After receiving the link from several friends, PMB has had the pleasure of viewing this, a depressing but hilarious blog that archives Facebook responses to articles from The Onion from people who are apparently taking the Onion articles as real news. The most prevalent example is a series of Facebook posts calling for Americans to repent, lamenting the fake Onion headline 'Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billon Abortionplex' (one of these includes a further lamentation over the comic material in the Onion article: 'They will give pedicures to the moms after their abortion! Federally funded and all! So sad!!!!').
Most of the people PMB comes across--people who are generally very educated, well informed, and operate with high levels of literacy--react the same way to the (it must be said again) absolutely hilarious inability of the Facebook posters to comprehend that The Onion is a comic publication for entertainment purposes, and its 'news' is not real news, but satirical fiction about news. We tend to laugh at first, and then, after a little reflection, deem this misapprehension a very sad phenomenon. We think it's generally sad that there are 'stupid people' out there; that, in the abstract sense, 'people are stupid.' We might blame failed education systems, or the peurility of popular culture, or socioeconomic disparity, or, crudely, some 'inherent' inequality of aptitude among humans. In any case, there's something depressing about the fact that these people didn't get the joke.
What not getting the joke boils down to in this case, however, is not necessarily individual aptitude, pop culture, or lack of educational opportunity, but rather a misplaced educational focus, along with a horrifically dated understanding of what literacy really means in the 21st-century, industrialized world.
It's not that we're not aware of multiple layers and types of literacy. That someone could read an Onion article as a serious news peice shows potential deficits in several of these layers and types. Assuming a baseline ability to read--to undestand an alphabet, to have a sizeable vocabulary, and to make reasonably accurate meaning of the symbols on the page--it would also take some degree of cultural literacy to make it easy to properly comprehend the Onion article: it would certainly help to know what The Onion is, what kind of articles it produces, what kind of audience it writes for, etc. As a subset of this kind of cultural literacy, it would certainly aid comprehension to have some political literacy--to know that, for example, Planned Parenthood has recently been under attack by conservative politicians. This would give helpful context to what might appear to be exaggerations of actual claims made recently by politicians in the actual news. And to gain some sense of what constitutes exaggeration, or hyperbole, or metaphor, or satirical tone, a certain level of (for lack of a better term) 'literary' literacy is necessary for good comprehension.
One would think that such an awkward phrase as 'literary literacy' is silly and redundant, but, in fact, attention to literary devices and effects--subtle ways of producing meaning--has lately been minimized in favor of information design and information management skills that align more ostensibly with the needs and features of the so-called Information Age. Here again is a prime site for the divergence of information from meaning, the consequences of which produce the kinds of hilarious but also sad misapprehensions featured on the 'Literally Unbelievable' blog.
The point here is that, after the vast, vast majority of people in the developed and industrialized world gained literacy in its most basic, narrow, and traditional sense--the baseline-functional ability to read and write--we've begun to take literacy for granted. We've lost track of what a meaningful, up-tp-date definition of literacy would be for our present situation. And we've failed one another in so doing. PMB (and the majority of his readers) loves to have a good laugh, from a position of extreme educational privilege, at these 'idiots' who really think that Kansas is building a multi-billion-dollar abortion megaplex where women can get pedicures after their abortions, but we should consider that these kinds of misreadings are far more widespread, and occur in more serious contexts (Obama is a secret muslim who faked his US birth certificate; the Qur'an says women should be covered from head to toe) than we'd like to admit.
We love to obsess over technological advancement and pretend like our societies, filled with people who can read and write, have evolved beyond the need for serious consideration of literacy, rhetoric, etc. We like to claim that such advancements have democratized information and education. But we'll struggle in myriad ways until we update our understanding of what it means to be literate, and shape our curricula accordingly. Because, strange as it may sound, true literacy today remains a relatively elite prerogative.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
An Aimless Rant
Hey cyclist who thinks that, just because she's not operating a car, things like traffic lights do not apply to her. Shouldn't it have occurred to you that the nature of the very means of transportation that apparently justifies your exceptionality is also what makes it very probable that, should you encounter one of those larger, heavier metal objects in the wrong sort of way as a result of your inability to follow traffic laws, it's you who will end up dead?
When you use a shared or public toilet, do you enjoy forcing your hand up into the toilet paper dispenser to fish out the end of the roll because some asshole who was in there before you carlessly tugged the paper from the bottom, causing it to break off from up inside the dispenser? Assuming the answer is no, why do you leave it that way for other people?
Do you think you're adept at walking and texting at the same time? Because you're not.
If you're walking along the sidewalk (pavement) abreast with two or more people, and I'm walking toward you, it's incumbent upon one or more of you to move out of my way by tucking behind one another in single file. Why? Because we both have the same right to the shared space, whereas you and your friends have no right to monopolize it by walking side-by-side. I understand that sometimes, unthinkingly, you expect me to step out into the road to get hit by a cyclist so you can all pass by. And that's why, when I didn't move, you ran into my shoulder, winced, and thought I was the one being an asshole.
