Mythology

It's a rite of passage. Santa Claus doesn't exist. Neither does the Tooth Fairy. Certain people actually tell you that they love you for their own personal gain. So-called 'reality t.v.' is scripted. I've accepted these and more. This latest one, however, is more difficult to handle. I didn't realize that I was so naive but, can you believe that I believed universities were supposed to harbour a culture of independent thought and freedom to research things that mightn't be on any top-ten list of the moment. I received in my mailbox today a red book outlining the new and improved direction that the university is planning to take. I actually submitted a proposal to the committee in charge of creating this plan of action. I kinda wish I could take my words back. The report is called 'Global Engagement for the 21st Century.' Seriously. Here's the link so you know I'm not making that up: Report Can you tell that the communications office has gained more control? Besides the 'newspeak' type of writing, the content leaves a bit to be desired. Art and culture are pretty much ignored in this particular report. There really isn't much meat here on the whole. There is, however, something that I find particularly disturbing. When addressing the matter of research, the report states that '[t]he University must be strategic in determining those areas of research excellence to which it is prepared to give institutional priority and support. These Strategic Research Areas, must, however, be determined from the ground up, so long as they reflect or express the University's priorities.' (emphasis mine) The report goes into specifics: 'there should exist a critical mass of faculty support within the institution to support any particular initiative. The risk that strategic themes simply reflect a single unit or an elite few, to the exclusion of the broader university research profile, must be minimized.' So...am I reading this right? Does this mean that the research that will be supported will be the most popular? I'll take a guess that this popular research will have the support of corporations who are willing to provide lots of money to guarantee that what they want studied is studied. A bonus for them, I guess, is that they are also getting specially trained future workers.

For some reason, I've been thinking about my family. My grandfather on my dad's side was whisked away to a Soviet labour camp in approx. 1937. My grandmother spent months trying to find out what happened to him. She went from one office to another...each time being told that she was in the wrong line. Stalin was a master of bureaucracy. Finally, one man told her that if she continued, she would be taken to join him. Another, kinder, fellow told her that the minimum sentence for a crime against the state was 10 years. It was in her best interest to give up. She packed up her family and escaped to Finland. Later, when approaching her pension years, she was told that she needed proof of either her husband's death or if he was still alive. She managed to find out that he had died at a camp somewhere in Siberia in 1947. I guess his sentence was up.

When the freedom to think and research is taken away, innocent people can get picked up and forced into labour ... their lives stolen. If the freedom to think is gone...so is freedom. I'm probably overreacting but I really don't like what's happening. Not at the university, not in government, not in the environment...etc. I love my family. I love my friends. These are things I value. I also value my thoughts (as mundane as they are...they're mine). It's very difficult to sit back and watch as an institution I value is transformed before my eyes into something unrecognizable. Or, have I just not noticed the truth? Have I believed in this particular myth for too long?