One of the greatest cruelties of capitalism is its view of utility. All too often, and in almost every sphere of activity, we are conditioned to produce. We no longer recognize any significance in the ding an sich – Kant’s thing in itself which exists in its own wholeness of being independent of human perception – that’s just a Sunday afternoon’s lazy daydream. There’s no money in it, and so it is worthless. Instead we hold high the ding an geld – wherever there is an object, event, or activity, we look for money.
“What do you do with that?” This is the most common reaction when people learn that I have spent the bulk of my adult intellectual life in the pursuit of literature and linguistics. The second most common is, “Why are you just a teacher?” Here’s where the logic gets squirrely, because the implication is that I should be producing more than I am, operating in a higher monetary echelon, since even though my skills are essentially of very little utility, they’re specialized.
I am also a classically-trained violinist. I took formal lessons for twelve years, and have played for thirty-two years. I cannot imagine not playing music; it is an integral part of my identity and personality. It is with distressing frequency that I hear someone advise me to make it a “side hustle”.
Like most intellectually curious people I have a wide range of hobbies and interests. I am constantly experimenting, trying new things, refining techniques, discarding failures, and there is no greater anathema to those interests than when someone encourages me to commodify them.
This may seem like a small and innocuous thing, that I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but I maintain that this vulgar, desperate commodification of everyday life has become so pervasive as to become untenable, especially as it relates to education.
Of course we want students to have practical utility when they enter society – everyone should have a skill that can be tied to a vocation: welders, nurses, engineers, accountants, teachers, lawyers, etc, all are necessary and useful, and their value has been set. But they are merely performative functions.
So why are we ignoring the agent (i.e. human being) performing them?
Tragically, it is because the individual is of little or no utility as compared to the tasks the individual performs. We wonder why so many Americans are anxious, or depressed, and have blamed most of it on the global pandemic, but trends have been steadily increasing for the bulk of the 21st Century. Two major symptoms of depression are feelings of worthlessness, and loss of interest in activities.
Conspiratorial thinking, misinformation, and pop psychology trends not only continue to gain traction, but dominate much of the average citizen’s daily thought and discourse. I posit that these delusions are merely projections of a deeper need: to be important, to matter, to be recognized in their humanness, to be good, to have value.
We like to write this off too, and in media and conversations I usually hear the discourse turn to education, but for all the wrong reasons. They usually start with some dreamy variation of “If only…” then speak in some capacity to a group needing to be “better informed” by which they mean “smarter”. This is an extremely convenient way of thinking because it is idle: the cancer is identified and diagnosed, but inoperable. Nothing to do now but shrug our shoulders and say “Woe is us”, all while gutting arts and humanities departments.
We have denied the person in favor of the function, and now it’s come home to roost.
The true purpose of education should be to show students their own intrinsic value, that they are dingen an sich whose curiosity, interests, hobbies, and motivation should never be connected to an extrinsic value measurement, and in fact can never be measured. This is absolutely actionable, even within the ever-narrowing parameters of what defines a “teacher”.
What do we do with that?
Paul Forehand
Paul Forehand currently teaches ELA and Russian Language in the Kingman Unified School District. He earned his undergraduate degree from Oklahoma State University in Russian Language and Literature in 2008 and, after a four-year experiment in making money and being miserable, subsequently fled back to The Ivory Tower. In 2014, Paul earned his Master’s degree in (deep breath) Russian, East-European, and Eurasian Studies with an emphasis in Literature and Linguistics from the University of Oregon. Funding for his education was tied to teaching within the Humanities and Russian Departments which, to the surprise of most including himself, he had a knack for. From 2015-2017 Paul taught Russian and English as Foreign Languages in a rural Mongolian town as a representative of the US Peace Corps. The time spent there twisted him into the man he is today, and encouraged him to always pursue ways of applying his skill set – such as it is – where he is most needed.