If you don't satisfy any of the following conditions, you have no business wearing a New York Yankees hat: 1) You live or lived in the Bronx. 2) Your friend, partner, spouse, or family member plays or played for the Yankees. 3) You play or played for the Yankees.
Have you noticed how academics, you know, sort of, come up with our own sort of verbal fillers to replace 'like' and 'um,' which we roundly despise in the speech of others?
I don't like cake. For the love of god, stop offering me cake.
Double-wide baby strollers should be illegal. People who carelessly thrust their single-infant-occupied strollers out in front of you as a way of forcing themselves through a crowd are obnoxious enough; the double-stroller pushers should be shamed off the sidewalk (pavement) and relegated to the cycle lane until we can pass due legislation, an international ban.
If you accuse me of spending my time 'figuring out what the author menas,' I write you off as an idiot then and there.
If you represent a corporation or a society of people interested in joining or representing corporations, don't ask me for favors. Ever. Once I asked my boss if I could, like, have something for nothing, and she said that's not how corporations work. Well, that's not how I work either.
Too many people go around feeling smug about all they do to save and improve lives. Too few of them have ever stopped to think about what makes lives worth saving and improving.
When you use a shared or public toilet, do you enjoy forcing your hand up into the toilet paper dispenser to fish out the end of the roll because some asshole who was in there before you carlessly tugged the paper from the bottom, causing it to break off from up inside the dispenser? Assuming the answer is no, why do you leave it that way for other people?
Do you think you're adept at walking and texting at the same time? Because you're not.
If you're walking along the sidewalk (pavement) abreast with two or more people, and I'm walking toward you, it's incumbent upon one or more of you to move out of my way by tucking behind one another in single file. Why? Because we both have the same right to the shared space, whereas you and your friends have no right to monopolize it by walking side-by-side. I understand that sometimes, unthinkingly, you expect me to step out into the road to get hit by a cyclist so you can all pass by. And that's why, when I didn't move, you ran into my shoulder, winced, and thought I was the one being an asshole.
If you don't satisfy any of the following conditions, you have no business wearing a New York Yankees hat: 1) You live or lived in the Bronx. 2) Your friend, partner, spouse, or family member plays or played for the Yankees. 3) You play or played for the Yankees.
Have you noticed how academics, you know, sort of, come up with our own sort of verbal fillers to replace 'like' and 'um,' which we roundly despise in the speech of others?
I don't like cake. For the love of god, stop offering me cake.
Double-wide baby strollers should be illegal. People who carelessly thrust their single-infant-occupied strollers out in front of you as a way of forcing themselves through a crowd are obnoxious enough; the double-stroller pushers should be shamed off the sidewalk (pavement) and relegated to the cycle lane until we can pass due legislation, an international ban.
If you accuse me of spending my time 'figuring out what the author menas,' I write you off as an idiot then and there.
If you represent a corporation or a society of people interested in joining or representing corporations, don't ask me for favors. Ever. Once I asked my boss if I could, like, have something for nothing, and she said that's not how corporations work. Well, that's not how I work either.
Too many people go around feeling smug about all they do to save and improve lives. Too few of them have ever stopped to think about what makes lives worth saving and improving.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Tenure-Track/Partner-Track: What Law Firms Can Learn From Academics' Mistakes
There has been much talk lately of what is euphemistically called a 'restructuring' of law-firm labor: the growth of full-time lawyer positions that are off the 'partner-track,' or for which there is no expectation that one be considered for partnership at the firm. As the recent NY Times article explains, non-partner-track lawyers are paid significantly less (around 60K/year) than their partner-track colleagues, largely for the same amount and type of work.
Those who would favor this two-track system argue that the non-partner-track allows more flexibility for those who aren't sure if they want to dedicate 8 years of their lives to the long and arduous slog toward partnership at a big law firm.
What proponents of the two-track system are missing, however, is that, beyond the lower salary, the podunk work locations, and the contingency of the labor (a non-partner-track attorney will certainly have less job security and would be easier to replace on shorter notice), such a system will create an especially nasty effect: non-partner-track lawyers will become a kind of legal underclass, looked down upon (and sometimes pitied) by their partner-track colleagues, abused by those in positions of managerial and budget-setting power, and, ultimatly, multiplied to create a growing army of lower-paid lawyers with fewer benefits that will become the standard of the profession, rather than the exception. Why does PMB think this?
Just look at academia.
When managerial and administrative types in higher education figured out that it's cheaper to take advantage of the market glut of competent people vying to work in academia--and the concomitant 'price' inelasticity of demand for academic work--by hiring adjunct, non-tenure-track faculty to carry the burden of university teaching, instead of hiring tenure-track faculty (who, unlike adjuncts, actually get health and retirement benefits), the number of adjunct professors has risen dramatically while the number of tenure-track faculty has declined dramatically.
