A Letter to a Senator

Dear Senator Muir, 

I write to you as a concerned university educator from Western Sydney. I have followed recent events in federal politics in relation to this government's education policies closely, and have decided for the first time in my life to write to a federal politician to express my concerns. I will write to others as well, because I believe this government has got its priorities wrong on education, especially those policies regarding the university sector. I teach at the University of Western Sydney, and I see firsthand the benefits of a tertiary education, teaching students who are the first in their families ever to go to university, teaching students from low socio-economic or non-English speaking backgrounds, and teaching mature age students who come to us to get a new start or new direction in life. 

UWS already does a fantastic job with students from backgrounds that, historically, have missed out on the university experience, and it concerns me gravely that the proposed reforms will further hamstring institutions like UWS to the benefit of those universities who already benefit greatly from their history and their financial and social reserves. Being only 25 years old, the intangible value of "prestige" is not something we have accumulated; what we do have is a dedicated workforce of highly trained and well-educated academics and teachers. I grew up in Western Sydney; I was educated here from primary school to my PhD; and I teach here. And I wish to go on teaching here, knowing the benefits that higher education can provide. I want to continue that tradition of making a difference through education for people who, for so long, were overlooked. 

I benefited from the current funding regime, and I still have my debt and am paying that off like millions of other graduates. The previous generation of graduates, the current generation of leaders, benefited from an even more generous system, and the hypocrisy of some statements I have seen has been unbearable. It is my firm belief that the reforms this government proposes will not only limit the capacity of UWS and similar institutions to change lives through education, but undo much of what has been gained for the people of Western Sydney since this university burst into life 25 years ago. You hold an important and powerful position in our parliament, one that many would be envious of, with a chance to make a difference in the lives of other Victorians, and indeed many other Australians. 

I am a member of no political party, and I never have been. I am a member of a union--the NTEU--because I believe in the power of collective action. We are strongest when we stand together against those forces that seek to divide us. And I believe the actions of this government seek to entrench division through reforms such as the deregulation of university fees, which can only result in the raising of fees or the reduction of resources for those who rely on education as a social investment in their future, not merely as an exclusive engine of privilege for social or political advancement. 

As a citizen who believes in the fair go, and who believes that the chief means of achieving the fair go is open and unfettered access to education, I urge you to reject these reforms, and to hold this government to account for the lack of transparency about their agenda in this regard before the previous election. If this government really believed it has a mandate for such drastic change, then it should take these policies to the next election, and let the people decide. 

Sincerely yours, 

Gavin William Smith

Dogmatism and Democracy

I haven't blogged in a while--I've been rather busy with other things, like earning money to live. It's hard out there in the real world! But I thought I would return to my blog just to articulate a few ideas, in part for myself, but also to share with others who might be struggling to articulate their own ideas at this moment in time. Right now, we are essentially at war with Islamic State (IS), or ISIS, or ISIL, or whatever they're called--"essentially," but not declared as such. There are real horrors being perpetrated by terrorists half a world away, and those horrors are being visited upon us here in Australia by proxy through the news and various propaganda exercises from our government and law enforcement agencies. I say "propaganda" because I am not entirely convinced that there isn't just a little manipulation going on behind the scenes to make political hay while the sun shines. But that's my conspiratorial cross to bear; others may bear it too, but in the absence of proof we cannot make definitive claims. Suspicions are one thing, but evidence is always required. Moving on.

What is most immediately troubling in the wake of recent events here at home is the rising tide of anger and xenophobia directed toward Australians of the Islamic faith. There are those that will seize upon any opportunity to tear at the wounds of division, especially if there are political gains to be made. Some people just want to watch the world burn, but there are others who want to set parts of it alight, preferring to rule in ashes than coexist in sunshine. The issue is not Islam, or any other religion. Truth be told, I am an atheist and would rather no religion exist; of course, we can imagine the world would turn out no different to the one we have now. For the issue that plagues us, and has always plagued us, and will always plague us, is dogmatism. But not simply dogmatism in the form of trenchant belief; I mean the mean the kind of dogmatism that helps us to rationalise an even more fundamental urge, what Nietzsche calls "the will to power."

A dogmatic belief of any religious or political persuasion merely provides a veneer of consistency for the raw and brutal urge to control others. In Western democracies we seek to mitigate this urge, this will, through the checks and balances of the democratic process; it can be ugly, but the alternative is infinitely worse. Even in a democracy there are those who hold dogmatic views, whether of a progressive or conservative incline. There is a little bit of fascism in all our natures, whether we care to admit it or not--we think we know better than others, and some of us are more willing to say so than most. In a democracy, we talk about political vision, a vision or a plan for the future; but this is just a watering down of the fascist impulse. Any politician with a vision must convince enough people, first people in his party then the general population, that his or her vision is the right one for the nation--at least until the next election. It doesn't always work out well, but that's why we have the next election. Democracy provides us with a non-violent corrective mechanism to counterbalance the naked ambition of those struck by the will to power, the urge to dominate others.

