The Not So Negative Dialectics of Post-Secondary Education
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- Published on Thursday, 03 December 2020 04:18
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The Not So Negative Dialectics of Post-Secondary Education
Ingo Schmidt
“Well, we busted out of class,had to get away from those fools.
We learned more from a three-minute record, baby,
than we ever learned in school.” — Bruce Springsteen
“Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the names of kings.
…
Every page a victory.
Who cooked the feast for the victors?
Every ten years a great man?
Who paid the bill?
So many reports.
So many questions.” — Bertolt Brecht
Post-secondary education is marketed, and widely seen, as human capital investment. Obtaining a college or university degree today will yield a... skill-premium tomorrow. And a possible gain in social status or, if coming from the educated classes, at least retention of the status of one’s parents. Marketing and expectations of pecuniary and status gains are sometimes complemented by hints at post-secondary education as a pathway to becoming a good citizen. At its most emphatic, such as invoked by Kant’s definition of enlightenment, suggesting that post-secondary education is the indispensable guide to emerge from (..) self-incurred immaturity.
HR departments, without going so far as to invoke dead philosophers, echo the marketing of post-secondary education as being about more than naked self-interest by portraying their well-educated and equally well-motivated employees as their most valuable assets. It’s unlikely that they mean that they only hire people who produce surplus value for the company, even though producing surplus value is the sine qua non for hiring any worker in a capitalist company. HR departments wrap commitments to shareholder value into the idea that stakeholders of a company all share the same values that surely transcend callous cash payments.
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