EDM 6022Education and Development

Globalization & Education: The De-traditional Society & Postmodern

Culture and their Educational Consequences

Wing-kwong TsangHo Tim Bldg. Room 416; Ext. 6922;

www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~wktsang

Detraditionalization & the Post-traditional Society

Culture as the symbolic universe of a society

Time-space compression entails compression of symbolic universes

Legitimation bases of symbolic universes under threats

Detradionalization and the rise of post-traditional society

A post-tradition social order…is not one in which tradition disappears - far from it. It is one in which tradition changes its status. Traditions have to explain themselves, to become open to interrogation or discourse. … In a globalizing, culturally cosmopolitan society, traditions become forced into open view: reasons or justifications have to be offered for them.” (Giddens, 1994, p.23)

Detraditionalization & the Post-traditional Society

The rise of fundamentalism:

"The rise of fundamentalism has to be seen against the backdrop of the emergence of the post-traditional society. … What is fundamentalism? It is, so I shall argue, nothing other than tradition defended in the tradition way - but where that mode of defense has become widely called into question. … In a globally cosmopolitan order … such a defense become dangerous, because essentially it is a refusal of dialogue." (Giddens, 1994, p.23)

An explanation of the September 11 incidence: Terrorism in post-traditional and global societies

Cultural logic of late capitalism and information society

Production of information and knowledge replacing production of manufacturing goods, especially heavy industrial goods, as the core of productivity enhancement and wealth accumulation

The rise of mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, and mass communication

Accelerations of the commoditfication cycle: MCPC’M’, i.e. Money capital Commodity (i.e. labor and the means of production) Production Commodity (products) Money

Cultural logic of late capitalism and information society

The commodification of culture and information The use value of cultural products: Communicative values and

meaningfulness The exchange value of cultural products: Reifying cultural mea

ningfulness into cultural commodities and cultural industries Culture of signifiers of “referent depth” was replaced by self-re

ferencing and free-floating signifiers, information, data, icon…. Empirically and objectively existing reality replaced by hyper-r

eality and virtual reality The proliferation of simulacra and the coming of the culture of

simulacra The culture of heritage and tradition was replaced by culture of

pastiche and hybrid

The Rise of Culture of Consumerism

Retreat of culture of production and spirit of capitalism: Culture of asceticism, endurance, industrious, enterprising and investment

Constituents of culture of consumerism Hedonism: Consumption as desire-satisfaction was replac

ed by consumption as desire-creation. “Desire does not desire satisfaction. To the contrary, desire desires desire." (Bauman, 1998, p. 25)

Ephemeralism: "Consumer goods are meant to be used up and to disappear; the idea of temporariness and transitoriness is intrinsic to their very denomination as objects of consumption" (Bauman, 1998, P.28)

The Rise of Culture of Consumerism

Constituents of culture of consumerism Instantaneousness: "Ideally, the consumer's satisfaction

ought to be instant, and this in a double sense. Consumed goods should bring satisfaction immediately, requiring no delay, no protracted learning of skills and no lengthy groundwork; but the satisfaction should end the moment the time needed for their consumption is up, and that time ought to be reduced to a bare minimum." (Bauman, 1998, p. 25)

Fetishism: From consumption of commodity to collection of commodity; from consumption as act of desire-satisfaction to consumption (or possession) as identification of status and life style

The Culture of Information Management and Publicity

The rise of mass media and information management: The beginning of the degradation of the “public”

Rational & critical citizens of the 19th century relegate to clients of the welfare state and consumers of welfare services in post WWII

From culture-debating public to culture-consuming public

The rise of cultural industry and mass media Commodification of culture: Meanings and consen

sus are no longer constituted through critical-rational debates but manufacture by cultural industry and mass media

The Culture of Information Management and Publicity

The rise of mass media and information management: The beginning of the degradation of the “public”

From culture-debating public to culture-consuming public

“The replacement of a reading public that debated critically about matters of culture by the mass public of culture consumers” (p. 168)

Going to salons and book clubs are replaced by going to movies, listening to radio and watching TV. These activities are “noncommittal”, one-sided non- participatory activities

Debating public relegated into captive audience

The Culture of Information Management and Publicity

The rise of mass media and information management: The beginning of the degradation of the “public”

Rational public debates relegated to administered or even commercialized projects

Public debates were taken over or even monopolized by

compartmentalized intellectual minority, professionals and specialists in cultural industry and mass media

lobbyists of organized interests, think tank of political parties and the state, specialist in information management, public relation and

publicity

The Culture of Information Management and Publicity

The rise of mass media and information management: The beginning of the degradation of the “public”

Rational public debates relegated to administered or even commercialized projects

Public debates were commercialized, standardized and be “consumption-ready”.

