Editor’s note: Creston C. Davis studied at Yale, Oxford, and the University of Virginia and is currently a writer at The Huffington Post, founder and director at The Global Center for Advanced Studies, and a professor in the philosophy department at Colorado College. His work in education is especially interesting. Specifically, if you have not investigated the possibilities of attending courses with The Global Center for Advanced Studies (GCAS), please, take the time to find out what it is and think about what it would be like to graduate debt free after having studied with world-renown scholars. In terms of economic considerations, Dr. Davis has not forgotten his working class roots.
We creeped Dr. Davis’ Facebook page. Yes, that sounds a bit strange, but the material we found actually fits well within the goals and aspirations supported at Critical Civitates: A Journal of the People. Think about it. For many, Facebook posts are a ferocious storm of ideological norming experiences, experiences keeping citizens depoliticized, dehistoricized, and disengaged, posts whose content ranges most often from trite to obnoxious.
Creston C. Davis’ posts are the antithesis of that clamorous torrent.
Dr. Davis posts material ranging from images highlighting memories of collaboration with Peter McLaren, Henry Giroux, Slavoj Zizek, Azfar Hussain, and Alain Badiou, among so many other prominent critical theorists, to succinct commentaries documenting the struggle of common people in Greece resisting the forces of global capital. In his posts, we hear the noble voice of a public intellectual questing for equality and justice while simultaneously acting on the world by creating a place where common people can obtain a high-quality, debt-free education. In relation to the mundane mountain of scribbled trash composing the midden of Facebook offerings, we have essayed to scout an easy trail leading you to a hidden pinnacle of possibility.
Having just returned from nine months in Europe, much of that time spent struggling for democracy in Greece, Dr. Davis now resides in New York City where he continues organizing the Global Center for Advanced Studies and putting the final touches on “a few novels and books that are nearly ready to go to press.” Here at CC, we look forward to reading those few novels and books, and we look forward to spending more time creeping the Facebook posts of Dr. Creston C. Davis, a scholar whose work we hope you will share with your friends and family.
Briefly, a Year: A Series from the Facebook Posts of Creston C. Davis
July 27, 2015
Sometimes you're shocked by your proximity to history. Today I'm doing some research in the Brooklyn Public Library in which I'm putting together my GCAS seminar, "Struggling for Democracy: Neoliberalism and Social Uprisings from the Arab Spring to Occupy to the question of Syriza" (with guest lectures from Gal Kirn, Lisa Duggan, William I Robinson, and others), on the very hallowed ground where the first battle of the American Revolutionary War was waged after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Gen. George Washington was soundly defeated by the Red Coats led by Gen. Howe, trying to defend New York without a Navy. Two points stand out: (a) although Washington was defeated, his nearly impossible retreat to Manhattan overnight is recorded as one of the bravest and most brilliant military maneuvers in history; and (b) the remaining Patriots in Brooklyn were rounded up and put on British prison ships in the New York harbor where more of them died then the sum total of all deaths fought on the battlefield throughout the rebellion/war. Yes, that's right. I love reminding my conservative friends that America was born in rebellion. Later the great American poet, Walt Whitman penned these lines in memorial to the Patriot prisoners whose bones he would find on the shores on Long Island as a child:
"Greater than memory of Achilles or Ulysses,
More, more by far to thee than tomb of Alexander,
Those cart loads of old charnel ashes, scales and splints of mouldy bones,
Once living men--once resolute courage, aspiration, strength,
The stepping stones to thee to-day and here, America."
(See Image 1 in slide show at top)
July 26, 2015
There is a dialectic organized around the epicenter of the "superego" (the law) and the social deviant and outcast. Having come back to New York after a few years away, I see police everywhere--on every corner, on the subway, on the airplane. The feeling in New York (esp. in Manhattan) vis-a-vis Athens is one of "being watched" (interpellation a la Althusser) and being constantly under surveillance. The "eye" of the Big Other gazing down in order to differentiate between (a) obedience and (b) disobedience.
This pressure of the gaze creates corresponding repressive structures, which cathartically expresses itself in the desire to differentiate oneself from the other. Only this differential desire is itself framed within a consumeristic horizon of ego-centric articulation and refinement, hence the multiplicity of false differences in the appearance of things (logos, status-symbols, fashion etc.). This also explains why I saw more people running in the streets of New York within an hour then I saw in 9 months in Athens. What are they running from? The gaze, perhaps?