Dogmatists don't like democracy, but where it is widely supported by the public and adequate public institutions they will merely, silently begrudge its existence. Democracy requires us to forgive others the failings they may or may not have, to be permissive, and ultimately to leave others alone. You may disapprove of someone's lifestyle choices, but if those lifestyle choices are non-violent and non-restrictive (that is, not restricting of others in their lifestyle choices as a result of your lifestyle choices), then, in the words of a recently famous song, you need to "let it go." To be sure, in a democracy everyone is entitled to their opinion, to speak it freely and to be judged on it in turn. Most people will be quite happy to share their thoughts with you, even if you didn't ask for it; but then most people move on with their lives. Not so with dogmatists and enthusiastic fascists.

Let's be blunt: IS are enthusiastic fascists who justify their actions through dogma. In basic propositional terms: If the belief (the dogma) is correct, then any action in furtherance of that belief is also right. What is hidden, however, is the more fundamental premise: If I hold this belief, then it is right; and if it is right, then I am justified in taking any action in furtherance of the belief that I hold. What is at issue is not so much the belief but the believer and the way they use their beliefs to cover up their true intentions. A religious or political belief is merely a form of capital the possessor uses to both justify and further their position of power. That capital can be shared, which increases the durability of that capital. In democratic politics, that capital is consolidated in the form of political parties; in religion, it is used to consolidate a religious organisation, the Catholic church being the most obvious example. Such organisations equip their members with resources and moral and intellectual support. They also present their members with mechanisms for acquiring positions of power. Consider this: could any political leader rise to the position of Prime Minister or President without the support of party mechanisms? Consider also what a Prime Minister or President most do in order to gain the support of that party. We often talk of our political leaders in terms of their "ambition." Consider what this actually means! The ambition for what? Quite simply, it is the ambition to make decisions, ostensibly on behalf of others, but in reality to make decisions that affect, and in many cases control, the behaviour (the choices, decisions) of others.

Things are a little different with religious organisations--there is no democracy in a church or a mosque or a synagogue. Behaviour is controlled by religious edicts. The rise to power is also a little different, but the mechanisms are not too dissimilar to political parties. To rise to power in any religious organisation one must not simply reflect the beliefs of other members, but act as a cipher or spruiker of the faith. Like any leader, a religious leader must adopt the mantle of the "I" in the hidden premise. This, to my mind, is the Hobbesian truth underpinning the power structures that form in relation to human activities. Any power structure ultimately lends itself to the formation of a cult of personality, and this is as true in politics as it is in religion. Power flows from the top down, presenting a structure for vassals (those delegated power by the leader, the Leviathan), and a path for those vassals toward greater power.

In a democracy, such a power structure is supposed to be independent of the political parties vying for power; that power structure, perhaps most idealistically embodied by a constitution, is meant to at least protect the public against the excesses of Hobbesian-Nietzschean personal cultists. It can, of course, all go wrong. IS simply presents a new power structure, quite different from those established over the last 100 years, for personal cultists to carve out their own domain. The dogmatism of IS is merely a veneer, a shiny new thing to attract the young and impressionable who do not yet understand the urges that drive them to act in the ways they do. The young believe, not understanding that they privilege their beliefs above all others, not because their beliefs are right, but because they believe them; they are the "I" that believes and justifies the belief on behalf of their own will to power, their own ambitions.

We project the believing "I" on to a leader, because under that leader we might exercise our own rights to power. We see this in democracy, most vociferously after an election, when the victors crow over the carcass of their defeated enemies. The cult of personality is strongest then; the world is suddenly a better place, the future brighter--at least for the believers. For the others, those who believe differently, the nation is ruined and we must stop at nothing to rectify the obvious mistake. "Nothing," that is, except violence or anything undemocratic, or anything likely to cause lasting damage to the country. That's the important difference between a democratic and a dogmatic power structure. Life will never be perfect, no matter who's in charge; but at least we don't go to war every time we disagree about something. And we sure as hell don't decapitate fellow human beings for disagreeing with us.

An Educated Democracy

Education in Australia, and around the world more broadly, has been under political attack for some time. Education has been under attack from both the Left and Right in different ways, but both Progressives and Conservatives have seen education as either a tool or a threat and seek to use it or subvert it to their ideological ends. That's a much broader issues than I want to touch on here; there is a more immediate threat to education in Australia, specifically higher education. I did not support the purported "Gonski" reforms to primary and secondary education at the expense of tertiary or higher education. I won't go into much detail here; briefly put, Gonski, while providing for a national primary and secondary curriculum, was to be funded by cuts to the tertiary industry. This ignores the fact that the teachers of tomorrow are educated at university today; put simply, you can't improve education at one level by undermining it at another. I considered this change, under a left-leaning Labor government, a squib, a dud. 