Cultural goods had to be packaged into consumption items, e.g.

literary communications were pushed aside by illustrative, pictorial, sensational representations, the constitution of TV news and then news in global network (CNN)

“‘delay reward news’ (public affairs, social problems, education, and health) were pushed into the background by ‘immediate reward news’ (comics, corruption, accidents, disasters, sports, recreation, social events, and human interests).” (p. 170)

The Culture of Information Management and PublicityTransformation of the political function of the public sphere

The public was release of the task of rational and critical debate on public issue. The task was left to the politicians. The public relegate to the role of recipients of political propaganda.

The commerialization of mass media and the emergence of the trade of public relation gave rise to the business of public-opinion engineering and public-consent manufacturing

The principle of democratic public sphere gave way to principle of manufactured and staged publicity

Critical and rational public debate repress to periodic, manipulated and limited voter choice of politics of publicity and seduction

Globalization and Its Cultural Consequences: The Culture of the Internet

The techno-meritocratic culture: Legitimacy and supremacy of technological merits and achievements within the egalitarian peer-review systemThe hacker culture: “A shared belief in the power of computer networking, and a

determination to keep this technological power as a common goods - at least for the community of hackers.” (Castells, 2001, p. 52)

The hackers believe that they should and could “build their social autonomy on the Internet, fighting to preserve their freedom against the intrusion of the powers that is, including corporate media takeover of their Internet service providers,” (ibid, p. 51), i.e. fight for people’s “right to encrypt” against the government and “right to decrypt” against corporations.

Globalization and Its Cultural Consequences: The Culture of the Internet

The hacker culture: Virtual communitarian is highly diverse in its contents, it

does specify the Internet as a technological medium for horizontal (equal and undistorted) communication, as a new form of free speech. It also lays the foundation for self-directed networking as a communitarians: “While the communitarian source of the Internet culture tool for organization, collective action, and the construction of meaning.” (ibid, p.55)

Entrepreneurs: “The realization of the potential of transforming mind power into money-making became the cornerstone of the entrepreneurial culture in Silicon Valley and the Internet industry at large. … Internet entrepreneurs sell the future because they believe they can make it. They rely on their know-how to create products and processes that they are convinced will conquer the market.” (ibid, Pp.56-57) Hence, stock option and venture capital are two primary constituents in Internet industry.

Globalization & Its Cultural Consequences: The Culture of the Internet

The Hacker ethics Linus’s Law: “Linus’s law says that all of our motivations fall into th

ree basic categories. … The categories, in order, are ‘survival,’ ‘social life,’ and ‘entertainment’.” (Torvalds, 2001, p.xiv)

“A ‘hacker’ is a person who has gone past using his computer for survival (‘I bring home the bread by programming’) to the nest two stage. He (or, in theory but all too seldom in practice, she) uses the computer for his social ties – e-mail and Net are great ways to have a community. But to the hacker a computer is also entertainment. Not the games, not the pretty pictures on the Net. The computer itself is entertainment.” (ibid, p.xvii)

Globalization & Its Cultural Consequences: The Culture of the Internet

The Hacker ethics Hackers’ work ethics

“For the hacker, ‘the computer itself is entertainment,’ meaning that the hacker programs because he finds programming intrinsically interesting, exciting, and joyous.” (Himanen, 2001, p.3)

From The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism to Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age: Sundayization of Friday

Nethics (network ethics): Freedom of speech: Decrypt against government censors

hip and corporation monopoly Privacy: Encrypt against government and corporation sur

veillance and profiling Self-directed activity

Growing up in the Information Age

The Hurried Child (Elkind, 1981) and Child without Childhood (Winn, 1984) By simplifying the access to information through TV an

d then PC and Internet, it opens children to experiences that were once reserved for adults, e.g. sex and violence

By blurring the boundary between adults and children and revealing the secrecy of adults in electronic media, children are less deferential to adults’ authority and they become less likely to trust or respect simply because they are adults

“Growing up too fast too soon.” (Elkind, 1981) “Growing up too fast in the world of sex and drug.” (Wi

nn, 1984)

Growing up in the Information Age

Disappearance of Childhood: From literacy of printed materials to literacy of TV and t

hen IT, the closure of adult world erodes and evaporates as the disclosure media of TV and then PC rise to dominance

These result in the exposure of the “backstage” of adulthood in front of screens of TV and then PC (Meyrowitz, 1985) and the disappearance of children (Postman, 1983)

Exposure of children to mass media (Sanders, 1995) and “unrestricted knowledge about things once kept secret from nonadults” (Steinberg and Kinchloe, 1997) have caused the death of childhood and the loss of the literal selves of children

Growing up in the Information Age

The coming of the Y Generation: Constitution of generation in global-informational age