The effects of this shift in academic labor are manifold. For one, adjuncts are often taken advantage of, and treated like an underclass by tenured professors. Two, their abundance in relation to tenured professors, combined with their lack of jub security and high degree of expendibility, means that large numbers of faculty in a given department can disappear at any given time (not so great for students, or for building a better department, without continuity). Three, the dignity of the profession, and the quality of higher education as a whole, have taken a serious hit. The holy grail of tenure is virtually the last aspect of the profession that attracts the brightest and best people to choose to make less money as educators and pass up more lucrative jobs in industry; and that last incentive is rapidly eroding.
What would it mean for our economy, our political discourse, our ability to compete with other countries, and to preserve our knowledge and traditions and ways of life, if, as with primary and secondary school teaching (at which we are, on a global scale, pretty awful), the brightest and best were scared off to do something else?
The answer to this question is tied in many ways with the legal profession. It, too, is one of our most important institutions. And we can't afford to gut it from the inside out the way we've already begun to gut academia. Lawyers need to be incentivized and rewarded properly for their high-skilled and (cynics turn away!) crucial labor. Building a poorly compensated underclass of lawyers to replace what has been for so long one of our most dignified and desirable professions won't just harm lawyers--it will have negative consequences for broader society.
Astute consumers of what is loosly and perilously called 'culture,' and what is tellingly called 'history,' will recognize that when budgets are tight and economic times are tough, the short-sighted instincts of managerial types point to budgetary slicing and dicing and cost-cutting all over the place. Some things, however, need to be preserved through the tough times. Just because savvy law firms have figured out how to keep up their profits by 'restructuring' their labor doesn't mean this is good for the profession long-term. Lawyers, take it from an academic: fight for what you deserve before it's too late.
Those who would favor this two-track system argue that the non-partner-track allows more flexibility for those who aren't sure if they want to dedicate 8 years of their lives to the long and arduous slog toward partnership at a big law firm.
What proponents of the two-track system are missing, however, is that, beyond the lower salary, the podunk work locations, and the contingency of the labor (a non-partner-track attorney will certainly have less job security and would be easier to replace on shorter notice), such a system will create an especially nasty effect: non-partner-track lawyers will become a kind of legal underclass, looked down upon (and sometimes pitied) by their partner-track colleagues, abused by those in positions of managerial and budget-setting power, and, ultimatly, multiplied to create a growing army of lower-paid lawyers with fewer benefits that will become the standard of the profession, rather than the exception. Why does PMB think this?
Just look at academia.
When managerial and administrative types in higher education figured out that it's cheaper to take advantage of the market glut of competent people vying to work in academia--and the concomitant 'price' inelasticity of demand for academic work--by hiring adjunct, non-tenure-track faculty to carry the burden of university teaching, instead of hiring tenure-track faculty (who, unlike adjuncts, actually get health and retirement benefits), the number of adjunct professors has risen dramatically while the number of tenure-track faculty has declined dramatically.
The effects of this shift in academic labor are manifold. For one, adjuncts are often taken advantage of, and treated like an underclass by tenured professors. Two, their abundance in relation to tenured professors, combined with their lack of jub security and high degree of expendibility, means that large numbers of faculty in a given department can disappear at any given time (not so great for students, or for building a better department, without continuity). Three, the dignity of the profession, and the quality of higher education as a whole, have taken a serious hit. The holy grail of tenure is virtually the last aspect of the profession that attracts the brightest and best people to choose to make less money as educators and pass up more lucrative jobs in industry; and that last incentive is rapidly eroding.
What would it mean for our economy, our political discourse, our ability to compete with other countries, and to preserve our knowledge and traditions and ways of life, if, as with primary and secondary school teaching (at which we are, on a global scale, pretty awful), the brightest and best were scared off to do something else?
The answer to this question is tied in many ways with the legal profession. It, too, is one of our most important institutions. And we can't afford to gut it from the inside out the way we've already begun to gut academia. Lawyers need to be incentivized and rewarded properly for their high-skilled and (cynics turn away!) crucial labor. Building a poorly compensated underclass of lawyers to replace what has been for so long one of our most dignified and desirable professions won't just harm lawyers--it will have negative consequences for broader society.
Astute consumers of what is loosly and perilously called 'culture,' and what is tellingly called 'history,' will recognize that when budgets are tight and economic times are tough, the short-sighted instincts of managerial types point to budgetary slicing and dicing and cost-cutting all over the place. Some things, however, need to be preserved through the tough times. Just because savvy law firms have figured out how to keep up their profits by 'restructuring' their labor doesn't mean this is good for the profession long-term. Lawyers, take it from an academic: fight for what you deserve before it's too late.
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