About the laziness and complacency, a family member just told me that the litterature programme at a Danish university had to give up teaching “Pelle The Conqueror”, a major work in Danish litterature, because students were struggling with reading an entire novel. At the economics department students are often lacking basic math skills, like the ability to work with fractions.
We have litterature students who can’t read a book and economics students who can’t do basic math.
The mismanagement our public schools has suffered at the hand of neoliberal bean counters has been criminal. A decade or so ago our leaders got the brilliant idea that special needs students should be “included” in standard classrooms, coincidentally saving a lot of money on special education in the process. Nobody bothered to give schools the extre resources needed or to give teachers the qualifications for handling these students. The result has been a total disaster for the special needs students, for the rest of the students and for the teachers. Meanwhile schools are so underfunded in many places that teachers have to waste time begging the community for donations for books and supplies.
The problem is not laziness and complacency as much as it is neoliberalism.
By laziness and complacency I’m not referring to individuals or even really organizations or corporations most of the time. More of in the abstract sense of “Everyone just takes for granted the present, still imagines it’s 1992, and is fully unwilling to do anything to change from the current trajectory.” If that makes sense.
I’m not doing the (I’d call “reactionary” talking point) thing of accusing young people of being lazy. If anything, young people (and I suppose I still fit that category… ok let’s say young-ish) are actually working more than ever especially in the US. At least compared to 50 years ago. I can’t speak for other countries except from what I hear which is “shit ain’t looking good.”
But yes, ultimately, you are correct. Neoliberalism is the umbrella. It has resulted in governments and societies of people unwilling to think or consider any alternatives at all. That’s what I mean with complacency and laziness. A lack of curiosity, a lack of vision, an acceptance of things as they are and a lack of belief that anything could or should be different. That’s basically all under how I would describe “cultural neoliberalism” as opposed to the strict definition involving the economics of it which we all know so well. How the economics changes people into what we see now. Whether you’re looking at raw output from workers, which is bad with countless examples to show it. Or more abstract or nebulous things like “hope” and what people expect from their lives/the world
About the laziness and complacency, a family member just told me that the litterature programme at a Danish university had to give up teaching “Pelle The Conqueror”, a major work in Danish litterature, because students were struggling with reading an entire novel. At the economics department students are often lacking basic math skills, like the ability to work with fractions.
We have litterature students who can’t read a book and economics students who can’t do basic math.
The mismanagement our public schools has suffered at the hand of neoliberal bean counters has been criminal. A decade or so ago our leaders got the brilliant idea that special needs students should be “included” in standard classrooms, coincidentally saving a lot of money on special education in the process. Nobody bothered to give schools the extre resources needed or to give teachers the qualifications for handling these students. The result has been a total disaster for the special needs students, for the rest of the students and for the teachers. Meanwhile schools are so underfunded in many places that teachers have to waste time begging the community for donations for books and supplies.
The problem is not laziness and complacency as much as it is neoliberalism.
By laziness and complacency I’m not referring to individuals or even really organizations or corporations most of the time. More of in the abstract sense of “Everyone just takes for granted the present, still imagines it’s 1992, and is fully unwilling to do anything to change from the current trajectory.” If that makes sense.
I’m not doing the (I’d call “reactionary” talking point) thing of accusing young people of being lazy. If anything, young people (and I suppose I still fit that category… ok let’s say young-ish) are actually working more than ever especially in the US. At least compared to 50 years ago. I can’t speak for other countries except from what I hear which is “shit ain’t looking good.”
But yes, ultimately, you are correct. Neoliberalism is the umbrella. It has resulted in governments and societies of people unwilling to think or consider any alternatives at all. That’s what I mean with complacency and laziness. A lack of curiosity, a lack of vision, an acceptance of things as they are and a lack of belief that anything could or should be different. That’s basically all under how I would describe “cultural neoliberalism” as opposed to the strict definition involving the economics of it which we all know so well. How the economics changes people into what we see now. Whether you’re looking at raw output from workers, which is bad with countless examples to show it. Or more abstract or nebulous things like “hope” and what people expect from their lives/the world