DIspossession Chapter 20

A few points made in Chapter 20 of Dispossession caught my attention. First, the chapter discusses "the marketization of higher education" (Butler, Athanasiou 189). I've never thought about knowledge as a commodity before, but this chapter made me reevaluate the sources of my knowledge. I wonder if what Butler is referring to contributes to classist notions about education. For example, the marketization of formal education (i.e. a private university education) contributes to the designations of "skilled" and "unskilled" labor. So, those with university bachelor degrees qualify for "skilled" labor, while those performing working class jobs, such as an employee at a body shop, are considered hierarchically less "skilled." I think designations like that frame our conceptions of personhood in general. Knowledge is a source of power in our society, and those with access to more knowledge receive material (capitalistic) benefits in ways that others do not. The only way for knowledge to "begin...radically to circulate outside the university" is for institutions to stop viewing paying for an education as an investment, or people as sources of economic gain (Butler, Athanasiou  190). Knowledge ought to be a public good.

This chapter's discussion of "prevailing market standards" reminded me of the Ortega eading. That is, the reason why certain people are selected out of the education system is more than just for financial reasons (Butler, Athanasiou 192). For example, most literature curricula are English-language writers who are usually white. This is because the "prevailing market standards" designate those particular books and authors as economically valuable to study, whereas books written by people of color are underrepresented in curricula.

Finally, I connected this reading to Emory's recent announcement that it will begin offering privately-funded financial aid to undocumented applicants. Citizenship as a barrier to education is another way in which the commodification of knowledge (wherein some groups have a monopoly and others don't have access for reasons out of their control) harms certain groups but also ultimately harms our collective conception of knowledge. My feeling is that formal education ought to be accessible to everyone in the same way that knowledge ought to be a public good. I suppose there is a lot of room for debate about what constitutes an "education" and what constitutes "knowledge."