in the case where a person is forced to publish something they have no interest in that the person would suffer, and thus become alienated.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that we are alienated as students to do assignments/attend lectures/attend early classes which we would never otherwise do of our own accord unless someone essentially threatens us (i.e. with bad grades). We fight for what we think we need in order to get the best out of our system, and that starts with getting good grades and graduating. We can only do that if we complete tasks which alienate us from ourselves. We can sense this alienation, we are forced to read a book or write an essay or study a subject for a test and the entire time we are completing these tasks we hate it with the core of ourselves; we even exude negative energy. If I'm working on such an assignment, my roommates know exactly when I'm doing it. My entire demeanor changes and I am unlike myself, short-tempered, anti-social, and frustrated. All we think about while completing these assignments is what we will do with our free time as soon as it is done.
ReplyDeleteBut if we enjoy our work, and appreciate the creation that we have from it, we claim it as our own because we see it as an extention of ourselves. Our intellect and time is what created this piece of work, and therefore it is ours, it is not the "collective" property of the people. The people did not put effort in producing this work, only the author did. Ownership of ideas seems only natural, as it is an extention of ourselves.