On his Academic Planning blog, Trent Provost Gary Boire has a recent post about fetishes. He begins with three definitions of the term: (a) “an object regarded with awe as being the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or as having magical potency; or (b) any object, idea, etc., eliciting unquestioning reverence, respect, or devotion: to make a fetish of high grades; or (c) any object or nongenital part of the body that causes a habitual erotic response or fixation.”
Boire introduces this notion in the context of academic planning, and suggests that some faculty may have fetishized one aspect of academic interest, such as research, over others, like planning or service.
But this is actually a broad issue which could have implications for many aspects of university operation. Fetishes are breaches in the reasoning of staff and students. They cause people to hold contradictory opinions, embracesuperstitions, behave destructively, and cling to narrow relational frames. By raising this issue, the Provost presumably hopes to curb fetishistic tendencies, and expand the scope of reason within the academic planning process. His initiative is commendable and should be generalized to rejuvenate the entire concept of higher education.
The problem of fetishes in academia is nothing new, and even goes to the origins of liberal universities. Schools like Trent fill a niche that was carved out in the 1500s by Renaissance polymaths and reforming churchmen. It was guys like John Calvin and Martin Luther who established the basic model for what a liberal university does. In those days the Catholics used religious fetishes and superstitions to control populations, while the reformers led a popular resistance that taught people to remove the fetishes from their lives. By throwing out the fetishes they liberated the use of reason.
There is some evidence that we’re in a similar situation today. This time it’s not the Catholic church, but rather Wall Street banks who use advertising images to induce fetishistic behaviour. Like in the 1500s we again find ourselves suffering a plague of fetishes deployed to enslave us, but this time its financial authorities who generate this plague.
So fetishes are not just one coincidental annoyance that obstructs the rational planning of universities, but rather the original obstacle that universities were established to help people overcome. And it seems the traditional mandate of reversing fetishism could be reinstated as a priority at these institutions today. Adopting a reformation model, schools could serve students by cleansing them of fetishes. This would mean empowering people to use reason independently, and avoid becoming puppets of the financial system. The school would be there to help people break the fetishistic spells of finance, liberating populations from financial tutelage and speaking out for the free public use of reason.
But let’s be realistic for a moment. People are deeply attached to their fetishes, and an anti-fetish university could prove unpopular. Fetishes have become a second nature which people use to identify themselves, whether they are attached to local food or medical research. People love their gadgets and their celebrities, and a university that discouraged these would have very low enrolment. Some fetishes are the exclusive markings of certain cliques, while others are practically obligatory for everyone.
There are strange notions which paralyze reasoning around the university, such as all the bizarre talk of “community.” This is not the weak community of accidental shared proximity, which is totally congruent with reason, but refers instead to something imposed as an obscure moral obligation. The free use of reason requires a primary disassociation that rejects the communitarian presumptions of neoliberals along with all other insidious superstitions. It requires a neutrality that is unfortunately discouraged in the current environment.
It seems fetishes have taken the upper hand at the university, and that liberal reason has become rare. This situation can be upsetting, but it also poses an exciting and historical challenge. It calls for a new generation of reformers to repeat the classic Protestant anti-fetish gestures. The return of reason at the university demands the creation of new departments to cut against the grain of entrenched academic specializations.
Reason must be secularized anew, liberated from the confines of the old institutional territories which are so often the fetishes of faculty. This secularization can only work if ontology takes the lead, and becomes a mediator for other disciplines. Only ontology can foster a neutral reason independent of all disciplines.
An anti-fetish university would arrange academic programming ontologically to oppose the hegemony of banks, which are the source of that master fetish which is money. The function of the school would be to shift sovereignty to individuals, just as the Protestant fathers did before. Perhaps its time to open the window and let the fresh air of secularism awaken individuals once again.
