Wie wollen wir leben?

In-München Dezember 2009 - Belästigungen von Michael Sailer
Ein Vorschlag zur Güte an die protestierenden Studenten (und ihre Gegner)

Eine Frau Wintermantel, so was wie die oberste Verwaltungsverwalterin der deutschen Universitäten, hat erklärt: "Auf den Arbeitsmärkten wächst die Akzeptanz der Bachelor- und Masterabsolventen." Das, meint sie, sei ein Erfolg.

Ja ist es, und zwar für die Durchsetzung vollkommener geistiger Verwirrung in Bezug auf das, was man in Europa unter "Bildung" versteht. "Bildung" ist für Leute wie Wintermantel nichts anderes und nicht mehr als ein Arsenal von Fertigkeiten, die der Mensch braucht, um als Arbeitskraft eingesetzt werden zu können. Idealtypisch verkörpert ist diese Ideologie in der Durchsetzung der "Wirtschaftswissenschaften", im engeren Sinne der Betriebswirtschaftslehre (die nicht umsonst "Lehre" heißt) , als Leitdisziplin aller akademischen Zweige und Richtungen. Niemand traut sich mehr zu fragen, was diese Schulung in den Dogmen der Geldreligion an einer Universität zu suchen hat, seit mehr Menschen BWL "studieren" als irgendein anderes Fach, seit Menschen Dingsbumsklimbim wie "Sporteventmarketing" für akademisch halten, so etwas den Künsten, der Literatur, Sprachen, Philosophie, Musik, Historiographie etc. gleichsetzen und meinen, man könne diese ebenso in ein paar Jahren wie in einer Schule "lernen" und den Lernerfolg mit einem "Bachelor"-Abschluss nachweisen, um dann loszustarten und sich verwerten zu lassen.

Um das klarzustellen: es ist völlig verständlich und im Sinne der kapitalistischen Logik zwangsläufig, dass Firmen und Konzerne möglichst gut ausgebildete Arbeitskräfte haben möchten. Aber uns (alle), als Gesellschaft, geht das überhaupt nichts an. Wenn jemand Menschenmaterial zum Ausbeuten braucht, soll er sich das gefälligst selbst heranziehen. Oder sagen wir's ein bisschen milder: Wer ein Studium als Ausbildung (zum Ausüben eines Berufs) begreift, der ist ein Auszubildender und kein Student (und darf sich nach Ende seiner Ausbildung gerne "Meister" nennen, wie das in anständigen Berufen seit langem üblich ist - wohingegen der Titel "Bachelor" - "Junggeselle" - die schreiende Lächerlichkeit der ganzen skandalösen "Reform" belegt). Das meine ich nicht im Geringsten überheblich; es ist nur eine notwendige Abgrenzung. Ein Studium hat keinen "Zweck" und per se auch kein Ziel, nur das, sich zu bilden um kritisch denken, reflektieren, sich äußern und andere Menschen anregen und lehren zu können. Das wiederum geht die Industrie, den Handel und andere Gewerbe nichts an, im Gegenteil: Es läuft ihnen im Normalfall zuwider. Deshalb gehen sie dagegen vor, indem sie sich die Universitäten unter den Nagel reißen, sie zu Berufsschulen umbauen und mit Depperldisziplinen überschwemmen, die man möglichst gut kontrollieren, normieren und zur Heranziehung von arbeitsfähigem Humanmaterial nutzen kann.

Der derzeitige Konflikt an den Universitäten wäre also ganz einfach zu lösen: durch die Gründung neuer, staatlicher Institute, die ausschließlich für die zugänglich sind, die studieren wollen. Solche Menschen brauchen wir alle, als Gesellschaft deshalb sollte ihr Studium selbstverständlich kostenlos sein; man könnte ihnen auch eine Art Bildungsgehalt zahlen, damit sie sich geistig betätigen können und nicht gezwungen sind, nebenbei zu arbeiten. Die derzeitigen "Hochschulen" kann man dann der Wirtschaft übergeben, damit sie sie nach Belieben zur Ausbildung von Arbeitskräften nutzt. Dafür gibt es selbstverständlich vom keinen einzigen Cent vom Staat. Wenn die Wirtschaft eine möglichst gut verwertbare Ausbildung möchte, soll sie selbst dafür aufkommen - sie steckt ja hinterher auch die Profite ein. Dass sie diese an den Börsen verklappt und dafür die Regierungen Studiengebühren kassieren lässt, dass selbige Regierungen die Studiengebühren dann dafür missbraucht die Steuern der Großverdiener zu senken und andererseits ein bürokratisches Monstrum wie die Bafög-Behörden schaffen, um per Almosen, Leihgabe und Augenwischerei den Eindruck zu erwecken, ihnen sei daran gelegen, Kindern anderer Klassen als der der Besitzenden und Bestimmenden ein Studium oder wenigstens eine elitemäßige Berufsausbildung zu ermöglichen macht den ganzen Circus vollends zur Farce.

