A Genealogy of Mediocrity
A critical reflection must necessarily begin with a self-critical reflection so as to avoid the stench of hypocrisy and ground the critique in its individual perspective.
My undergraduate university experience both at the University of Ottawa and the University of Waterloo was four years of unforgettable friendships and learning. While I will criticize the structural features of today's Canadian university, I will be far more critical of the student culture that is at times anti-intellectual, lazy, and permeated by a rationalist (capitalist) ethic of profit maximisation. At the same time, I must admit that my university experience was highly affected by these features, and that I was at times the bad student that I find so useless.
I was struck during my undergrad days by the number of people around me who were obviously uninterested in the subject matter they were supposed to be studying. A great deal of them were simply sticking it out for a degree. Of course, these are not the silent majority of hard-working students.
However, the average Canadian university (I have taken courses at 5 Canadian universities, all of them fairly similar) is not a bastion of learning, but rather a bachelor degree sausage factory. The causes of this state of affairs are many, but I will place responsibility primarily with the individual student (although structural and systemic factors are surely present).
The young 18 year old today is told two pathetic myths: He must get a degree to be competitive in a professionalized job market, and he must choose immediately in what discipline he wishes to study. The "disciplinization" of the humanities means that the poor 18-year old must choose between sociology, history, political studies, religious studies, etc, as if any of those disciplines can be understood in isolation from each other. Furthermore, the degree mentality means that university studies are seen as a means to an end, a painful exercice like going to the dentist, as opposed to an end in itself. The utilitarian theology of the capital-driven middle-class has a distinct logic: a teleological anti-intellectualism. We see this in Canada in the question of language learning: "Why should I learn French? I don't need to." Learning is seen as an obstacle to be crossed before money can be made.
Can the 18-year old be blamed for learning very quickly that the university cared very little for his intellectual commitment, and structured courses to be standardized recitals that the lazy student passed by virtue of a last-minute study and a ten page essay written in the Grade 5 English? Do general degrees in the humanities represent three years of learning? Or do they represent rather three years of socialization, with the occasional requirement to produce a few essays and an exam on a four month basis? Why does so much mediocre work pass the scrutiny of the system? My friends who have marked undergraduate papers despair at the bald incompetence of much that is written.
The ongoing political decision to keep university accessible, in the financial sense, is not enormously controversial. The ongoing acceptance of mediocrity in the humanities is a logical result of "accessible" programs, but one that is based on the premise that once admitted, the majority should pass their courses. Many departments will not accept high failure rates, and professors who have high failure rates are viewed with suspicion by their departments, colleagues and students. Nobody wants to be mean and evil, and call a spade a spade. Should financial accessibility translate into a free-pass for mediocrity? Should public resources be invested in an adult day-care of intellectual pretensions? If you answered no to all of the above, are you an elitist angry young man, swimming against a current of educational democracy? Or perhaps a calm critic of institutionalized mediocrity... Does the university have a duty to refuse to sanction mediocrity, creating a culture of learn or leave?
My undergraduate university experience both at the University of Ottawa and the University of Waterloo was four years of unforgettable friendships and learning. While I will criticize the structural features of today's Canadian university, I will be far more critical of the student culture that is at times anti-intellectual, lazy, and permeated by a rationalist (capitalist) ethic of profit maximisation. At the same time, I must admit that my university experience was highly affected by these features, and that I was at times the bad student that I find so useless.
I was struck during my undergrad days by the number of people around me who were obviously uninterested in the subject matter they were supposed to be studying. A great deal of them were simply sticking it out for a degree. Of course, these are not the silent majority of hard-working students.
However, the average Canadian university (I have taken courses at 5 Canadian universities, all of them fairly similar) is not a bastion of learning, but rather a bachelor degree sausage factory. The causes of this state of affairs are many, but I will place responsibility primarily with the individual student (although structural and systemic factors are surely present).
The young 18 year old today is told two pathetic myths: He must get a degree to be competitive in a professionalized job market, and he must choose immediately in what discipline he wishes to study. The "disciplinization" of the humanities means that the poor 18-year old must choose between sociology, history, political studies, religious studies, etc, as if any of those disciplines can be understood in isolation from each other. Furthermore, the degree mentality means that university studies are seen as a means to an end, a painful exercice like going to the dentist, as opposed to an end in itself. The utilitarian theology of the capital-driven middle-class has a distinct logic: a teleological anti-intellectualism. We see this in Canada in the question of language learning: "Why should I learn French? I don't need to." Learning is seen as an obstacle to be crossed before money can be made.
Can the 18-year old be blamed for learning very quickly that the university cared very little for his intellectual commitment, and structured courses to be standardized recitals that the lazy student passed by virtue of a last-minute study and a ten page essay written in the Grade 5 English? Do general degrees in the humanities represent three years of learning? Or do they represent rather three years of socialization, with the occasional requirement to produce a few essays and an exam on a four month basis? Why does so much mediocre work pass the scrutiny of the system? My friends who have marked undergraduate papers despair at the bald incompetence of much that is written.
The ongoing political decision to keep university accessible, in the financial sense, is not enormously controversial. The ongoing acceptance of mediocrity in the humanities is a logical result of "accessible" programs, but one that is based on the premise that once admitted, the majority should pass their courses. Many departments will not accept high failure rates, and professors who have high failure rates are viewed with suspicion by their departments, colleagues and students. Nobody wants to be mean and evil, and call a spade a spade. Should financial accessibility translate into a free-pass for mediocrity? Should public resources be invested in an adult day-care of intellectual pretensions? If you answered no to all of the above, are you an elitist angry young man, swimming against a current of educational democracy? Or perhaps a calm critic of institutionalized mediocrity... Does the university have a duty to refuse to sanction mediocrity, creating a culture of learn or leave?
posted by Lt Smash at 10:08 AM
2 Comments:
I say this only partially tongue-in-cheek, but what's wrong with mediocrity? Profit maximization has its faults and intellectual maximization probably does as well.
It all comes back to a meaning of life question for me I suppose -- you can have the best education in the world but none of the life experience or social skills or what have you, what's the point?
It's not the smartest or the richest who I think are the most successful, but the well-rounded. If that means being mediocre in your university studies while you gain life experience, I think it's probably worth it. Ideally we would all be smart and well-rounded and rich. We're all working so hard that I think we're missing the finer things in life.
John
I would hate to think that a first-year illiterate, writing essays at a 8th grade level, would miss out on the finer keg parties in life.
In all seriousness, I get your point. It's well taken. I would note, that the most well-rounded people that I have watched around me have excelled in almost everything they touch, almost as if by accident.
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