Yet, at times the "repression" precipitated by the law can rupture the walls of consumeristic differentials resulting in a psychotic episodes that further reinforce and reproduce the need for even more security and apparatuses of control.
The creation of debt culture has only delayed and deferred this social repression. In short, the pressure-cooker society of control is designed to explode: it's just a question of time.
July 25, 2015
What we need now is an explosion of an aesthetic that aligns with the awakening historic consciousness of the neo-fascist militarized financial institutions and their anti-democratic technological reproduction. We need different forms of literature, songs, poetry that resist folding to the subjective identities shaped by the money/debt dialectic. All things must be seen for their quality not quantity ($). In other words, we need a democratic aesthetic and struggle for equality, freedom, and solidarity. A movement is stirring, we are rising....
July 12, 2015
The Eurogroup has declared war on Greece and democracy today. It may not be a war with tanks in the streets, but it is war. One demand they submitted to Greece today was to "de-politicize the Administration." How do you de-politicize the political? How about the Troika de-finance their banks? So so absurd....
July 12, 2015
And what does the Eurogroup want from Greece? Literally for Greeks to give them their land. Neoliberalism's first tactic was to take over Greece's land and Islands by installing their conservative politicians. This is what the Greeks call "Miza." When Syriza emerged, the Eurogroup's indirect tactic emerges out of the dark from behind closed doors of the banks and into the light of day. Syriza has exposed this neoliberal strategy. Now that it's been exposed, it is time other countries join with the Greeks in solidarity against the Troika's war on democracy.
July 10, 2015
What if Syriza were to take the 13 billion austerity and begin to plan an exit in 6 months? In the meanwhile they put on trial all the corrupt capitalist politicians and the oligarchs for committing treason by fleeing the country, avoiding taxes, and literally selling off parts of Greece to their rich friends, all of which put the people of Greece into this dehumanizing situation. The working class (about 80% of Greeks) have awoken, and their power needs to be used as the motivating force to overthrow the troika.
July 5, 2015
The solidarity shown to Greece throughout Europe over the past few weeks (esp. last week) sends a message to the Troika. If they don't begin to act someway that approximates some level of humanity, I can imagine the spark that was Athens/Greece will quickly ignite a flame of democratic uprisings throughout Europe and perhaps beyond. This is only the beginning. The question really is: Does Troika and the neoliberal regime want to keep living in their fascistic bubble and watch as their house burns down, consumed by the flames of democracy, or will they begin to implement some level of democratic oversight?
July 5, 2015
So Let's just compare all the major media sources (the Guardian, ALZ, CNN, FoxNews, NYTimes, BBC, etc etc....) who all predicted a "very close call" on today's vote [in Greece] with my own prediction 61% (spot on)! It's time to shut the neoliberal media down.
December 19, 2014
FYI: In a 2008 case, a Federal court in Virginia ruled that professors have no academic freedom; all academic freedom resides with the university or college. Stronach v. Virginia State University, civil action 3:07-CV-646-HEH (E. D. Va. Jan. 15, 2008).
December 5, 2014
GCAS is a not-for-profit school. All funds are used to build up our capacity to provide debt-free accredited education. So far we have already organized our school within our website and our forthcoming courses include workshops on activism and philosophy, deconstruction series with Jean-Luc Nancy & Giovanni Tusa, Daniel Tutt & Alain Badiou, Rebecca Weisman, Azfar Hussain, the Deleuze Series with Dorothea Olkowski and Dan Smith and more. Join us!
December 11, 2014
GCAS is now cooperating with some of the best universities in Europe. In the following months we will provide accredited, debt-free education for all. We will keep you posted. This is the path we are committed to and anything less doesn't fit with our goals.
December 11, 2014
To remain true to your conviction, to sacrifice something for a greater cause is what is necessary to change the unjust neoliberalism that is even now colonializing all of us into its insidious logic. And there is a name for this injustice that we call "a global class war" that forces us into debt that we cannot pay and so is "justified" in enslaving us even more. It is time to take a stance against this to struggle for community and for justice for all people; it is a fight for democracy.
