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Sorry I'll be dropping out of this really interesting discusion this week -- I am writing my comps this week and will be somewhat distracted from what appears to me to be a little more pressing issue here...... On Sat, 18 May 1996, Russ Hunt wrote: > Brenton Faber says, > > > and they derive their authority (both culturally and economically) > > from the degrees earned in our institutions and our classes. > > No, in fact they don't. (I'm leaving aside the complications > introduced into the dichotomy by Kenna & Susan's presentation, and > Marcy's summary of it.) Their "authority" does _not_ come from their > degrees. Their power is economic. You seem to be missing the cultural power a university degree establishes and the professional-context of this power. I refer you to Bledstein's excellent analysis of the role of the university in establishing and reifying middle class values. In addition, M. Larson has an equally good analysis of hegemony, profession and university education. > > > "The language of business and the marketplace" has (until quite > > recently) always been our language > > I'm sorry, but this seems to me just flat wrong. Maybe I'm missing > something. That language is a strikingly modern invention. I may > or may not want to adopt some part of it, but the language of the > market hasn't always been "our" language, and isn't now. The > language of the bottom line, of economic efficiency, of the trial by > market, has not, at any rate, been _my_ language. It's a language > which presumes a whole set of values, not many of which I want > anything much to do with. I came into this racket to find, and live > in, another discourse, one which insists that we have social > obligations transcending money and price. > English literature and the study of language does pre-date Matthew Arnold. As Foucault notes, perhaps we need to re-read our Sophists... and consider the ways in which modernist aesthetic language has constructed (what R. Coe noted -- see previous messages) arbitrary metaphors isolating "art" from the "market" -- really a very recent invention considering.... Again, sorry to be dropping out, but then again, perhaps I won't be missed all that much [nervous grin]... Brent -------------------------------------------------------- Brenton Faber [log in to unmask] University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT 84112