Der Konflikt an den und um die Universitäten, der sich derzeit endlich und vollkommen legitim in Demonstrationen, Besetzungen und anderem entlädt (und dies hoffentlich weiterhin tun wird), hat also über den Vordergrund hinaus nicht das geringste mit "Bachelor", "Master" und anderem Bologna-Pipifax zu tun, auch nicht mit minimalen Erhöhungen der Bafög-Almosen und der (selbstverständlich absolut notwendigen) Abschaffung der Studiengebühren. Wer damit nicht einverstanden ist, dem wird es auf die Dauer nichts helfen, zu fordern, die Heizung aufzudrehen, nachdem die Hauswände eingerissen worden sind. Mag sein, dass es davon in der Ruine vorübergehend ein bisschen wärmer wird - aber nur so lange, bis der letzte Brennstoff verbraucht ist. Anders gesagt: Wer nicht damit einverstanden ist, dass wirkliche Bildung und kritisches Denken vollständig aus Europa verschwinden und ersetzt werden durch eine totale Ökonomisierung des menschlichen Lebens, der wird früher oder später nicht darum herkommen, die Systemfrage zu stellen. Und die lautet: Wie wollen wir leben? Oder, erst einmal: Wollen wir wirklich weiterhin und immer noch radikaler so "leben"? Und: Wer hat eigentlich bestimmt, dass wir so leben müssen, und wer profitiert davon?

no answer

I am intrigued by the fact that some questions keep coming back to me, even though there is no chance they will ever be answered. Maybe there exists no answer.

My current favorite is: "Why did you do that?"

your language or my language?

i'm ever again amazed how queezy i feel about speaking somebody's language when i'm at home if they don't know that i am capable of doing so. i really wonder why it makes me feel that awkward, and also if i'm the only person with that problem..

classifying strengths and weaknesses...

Your friends have voted on your strengths and weaknesses:

STRENGTHS:

best listener
prettiest
most desired for marriage

WEAKNESSES:

most absentee
most adventurous

don't worry?

I wonder if it is any use in life to worry about small things (and maybe even big ones?). I mean, there are certain things that might happen and that won't be nice. But if they need to happen, they will if we worried or not. (Actually, sometimes i guess they might happen even faster..)

So if things happen anyway, the difference lies in our own attitude: do we enjoy the good things we have and the possibilities in life, or do we spend all this time with worrying?

Actually, i wonder if it is about what one believes in; if one is generally optimistic and seeing chances at every corner, or if one is afraid of new things, trying to keep the familiar as unchanged as possible?

decisions, decisions..

... and still more decisions! It's impossible how many things one has to decide during the course of a day or so.. And so many of them are really hard to optimize, so only attempting to make the best choice on some keeps blocking my thoughts for considerable time. So maybe 'any decision is a good decision'?

i guess many of them are not that dramatic - maybe can even be undone with some more hassle. but then, some aren't. strangely enough though, no one ever teaches how to deal with those. most people's strategy seems to be to treat them just as if it wouldn't matter, but are they right to act like this? or are they just shunning their responsibility and the possible consequences of their actions? or are they getting lost in trying to figure out the best choice? or even trying to define 'best'?

mirror

I wonder how much the points someone criticises you for tells you about them.

Considering the hypothesis that people might be most annoyed by characteristics they have themselves and consider negative casts a rather different light on the issue.

experiment of the day

is it possible for a group of geeks to party with normal people without being uncovered?

[edited 22.02.09: the answer is no]

what if..