December 9, 2014
The younger generation today suffers from the disease of "despair" because the future looks bleak: College graduates are unemployed or underemployed and in huge debt. Education has failed to inspire and failed to encourage the next generation to create a better more democratic world. It's time to address the cause of the disease itself and begin to educate well. This is what The Global Center for Advanced Studies is about: it is precisely to provide hope, inspiration and empowerment. And that's something our enemies cannot even think; instead they are creating more and more "for profit" models of education. But why can't we work together to build a different world, one which we can all live in, peacefully and for the good of all people?
December 6, 2014
Look for more police violence in the streets of Athens today as tens of thousands come out to protest Alexandros Grigoropoulos' death (a 15 year old shot by police). I have witnessed undercover police who march with protestors only to throw rocks to trigger police countermeasures and unwarranted arrests. The police also target stores where they literally just come into the store and take what they want. The Greeks want democracy and a future hope, but under austerity measures, they feel little hope, especially the youth who must live with 50% unemployment. Syriza (the radical-left wing party) is gaining a lot of momentum, but the right wing "puppet" government that serves the IMF and World Bank and not the people of Greece, is really stepping up measures to keep democracy from rising (via the military and police). I took this picture of the memorial to Alexandros Grigoropoulos' life (see image 2 in slide show at top).
December 5, 2014
Notes from Athens, Greece:
1- Austerity Measures are looked upon by the average Greek as a new form of colonization.
2- This colonization has been exacted upon them from the IMF, the World Bank, and other organizations from the international financial sector.
3- The effects of this financial colonization include the precipitation of the rise of neo-fascist groups such as the Golden Dawn who instill fear and do the dirty work, so the financial elites can implement their agenda (gentrification, taking over private property for private banking business, privatizing public infrastructure, property etc.).
4- The hiring of militant police units (see note 3 above) to protect the interests of the colonizers.
5- Education (the hope of the future) is being privatized (as in the United States) so that education becomes a systematic form of indoctrination into the neoliberal ideology. Education is not about fostering democracy but about job training (oh the Irony), not about the future of Greece but about the future of how what is now named "Greece" has become a free-for-all for business to profit off of people's enslavement.
There are more forthcoming in an article I'm composing. Keep in mind, that Greece (and Spain) are just the start of what the future holds for the rest of the world. Democracy is under attack, and Greece is but one front of this global war.
December 5, 2014
The new colonialism is not just about how imperialistic policies from one Nation enslaving another more vulnerable Nation. Now colonialism functions through financial networks. One such form of colonialism is the financial imperialism that has radically hijacked education (turning it into a profit making machine by enslaving students into massive loan debt). Additionally, this financial colonialism has no geographical boundaries and is rapidly spreading to all educational sectors undermining learning and the future of a commons. This is the new colonialism in which the wealthy elite are enslaving all other classes (esp. the working and poor classes that make up 85% of the world's population). We need to think not only how 17th & 18th century imperialism worked (which still functions) but also how new capitalistic colonialism works and how we are engrafted into this obscene global class war. What can be done? The Occupy Movement was only the start, but we need to continue organizing as war is upon us whether you want it to be or not.
December 5, 2014
In the 80s Reagan signed a bill which drastically changed everything about education in America. This bill radically cut public funds to education and thus simultaneously created a massive demand for banks, universities and the US government to make money off of student loans (and the resultant debt that came along with this). Now this debt has exceeded $1,100,000,000,000 and the government now makes about $52,000,000,000 each year off of this neoliberal policy. Meanwhile, universities have gotten wealthier and at the same time are supported by wealthy white businessmen looking to make profits off of educating our children. It's time we had the courage to call this out and to put a stop to this. If we don't take a stance, who will?
November 19, 2014
Growing up in the poor working-class made me feel like my thoughts were not worthy, that somehow my ideas were not worthy (that I wasn't worthy). GCAS is a school that fights against this psychological class-war tactic. I believe that one's brilliance shouldn't be determined by one's economic class, but should be judged by its own merits, merits that are not determined on social, economic, political, or any hierarchical pre-determination through a neo-liberal and capitalist ideology, but merits that come out of engaging in social justice - and all that comes with it. But today's environment in higher education makes one feel that they have to go into debt (student loans) just to feel like their minds are acceptable. This is wrong and yet another example of the unjust system. It's time to change this: it's time to create a school that doesn't rely on banks and debt just to make one feel they are okay. Thought and ideas are not commodities that the banks should determine. It's time we join together and fight against this injustice.