A generation can be defined as “a group of individuals who were born at about the same time, or in the same era, and who have been subject to common social, cultural and economic influence.” (Mackay, 1997, p. 3)

Availability of convergence of common cultural experiences in the global-informational age

The Y Generation (O’Leary, 1998): Those born after 1980 as a distinction from the X Generation, those born from 1966 to1979

Growing up in the Information Age

The coming of the Y Generation: “Grow up in the confines of cookie-cutter suburbia, these

kids are developing their interest in the world of exploding technological opportunity, learning through computers, video and a bursting array of cable options. The sophisticated, mouse-wielding, joystick-operating group grew up with advanced eye-hand coordination and a low threshold for boredom. Within five years, they are expected to produce term paper with full-motion video. All the conventions that shaped a more traditional past are being left behind as these early adopters rush into ever-changing technology. …There are no rules for this group … With all the media stimulus, things like the Internet, there’s no one authority for them. Every voice has equal power and you see more fusions and hybrid” (O’Leary, 1998, p.49)

Growing up in the Information Age

The coming of the Y Generation: The Options Generation (Mackay, 1997): “The Options Gener

ation simply respond to the world as they find it, their ‘kaleidoscope keeps moving and the patterns are not set for long’ (1997, p. 141). They are not anxious about rapid change or social destabilization ‘constant change is in their air they breathe; the water they swim in’ (p.138). … Its members keep their options open, remaining noncommittal for as long as possible and adopting short-term goals and temporary solutions when they are ready. They do not expect stability and predictability. …It is a generation that ‘is proud of [its] ability to live in a fluid and hybrid culture’ (p.174) (Quoted in Kenway & Bullen, 2001, p. 59)

Growing up in the Information Age

The coming of the Y Generation: The Net Generation (Tapscott, 1998) The Net Generatio

n “have new powerful tools fro inquiry, analysis, self-expression, influence, and play. They have unprecedented mobility. They are shrinking the planet in ways their parent could never imagine. Unlike television which was done to them, they are the actors in the digital world.” (Tapscott, 1998, P.3)

The screenagers (Rushkoff, 1996): embrace discontinuity, turbulence and complexity. They have the natural adaptive skills that enable them to deal with the problem pf postmodernity.

Education as the Arena of Cultural Crash in Global-Informational Society

Crash between culture of production and consumption in late capitalism Modern education system as the embodiment of the

culture of production of capitalism Worldly asceticism

Delay gratification Endurance and patience Long-term saving and investment

Methodical and instrumental rationalism Methodical self-control Controllability and calculability of other means of production Instrumental ends of production: Profit maximization

Possessive individualism Attribution of success to solely individual effort Individual success measured solely by possession of wealth

Education as the Arena of Cultural Crash in Global-Informational Society

Crash between culture of production and consumption in late capitalism Modern education system as the anti-thesis of the

youth culture and consumer culture of late capitalism

Ephemeral Hedonism Jouissance Carnivalestque Abject

Parodic and grotesque nihilism Fetishistic individualism Othering adults

Education as the Arena of Cultural Crash in Global-Informational Society

Crash between democratic-rational culture of emancipation and culture of performativity and publicity Education as project of emancipation of humanity

Education for Liberty for All: Liberation (from ignorance and illiterate) as intrinsic value o

f education Equality as inalienable right of education

Nurture of Speculative Spirit: Freedom to self-acturalization as intrinsic value Freedom to pursuit truth, virtue and beauty as intrinsic ideal

of education

Education as the Arena of Cultural Crash in Global-Informational Society

Crash between democratic-rational culture of emancipation and culture of performativity and publicity Education as apparatus of performativity and publi

city Education as instrument of performativity of economic an

d administrative system Productivity and employability as imperative of economic sy

stem to education Governmentality and power-enhancement as imperative of a

dministrative system to education Education as project of publicity and customization

Education as manipulation of information of public image and representation of schools

Education as manipulation of information of customization

Education as Promiscuous Corporation From correspondence principle to direct invasion of marketing strategies Schools as means audience and market reach: The ‘five

pocket child’ thesis Schools as nurturing grounds for brand loyalty: “Catch

them young and you’ve caught them for life.” (Whitworth, 1999; quoted in Kenway & Bullen, 2001, p. 97)

Schools involvement as stages for building corporate image: Corporations’ involvement in schools as a kind of philanthropic action of promoting goodwill within local community

Schools involvement as means of targeting, selecting and attracting future workforce

Education as Promiscuous Corporation

Means of corporation invasion into schools Education sponsorship in the policy context of

budget constraints and self-managing schools Edutainment:

Edutainment in the form of tournament and competition Edutainment in the form of pseudo-instructional aids Edutainment in the form of role-model building