.. for each human there is really a path they are destined for but they are at the same time free to leave it, to sidestep from it, to keep going in circles instead? imagine there would be a sort of transparent hull around the path to guide the one travelling on it, which could at the same time be broken by each individual at all times by sheer will of ones mind? would one sense the resistance and reconsider? or play it down and go nevertheless, maybe even flee from the sensation of overstepping a border to nomansland?

the answer is silence

what is the best strategy when the reaction to your action is silence?

to ask?

to assume everything is as it should?

to declare the action the acutal aim, consequently rendering an answer unneccessary?

to trust that there would be a response in case something went wrong?


these days i quite fancy the redefinition approaches; sadly they are not completely risk free..

one or the other or the same?

it never ceases to amaze me that there are people which are very important to me just maybe because of some facet of their character which proves to be the helping hand or the stone to stumble over which gives me the needed direction for my next steps.
quite often these people are probably not aware of their good influence on me and not always i can tell them (either i do not even know them as they might have impressed me by there way of behaving in passing by, or at the time when their behaviour is influencing me it is painful and so i cannot yet show/notice my appreciation for it).

this phenomenon in itself fascinates me a lot already. but even more interesting i find how the roles in this play change depending on the people with whom i interact. maybe it is best to use an approximate example to explain my point. each person biologically has parents, some have siblings, and some later might have a partner and children. let's pick one person which is in this full family network. it is clear to see that this person then has a lot of different roles with respect to nearly all of the others: the one of a child, the one of a sibling, the one of a partner, the one of a parent.. all those being just different facets of the same person, and likely to influence one another.

so with people around it is similar. maybe the roles are not defined that clearly in terms of family concepts only (especially as the definition of friendship is very hard to be put down with precision; again i wonder if it is rather a matter of personal attitude or not..). nevertheless, there seem to be similar patterns: one person takes a certain role when relating to me; possibly a role which i cannot at first understand.

however, what recently has happened is that all of a sudden i find myself exactly in this 'other' role, being unexpectedly confronted with the inside view and challenges, when interacting with somebody else (whilst they might be taking on 'my' own old role...) summing up, the result is rather .. well .. i dont know if more frightening or fascinating. probably both. often it gives interesting clues about what other people might have gone through when having to put up with me.. and at the same time, it makes it a bit easier to understand what the other one in 'my' other skin is going through.

of course these are only hypotheses, and it is likely that i skipped some things which would make my flood even close to consistent. but could it not be that everyone is incorporating (consciously or inconsciously? nearly?) all different roles in their personality? and that discovering one after the other would lead them to finally get an idea about their own identity?

the unknown other

it seems to be a real sad truth - but slowly i am involuntarily sliding towards the conclusion that - no matter how hard you try - not even when dedicating a good part of yourself to it - you will not be able to really understand someone else. maybe sometimes a bit; if you have a lot of patience and the other one is helping you. but often enough they do not. i wonder if it is because they do not want to be known, because they are avoiding knowing themselves. somehow i can not believe that it should be because they generally do not want to be understood (i guess everybody in some sense has this need to be understood by people in their surroundings - or are there people who honestly do not care?).
so what is to be done with this? i find it annoying that all these attempts to bribe people out of the security of their shell should be so fruitless.. so i guess the only chance i have is to become very very old and never ever move place again.. maybe then i'll get lucky. other ideas?

borderline

I wonder how it comes that deep emotions put into words so often come close to kitsch.. somehow it's nearly frustrating to notice how not suitable language is to communicate really important things. also wondering if humans will ever manage to dig out a more adapt tool.

one photo..

.. and so many completely different interpretations! I was really surprised how differently people percieve the same image, showed to them without any specific context. The spontaneous reactions ranged from shocked (it looks really violent, borderline) to completely enthusiastic (oh, so sweeet!). Especially these opposites make me wonder how much the reaction of these people tells about themselves, their experiences in life? And at the same time it again strenghtens the point of photography being something very subjective, in this case even independently from the photographer.

liking sincere people

I realised again how much I appreciate sincere people. Ok, admittedly sincerity might be a bit rough to take at first, but I am by now convinced that it saves you a lot of trouble down the line (basically the same thing as the short feedback cycles in agile programming... quite a human and common sense thing, really).
It's like filling things in a black box, not knowing if they go together well with what is already in.. but how should you possibly know if the owner doesn't tell? You will usually only notice when suddenly and out of the lightest blue there comes an explosion for some completely minuscule thing. And as is probably intuitive, an explosion tends to cause much more damage than some bit of incompatibility information given at the start.
For this reason, it take it to be quite useful to address people directly when a problem occurs, because most of the time they are not deliberately being a nuisance. I just wonder if generally people need more encouragement to dare to state that they do not like something.