November 18, 2014
The biggest challenge to human liberation is to cure the symptom of our need for a Big Other (God, the Rule of Law, authoritarianism etc.). Do we have it within us to believe in the infinite power of humanity working together for ourselves and not, say, for capitalism, nationalism, religion, the very things that undo us? When will we stop hating ourselves? When will the hatred stop? Perhaps when we have the courage to love ourselves by loving others, for it is in the other that you find yourself (and not in an empty zombie of the Big Other).
November 17, 2014
Under the Greek austerity they are hiring more police then ever. Hmmm.... I wonder what's afoot? And, moreover, how does this effect educating the future generation when teachers are fired and police are hired (See image 3 in slide show at top)?— in Athens, Greece.
October 31, 2014
GCAS is about love--about empowering and connecting. It doesn't speak for the oppressed, but gives the oppressed a way to speak to grow and to learn with anyone in the world. It's about putting the struggle for democracy into action and creating networks of solidarity in order to form a community of scholars and activists. Join us! http://gcaseducation.com/
October 30, 2014
We are often mistaken in life that we each possess the capacity of choosing happiness for ourselves. To this end, our lives often confront forms of the tragic: divorce, broken-hearts, betrayal, being socially castigated (in church or other spaces). The social pressures and liberal ideology give us the matrix for tragedy, and we too often settle by conforming to social mores at the cost of pursuing our deepest desires and virtues beyond "morality" (think of Tolstoy, Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Austen and Nietzsche) It doesn't always happen, but maybe, just maybe, happiness might shine on the one who pursues love, not because they choose it, but because, in a sense, it chooses them. This is the theme of my novel, Ghostly Icons. I suppose there's something in the universe that sometimes (but not always) rewards those who risk love, despite society's attempt to destroy all efforts to the same. At least in the narrative that unfolds in the novel, the impossibility of finding love does find a way, but not in the sappy sentimental fashion found in Hollywood films, but through the tragic itself-- in the very act of that unrepeatable leap of faith.
October 18, 2014
Until we rid ourselves from the mindset that this world is about YOU making a profit off our brothers and sisters, democracy doesn't stand a chance in hell, because that is what the world is (hell) when premised on taking advantage of our neighbors, the oppressed and on the pillaging of our planet's life-giving resources. We must take a stance against exploitation for the affirmation of all forms of life. The time to act is now. And you are not protected by your "job." Your job must be part of the way of opening up healing paths of joy, peace and love.
September 21, 2014
Pussy Riot is interested in GCAS! Having them teach a seminar for us with a Prof. would fit perfectly into GCAS's mission. Let's see how this develops....
September 15, 2014
To any reasonable person one outlook seems to be ineluctably forming: a global civil war in which 90% of the population won't have access to basic goods and services such as clean water, healthy food and suitable shelter. Unless we organize now, in a generation it may be too late. We can turn the world around: we just need to organize. The institutions that exist now, by and large, only reproduce the social order for the 1%. The occupy movement was a good start, but something more sustainable is desperately needed. The question is: Do we have it within ourselves to actually organize or have we forgotten the basics of what it will take?
August 19, 2014
The problem of being me is, well no one believes me. Check it: So there I am at a cafe or bar, whatever. And despite being focused, someone inevitably starts small talk, and this eventually leads to the following dialogue: "So what do you do?" they ask. "Oh, I'm a professor." etc etc.... But then it leads to "Yeah, actually I'm pretty stoked about the new school I started" I say proudly. "It has the best faculty in the humanities in the world, or close to it." Then I get these incredulous eyes staring back at me. Conversation ends abruptly. But then the next time I see them: "Hey, I googled your school." I smile. "How can I take a class?" Redemption!
I think the hardest part of creating anything new and different--something that addresses a need for educational justice--is that even the ability to perceive something new in most people's minds is itself impossible. This is something that I want to call a "neo-liberal fascism of perception" whereby one's ability to think outside the coordinates of corporate categories is itself part of how neo-liberalism reproduces itself. GCAS along with other radical alternatives, fights against this prosaic mentality and tries to expand our perceptional possibilities so that the world can change.
July 24, 2015
What is it to learn? With advancements in comprehending cognition in conjunction with artificial intelligence (AI) there is a necessity to develop a pedagogy that finally moves away from patriarchy (Master/Slave) relation (in relation to learning) that is, finally, the internal logic of today's corporatized university. The learning process (and context) itself has yet to be emancipated from this "theology" inextricably bound up in a "corporatology." Even some versions of feminism are still linked to the social, political and economic structure of patriarchy (as J. Jack Halberstam's work re: Queer/Trans theory etc. breathtakingly reveals), which is everywhere evident in the academy today. But if we unhinged our patriarchal "symptom," we could invent new worlds.
