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02 September 2009

The more things change...

Svi oni kojima domaće novine svakodnevno ispiraju mozak o medu i mleku u kojem se kupaju talentovani ljudi u inostranstvu ("samo mi ne umemo da cenimo...") treba da pročitaju ovaj tekst. Radi se o ispovesti profesora univerziteta (City College of New York, dakle nikakav Harvard ili Princeton), koji opisuje iskustvo zapošljavanja docenta na odeljenju za filozofiju. Na oglas se prijavilo preko 600 kandidata a kraj je neočekivano srećan jer je, umesto jednog, zaposleno dvoje.

Autor na više mesta naglašava ono što van Srbije manje-više svako zna, a to je da broj prihvatljivih kandidata daleko prevazilazi broj slobodnih mesta. Načelno govoreći, sve su ovo talentovani i vredni ljudi koji su, da bi stigli do "stočne pijace" koja se u tekstu opisuje, savladali veliki broj popriličnih prepreka. Sam upis na postdiplomske studije filozofije je vrlo selektivan (prima se reda veličine par procenata prijavljenih), a onda su tu i godine učenja, čitanja i analiziranja složenih, apstraktnih tekstova, smišljanje, pisanje, odbrana teze i sl. Prema kriterijumu "Politike" koja na naslovnu stranu stavlja ljude čiji je glavni uspeh to što su uspeli da diplomiraju u Americi, većini ovih kandidata bi, da su Srbi, pripadao višenedeljni feljton.

Zašto se sve ovo dešava? Jedan od razloga su mnogo hvaljene besplatne postdiplomske studije. Studenti doktorskih studija ne plaćaju školarinu, koja bi, za pet godina studiranja, iznosila možda i $200,000. Da se plaća, skoro niko od njih se ne bi upustio u doktorat iz filozofije budući da za iste, ili čak manje pare, moze da završi lakši, kraći i daleko profitabilniji law school. Ali pošto se ne plaća, marginalni studenti se usmeravaju u ovom, kao što će se pokazati kasnije, tragičnom smeru. Jer filozofijom se u svakom slučaju neće baviti, a pri tome će biti i mnogo slabije plaćeni.

Naravno, ovo nije nova pojava. Još je Adam Smith kritikovao stipendiranje "men of letters" - pametnih i savesnih ljudi, koji su mogli da budu korisni drugima, a koji su usmeravani ka sticanju naoko važnih a u realnosti uglavnom beskorisnih znanja, da bi na kraju školovanja molili za dozvolu da prose.

"It has been considered as of so much importance that a proper number of young people should be educated for certain professions, that, sometimes the public, and sometimes the piety of private founders have established many pensions, scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries, &c. for this purpose, which draw many more people into those trades than could otherwise pretend to follow them. ..The long, tedious, and expensive education, therefore, of those who are, will not always procure them a suitable reward, the church being crowded with people who, in order to get employment, are willing to accept of a much smaller recompence than what such an education would otherwise have entitled them to...That unprosperous race of men commonly called men of letters, are pretty much in the situation which lawyers and physicians probably would be in upon the foregoing supposition...The time and study, the genius, knowledge, and application requisite to qualify an eminent teacher of the sciences, are at least equal to what is necessary for the greatest practitioners in law and physic. But the usual reward of the eminent teacher bears no proportion to that of the lawyer or physician; because the trade of the one is crowded with indigent people who have been brought up to it at the public expence; whereas those of the other two are incumbered with very few who have not been educated at their own. The usual recompence, however, of public and private teachers, small as it may appear, would undoubtedly be less than it is, if the competition of those yet more indigent men of letters who write for bread was not taken out of the market. Before the invention of the art of printing, a scholar and a beggar seem to have been terms very nearly synonymous. The different governors of the universities before that time appear to have often granted licences to their scholars to beg. In ancient times, before any charities of this kind had been established for the education of indigent people to the learned professions, the rewards of eminent teachers appear to have been much more considerable."

Premotaj dvesta i kusur godina unapred, i naš profesor se setio rešenja za višak doktora filozofije, a to je - izdavanje licenci.

Kako kaže Paul Johnson: "The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false."

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