The cuts to universities that were supposed to fund Gonski would be continued under the recently elected right-leaning Coalition government - but without the reforms. After much protest, however, the new conservative government backed down and agreed to implement the full reforms - for four years. This same government has also proposed reforms of its own: deregulation of the university sector, as well as increasing HECS, or student loan, repayments. The end result will be higher upfront costs for degrees, and higher backended costs (HECS repayments) for students. Such reforms are symptomatic of the Americanisation of the Australian economy and its culture. Such reforms will entrench class divisions, and lead to a society of endebted workers and citizens. That, of course, is the point. It's a part of the conservative grind. Entrench divisions and debt and it becomes harder to change society. In the same way that conservative governments always seek to undermine unionism and its membership, and thereby reducing the support base of its progressive opponents, conservative decision-making, such as curtailing the economic and intellectual mobility of the lower classes, is predicated on, well, preventing change! It's disappointing that the erstwhile defenders of education, the progresive Labor party, would play into the hands of its ostensible enemies. 

I must confess: I depend for my livelihood on university students. I teach. The deregulation of fees and the introduction of interest rates on HECS debt may impact on student enrolments, and thereby on my livelihood. But I work in this industry because I believe it has the greatest potential for social and economic change; no other industry, no other institutional service, can empower people to understand and change their world quite like higher education. The university trains the nation's best and brightest to be even better and brighter, to transform their lives and the life of the nation. I shudder at the further diminution of the national intellect by this government's cuts to peak research and science bodies (the CSIRO invented wifi, for goodness sake!); we don't even have a science minister! 

Perhaps the most egregious injury, but one most overlooked, is the loss of a critically literate electorate. Education isn't just about training workers, but educating citizens and voters to hold their government - and each other - to account. A educated electorate is a robust one, one that can change the political discourse. An honest politician is one forced consistently to answer intelligent and probing questions. The decisions politicians make on our behalf matter. We don't live in a pure economy; we live in a political economy. We have never lived, and will never live in a situation where the pure mechanism of the free market operates with impunity. Our economic success depends on our democratic diligence, and our diligence depends on our critical, higher, education. 

I am, perhaps, getting too vague and abstract. There is a specific point worth discussing here, and it's the role of money in education. The usual data rolled out in the debate around HECS debt is that up to six billion dollars will never be recovered. To focus on gross expenditure is problematic; it does not address the creation or increase of value as a legitimate outcome of such expenditure. To justify increasing or decreasing funding (for anything) requires addressing the effect on value such an increase or decrease would have. Value, at its most basic, means that an investment of funds produces a return of funds greater than the initial outlay; however, this implies that value is static: X amount invested returns X(x2), thus ends the transaction. Value can be enduring or ongoing. "Institutional value," value that is created by government investment, must necessarily be enduring because a government is not like a business, nor is it like a household for that matter. The government does not seek to make profit, but to produce the conditions whereby others can profit and pursue their own interests. 

Government expediture should seek, then, to create value, to produce an income capacity in relation to a specific program or object of investment, in excess of the initial outlay of money for that program. That is, ideally, the program will yield an economic benefit of greater comparable value than the raw dollars spent on it. This creation of value can be measured year by year, or in initial expense against the lifetime of value created. The six billion dollars of unrecoverable HECS debt is usually paired with the 24 billion dollars of total HECS debt, which means 25% of the debt is estimated not to be recovered. The calculation that concludes that this is somehow "lost debt" is fallacious because it ignores the broader calculation whereby the value created through the 24 billion dollars, in the form of highly trained teachers, doctors, engineers, administrators, business people, among many other disciplines, PLUS the 18 billion dollars that IS expected to be paid back is compared to the 6 billion dollars of unrecoverable debt. 

Put another way, we can ask the question: How much value is created in society and the in the economy by the activities of the aforementioned professionals? Then, to that value we can add the amount of money that will be paid back (approximately 18 billion dollars). Then, we can compare that combined number of institutional value + repaid debt - unrecoverable debt to determine the total amount of money, or rather value, that the HECS debt mechanism helps to put into society. The ratio of created value to lost debt, I am willing to bet, will be orders of magnitude in favour of the former. We can assume this on the basis that education is inherently value-adding. One of the central motivations for higher education is to "up-skill" to pursue a better, higher paying, job. If value is not created in this way, then we would need to rethink our entire educational philosopher. HECS is an investment, one that yields indirect value. But that's the thing: the government's success should mostly be measured indirectly. A government doesn't make a profit - it's not a business. Indirect value, institutional value, the regulatory and legislative mechanisms the government creates and oversees that produce value for its citizens to pursue fulfilling lives, personally, economically, and socially, is the true measure of any government.