We creeped Dr. Davis’ Facebook page. Yes, that sounds a bit strange, but the material we found actually fits well within the goals and aspirations supported at Critical Civitates: A Journal of the People. Think about it. For many, Facebook posts are a ferocious storm of ideological norming experiences, experiences keeping citizens depoliticized, dehistoricized, and disengaged, posts whose content ranges most often from trite to obnoxious.
Creston C. Davis’ posts are the antithesis of that clamorous torrent.
Dr. Davis posts material ranging from images highlighting memories of collaboration with Peter McLaren, Henry Giroux, Slavoj Zizek, Azfar Hussain, and Alain Badiou, among so many other prominent critical theorists, to succinct commentaries documenting the struggle of common people in Greece resisting the forces of global capital. In his posts, we hear the noble voice of a public intellectual questing for equality and justice while simultaneously acting on the world by creating a place where common people can obtain a high-quality, debt-free education. In relation to the mundane mountain of scribbled trash composing the midden of Facebook offerings, we have essayed to scout an easy trail leading you to a hidden pinnacle of possibility.
Having just returned from nine months in Europe, much of that time spent struggling for democracy in Greece, Dr. Davis now resides in New York City where he continues organizing the Global Center for Advanced Studies and putting the final touches on “a few novels and books that are nearly ready to go to press.” Here at CC, we look forward to reading those few novels and books, and we look forward to spending more time creeping the Facebook posts of Dr. Creston C. Davis, a scholar whose work we hope you will share with your friends and family.
Briefly, a Year: A Series from the Facebook Posts of Creston C. Davis
July 27, 2015
Sometimes you're shocked by your proximity to history. Today I'm doing some research in the Brooklyn Public Library in which I'm putting together my GCAS seminar, "Struggling for Democracy: Neoliberalism and Social Uprisings from the Arab Spring to Occupy to the question of Syriza" (with guest lectures from Gal Kirn, Lisa Duggan, William I Robinson, and others), on the very hallowed ground where the first battle of the American Revolutionary War was waged after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Gen. George Washington was soundly defeated by the Red Coats led by Gen. Howe, trying to defend New York without a Navy. Two points stand out: (a) although Washington was defeated, his nearly impossible retreat to Manhattan overnight is recorded as one of the bravest and most brilliant military maneuvers in history; and (b) the remaining Patriots in Brooklyn were rounded up and put on British prison ships in the New York harbor where more of them died then the sum total of all deaths fought on the battlefield throughout the rebellion/war. Yes, that's right. I love reminding my conservative friends that America was born in rebellion. Later the great American poet, Walt Whitman penned these lines in memorial to the Patriot prisoners whose bones he would find on the shores on Long Island as a child:
"Greater than memory of Achilles or Ulysses,
More, more by far to thee than tomb of Alexander,
Those cart loads of old charnel ashes, scales and splints of mouldy bones,
Once living men--once resolute courage, aspiration, strength,
The stepping stones to thee to-day and here, America."
(See Image 1 in slide show at top)
July 26, 2015
There is a dialectic organized around the epicenter of the "superego" (the law) and the social deviant and outcast. Having come back to New York after a few years away, I see police everywhere--on every corner, on the subway, on the airplane. The feeling in New York (esp. in Manhattan) vis-a-vis Athens is one of "being watched" (interpellation a la Althusser) and being constantly under surveillance. The "eye" of the Big Other gazing down in order to differentiate between (a) obedience and (b) disobedience.
This pressure of the gaze creates corresponding repressive structures, which cathartically expresses itself in the desire to differentiate oneself from the other. Only this differential desire is itself framed within a consumeristic horizon of ego-centric articulation and refinement, hence the multiplicity of false differences in the appearance of things (logos, status-symbols, fashion etc.). This also explains why I saw more people running in the streets of New York within an hour then I saw in 9 months in Athens. What are they running from? The gaze, perhaps?
Yet, at times the "repression" precipitated by the law can rupture the walls of consumeristic differentials resulting in a psychotic episodes that further reinforce and reproduce the need for even more security and apparatuses of control.
The creation of debt culture has only delayed and deferred this social repression. In short, the pressure-cooker society of control is designed to explode: it's just a question of time.
July 25, 2015
What we need now is an explosion of an aesthetic that aligns with the awakening historic consciousness of the neo-fascist militarized financial institutions and their anti-democratic technological reproduction. We need different forms of literature, songs, poetry that resist folding to the subjective identities shaped by the money/debt dialectic. All things must be seen for their quality not quantity ($). In other words, we need a democratic aesthetic and struggle for equality, freedom, and solidarity. A movement is stirring, we are rising....
July 12, 2015
The Eurogroup has declared war on Greece and democracy today. It may not be a war with tanks in the streets, but it is war. One demand they submitted to Greece today was to "de-politicize the Administration." How do you de-politicize the political? How about the Troika de-finance their banks? So so absurd....
July 12, 2015
And what does the Eurogroup want from Greece? Literally for Greeks to give them their land. Neoliberalism's first tactic was to take over Greece's land and Islands by installing their conservative politicians. This is what the Greeks call "Miza." When Syriza emerged, the Eurogroup's indirect tactic emerges out of the dark from behind closed doors of the banks and into the light of day. Syriza has exposed this neoliberal strategy. Now that it's been exposed, it is time other countries join with the Greeks in solidarity against the Troika's war on democracy.
July 10, 2015
What if Syriza were to take the 13 billion austerity and begin to plan an exit in 6 months? In the meanwhile they put on trial all the corrupt capitalist politicians and the oligarchs for committing treason by fleeing the country, avoiding taxes, and literally selling off parts of Greece to their rich friends, all of which put the people of Greece into this dehumanizing situation. The working class (about 80% of Greeks) have awoken, and their power needs to be used as the motivating force to overthrow the troika.
July 5, 2015
The solidarity shown to Greece throughout Europe over the past few weeks (esp. last week) sends a message to the Troika. If they don't begin to act someway that approximates some level of humanity, I can imagine the spark that was Athens/Greece will quickly ignite a flame of democratic uprisings throughout Europe and perhaps beyond. This is only the beginning. The question really is: Does Troika and the neoliberal regime want to keep living in their fascistic bubble and watch as their house burns down, consumed by the flames of democracy, or will they begin to implement some level of democratic oversight?
July 5, 2015
So Let's just compare all the major media sources (the Guardian, ALZ, CNN, FoxNews, NYTimes, BBC, etc etc....) who all predicted a "very close call" on today's vote [in Greece] with my own prediction 61% (spot on)! It's time to shut the neoliberal media down.
December 19, 2014
FYI: In a 2008 case, a Federal court in Virginia ruled that professors have no academic freedom; all academic freedom resides with the university or college. Stronach v. Virginia State University, civil action 3:07-CV-646-HEH (E. D. Va. Jan. 15, 2008).
December 5, 2014
GCAS is a not-for-profit school. All funds are used to build up our capacity to provide debt-free accredited education. So far we have already organized our school within our website and our forthcoming courses include workshops on activism and philosophy, deconstruction series with Jean-Luc Nancy & Giovanni Tusa, Daniel Tutt & Alain Badiou, Rebecca Weisman, Azfar Hussain, the Deleuze Series with Dorothea Olkowski and Dan Smith and more. Join us!
December 11, 2014
GCAS is now cooperating with some of the best universities in Europe. In the following months we will provide accredited, debt-free education for all. We will keep you posted. This is the path we are committed to and anything less doesn't fit with our goals.
December 11, 2014
To remain true to your conviction, to sacrifice something for a greater cause is what is necessary to change the unjust neoliberalism that is even now colonializing all of us into its insidious logic. And there is a name for this injustice that we call "a global class war" that forces us into debt that we cannot pay and so is "justified" in enslaving us even more. It is time to take a stance against this to struggle for community and for justice for all people; it is a fight for democracy.
December 9, 2014
The younger generation today suffers from the disease of "despair" because the future looks bleak: College graduates are unemployed or underemployed and in huge debt. Education has failed to inspire and failed to encourage the next generation to create a better more democratic world. It's time to address the cause of the disease itself and begin to educate well. This is what The Global Center for Advanced Studies is about: it is precisely to provide hope, inspiration and empowerment. And that's something our enemies cannot even think; instead they are creating more and more "for profit" models of education. But why can't we work together to build a different world, one which we can all live in, peacefully and for the good of all people?
December 6, 2014
Look for more police violence in the streets of Athens today as tens of thousands come out to protest Alexandros Grigoropoulos' death (a 15 year old shot by police). I have witnessed undercover police who march with protestors only to throw rocks to trigger police countermeasures and unwarranted arrests. The police also target stores where they literally just come into the store and take what they want. The Greeks want democracy and a future hope, but under austerity measures, they feel little hope, especially the youth who must live with 50% unemployment. Syriza (the radical-left wing party) is gaining a lot of momentum, but the right wing "puppet" government that serves the IMF and World Bank and not the people of Greece, is really stepping up measures to keep democracy from rising (via the military and police). I took this picture of the memorial to Alexandros Grigoropoulos' life (see image 2 in slide show at top).
December 5, 2014
Notes from Athens, Greece:
1- Austerity Measures are looked upon by the average Greek as a new form of colonization.
2- This colonization has been exacted upon them from the IMF, the World Bank, and other organizations from the international financial sector.
3- The effects of this financial colonization include the precipitation of the rise of neo-fascist groups such as the Golden Dawn who instill fear and do the dirty work, so the financial elites can implement their agenda (gentrification, taking over private property for private banking business, privatizing public infrastructure, property etc.).
4- The hiring of militant police units (see note 3 above) to protect the interests of the colonizers.
5- Education (the hope of the future) is being privatized (as in the United States) so that education becomes a systematic form of indoctrination into the neoliberal ideology. Education is not about fostering democracy but about job training (oh the Irony), not about the future of Greece but about the future of how what is now named "Greece" has become a free-for-all for business to profit off of people's enslavement.
There are more forthcoming in an article I'm composing. Keep in mind, that Greece (and Spain) are just the start of what the future holds for the rest of the world. Democracy is under attack, and Greece is but one front of this global war.
December 5, 2014
The new colonialism is not just about how imperialistic policies from one Nation enslaving another more vulnerable Nation. Now colonialism functions through financial networks. One such form of colonialism is the financial imperialism that has radically hijacked education (turning it into a profit making machine by enslaving students into massive loan debt). Additionally, this financial colonialism has no geographical boundaries and is rapidly spreading to all educational sectors undermining learning and the future of a commons. This is the new colonialism in which the wealthy elite are enslaving all other classes (esp. the working and poor classes that make up 85% of the world's population). We need to think not only how 17th & 18th century imperialism worked (which still functions) but also how new capitalistic colonialism works and how we are engrafted into this obscene global class war. What can be done? The Occupy Movement was only the start, but we need to continue organizing as war is upon us whether you want it to be or not.
December 5, 2014
In the 80s Reagan signed a bill which drastically changed everything about education in America. This bill radically cut public funds to education and thus simultaneously created a massive demand for banks, universities and the US government to make money off of student loans (and the resultant debt that came along with this). Now this debt has exceeded $1,100,000,000,000 and the government now makes about $52,000,000,000 each year off of this neoliberal policy. Meanwhile, universities have gotten wealthier and at the same time are supported by wealthy white businessmen looking to make profits off of educating our children. It's time we had the courage to call this out and to put a stop to this. If we don't take a stance, who will?
November 19, 2014
Growing up in the poor working-class made me feel like my thoughts were not worthy, that somehow my ideas were not worthy (that I wasn't worthy). GCAS is a school that fights against this psychological class-war tactic. I believe that one's brilliance shouldn't be determined by one's economic class, but should be judged by its own merits, merits that are not determined on social, economic, political, or any hierarchical pre-determination through a neo-liberal and capitalist ideology, but merits that come out of engaging in social justice - and all that comes with it. But today's environment in higher education makes one feel that they have to go into debt (student loans) just to feel like their minds are acceptable. This is wrong and yet another example of the unjust system. It's time to change this: it's time to create a school that doesn't rely on banks and debt just to make one feel they are okay. Thought and ideas are not commodities that the banks should determine. It's time we join together and fight against this injustice.
November 18, 2014
The biggest challenge to human liberation is to cure the symptom of our need for a Big Other (God, the Rule of Law, authoritarianism etc.). Do we have it within us to believe in the infinite power of humanity working together for ourselves and not, say, for capitalism, nationalism, religion, the very things that undo us? When will we stop hating ourselves? When will the hatred stop? Perhaps when we have the courage to love ourselves by loving others, for it is in the other that you find yourself (and not in an empty zombie of the Big Other).
November 17, 2014
Under the Greek austerity they are hiring more police then ever. Hmmm.... I wonder what's afoot? And, moreover, how does this effect educating the future generation when teachers are fired and police are hired (See image 3 in slide show at top)?— in Athens, Greece.
October 31, 2014
GCAS is about love--about empowering and connecting. It doesn't speak for the oppressed, but gives the oppressed a way to speak to grow and to learn with anyone in the world. It's about putting the struggle for democracy into action and creating networks of solidarity in order to form a community of scholars and activists. Join us! http://gcaseducation.com/
October 30, 2014
We are often mistaken in life that we each possess the capacity of choosing happiness for ourselves. To this end, our lives often confront forms of the tragic: divorce, broken-hearts, betrayal, being socially castigated (in church or other spaces). The social pressures and liberal ideology give us the matrix for tragedy, and we too often settle by conforming to social mores at the cost of pursuing our deepest desires and virtues beyond "morality" (think of Tolstoy, Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Austen and Nietzsche) It doesn't always happen, but maybe, just maybe, happiness might shine on the one who pursues love, not because they choose it, but because, in a sense, it chooses them. This is the theme of my novel, Ghostly Icons. I suppose there's something in the universe that sometimes (but not always) rewards those who risk love, despite society's attempt to destroy all efforts to the same. At least in the narrative that unfolds in the novel, the impossibility of finding love does find a way, but not in the sappy sentimental fashion found in Hollywood films, but through the tragic itself-- in the very act of that unrepeatable leap of faith.
October 18, 2014
Until we rid ourselves from the mindset that this world is about YOU making a profit off our brothers and sisters, democracy doesn't stand a chance in hell, because that is what the world is (hell) when premised on taking advantage of our neighbors, the oppressed and on the pillaging of our planet's life-giving resources. We must take a stance against exploitation for the affirmation of all forms of life. The time to act is now. And you are not protected by your "job." Your job must be part of the way of opening up healing paths of joy, peace and love.
September 21, 2014
Pussy Riot is interested in GCAS! Having them teach a seminar for us with a Prof. would fit perfectly into GCAS's mission. Let's see how this develops....
September 15, 2014
To any reasonable person one outlook seems to be ineluctably forming: a global civil war in which 90% of the population won't have access to basic goods and services such as clean water, healthy food and suitable shelter. Unless we organize now, in a generation it may be too late. We can turn the world around: we just need to organize. The institutions that exist now, by and large, only reproduce the social order for the 1%. The occupy movement was a good start, but something more sustainable is desperately needed. The question is: Do we have it within ourselves to actually organize or have we forgotten the basics of what it will take?
August 19, 2014
The problem of being me is, well no one believes me. Check it: So there I am at a cafe or bar, whatever. And despite being focused, someone inevitably starts small talk, and this eventually leads to the following dialogue: "So what do you do?" they ask. "Oh, I'm a professor." etc etc.... But then it leads to "Yeah, actually I'm pretty stoked about the new school I started" I say proudly. "It has the best faculty in the humanities in the world, or close to it." Then I get these incredulous eyes staring back at me. Conversation ends abruptly. But then the next time I see them: "Hey, I googled your school." I smile. "How can I take a class?" Redemption!
I think the hardest part of creating anything new and different--something that addresses a need for educational justice--is that even the ability to perceive something new in most people's minds is itself impossible. This is something that I want to call a "neo-liberal fascism of perception" whereby one's ability to think outside the coordinates of corporate categories is itself part of how neo-liberalism reproduces itself. GCAS along with other radical alternatives, fights against this prosaic mentality and tries to expand our perceptional possibilities so that the world can change.
July 24, 2015
What is it to learn? With advancements in comprehending cognition in conjunction with artificial intelligence (AI) there is a necessity to develop a pedagogy that finally moves away from patriarchy (Master/Slave) relation (in relation to learning) that is, finally, the internal logic of today's corporatized university. The learning process (and context) itself has yet to be emancipated from this "theology" inextricably bound up in a "corporatology." Even some versions of feminism are still linked to the social, political and economic structure of patriarchy (as J. Jack Halberstam's work re: Queer/Trans theory etc. breathtakingly reveals), which is everywhere evident in the academy today. But if we unhinged our patriarchal "symptom," we could invent new worlds.