What About Me?: The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based Society

by Paul Verhaeghe

  Here, too, it is necessary to know your history. One of the lessons of the 20th century was that every dictatorship uses education as a means of indoctrination. This not only caused a great deal of suffering, but it also prevented children from developing into critical, independent thinkers. As a result, pressure developed to make education as free from value judgements as possible. Pupils were not to be told what to think; educators were to shun indoctrination of any kind as an infringement of liberty. Authority had become deeply suspect in the wake of fascism and communism; so that, too, was banished from the classroom. The theory was that if children were allowed to learn in freedom, unconstrained by authority and unencumbered by value judgements, they would automatically develop into sound members of society. The fact that the author of these ideas, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, dumped all his own children on the local orphanage as soon as they were born, tended to be forgotten.

  In this educational vacuum, the competencies model found fertile soil. The initial aims were noble: to establish the skills needed by the labour market, and determine how they could best be taught, thus equipping young people to go their own way, unencumbered by moral, religious, or ideological flim-flam. That was the neutral idea underlying competency-based education. Oddly enough, Ethische Perspectieven (Ethical Perspectives), a periodical published by the University of Leuven, found it necessary to devote an entire issue to this subject in 2007. Apparently, competencies aren’t so neutral after all.2

  Competency-based education initially focussed on vocational skills. Fairly rapidly, however, these skills were redefined in a highly significant way. From purely practical competencies (such as language and communication skills), they came to include personal characteristics (flexibility) and, ultimately, personality itself (the individual as manager of his or her own life). It was optimistically thought that if the environment was sufficiently stimulating and pragmatic, children would automatically learn. The idea was to appeal to their intrinsic motivation in a way that furthered democratic ideals. Instead of being made to learn, pupils would want to learn. The focus on an active, independent approach to learning is reflected in the newspeak in which competency-based education veils itself. Learning process supervisors (formerly known as ‘teachers’) work as coaches in adapted learning environments (formerly known as ‘schools’) to facilitate the learning process so that youngsters can capitalise on their competencies.

  Young readers who are already the victim of competency-based education may wish to know that ‘newspeak’ was a term invented by George Orwell, a major writer of the mid-20th century. I assume that you have sufficiently capitalised on the basic competency of locating information to be able to check him out on Wikipedia. By way of facilitating stimulus, I can also tell you that it was he who invented ‘Big Brother’, long before the reality-TV show came along.

  Note that this approach places responsibility for the learning process largely on the shoulders of pupils, leading in the Netherlands to the introduction of the ‘Study House’ method in 1998. Under this system, traditional teaching was minimised in the final years of secondary school. Instead of sitting in classrooms, pupils were expected to learn through independent study in the school’s library and information centre, referred to as the ‘study house’. The term immediately became shorthand for a new approach to teaching. A decade later, a committee set up to investigate this method found it wanting in many respects — something that teachers had themselves been saying for many years.

  The enormous difference between the old and new educational models becomes clear when one compares the two. The word ‘educate’ comes from the Latin educare, meaning to bring up or rear, which is related to educere, to lead forth. Previously, the idea was that adults with authority would, as it were, lead children into a broader world of knowledge and culture, of which norms and standards formed an integral part. Since those adults held a position of authority, they were responsible both for motivating their pupils and instilling knowledge into them. In the current competency model, the learner is envisaged as an entrepreneur who increases his or her own skills with the help of others. The dominance of neo-liberalism is evident in the jargon that goes with this approach, and in pronouncements such as ‘knowledge is human capital’, ‘competencies are a capital that young people must learn to maintain and develop’, and ‘learning is long-term investment’.* It’s also striking how in policy documents the words ‘talent’ and ‘competency’ are almost invariably interchangeable — yet further evidence of the link with social Darwinism that I discussed in a previous chapter.

  [* An operational way of measuring the power and influence of a particular framework of thought or reasoning — in line with Michel Foucault — involves establishing which terms and arguments from a particular field or specialist area are used in other fields or specialist areas, and how often. Here we have economic terms popping up in educational texts, as well as in the sphere of relationships (‘investing in a relationship’), religion (‘religion is an insurance for the future’), and sport and leisure (‘managing your body’). Linguistic use of this kind is never neutral because it shapes our thoughts and actions — in other words our ethics.]

  The ultimate goal of present-day education is ‘self-management’ and ‘entrepreneurship’. Young people must regard themselves as enterprises, and see knowledge and skills above all in economic terms — that is, as something they can use to increase their market value. The cover of the weekend magazine issued by the newspaper De Standaard was recently headlined ‘Sell yourself as brand’.3

  Thus the sad circle is complete. In an attempt to make education value-free and to liberate it from moral dictatorship, the competency-based approach has saturated our children’s schooling with the ideology of neo-liberalism. So we shouldn’t be surprised if the first thing this group asks is ‘What’s in it for me?’ They have fully understood the message.

  If youngsters develop into competitive individualists with little regard for solidarity, it is because their upbringing and education encourages competition and individualism. Instead of moaning about how egotistical and materialistic the younger generation are, we should be seriously questioning current educational theory. Despite its admirable starting point — that indoctrination is bad — it is fundamentally flawed in three respects. The idea that a child will spontaneously acquire the ‘right’ norms and values is mistaken; children adopt the ethics of their surroundings. The idea that a school can be value-free is equally wrong; every form of education conveys values, and we need to be more aware of that fact. Finally, the idea that authority is superfluous could only have been dreamed up by someone who’s never had a classroom of children to deal with.

  None of this must come as a revelation; yet, for 20 years now, neo-liberal ideology has been drummed into schoolchildren in the name of a ‘value-free’, competency-based education system. The jargon used is a good indicator. Policy documents are larded with terms such as ‘educational consumers’, ‘output-based financing’, ‘performance funding’, ‘accreditation’, ‘accountability’, ‘benchmarks’, ‘stakeholders’, ‘human capital’, and ‘knowledge workers’. The annual Dutch budget memorandum is a case in point. In the section devoted to education, the emphasis is on issues such as ‘excelling’, uncovering talent, and performance bonuses(!) for outstanding teachers. Teachers’ organisations have responded angrily, attacking the lack of a central vision of education and the narrow economic focus, and expressing fears that weak pupils will fall by the wayside. But it’s debatable whether anyone will listen to them.4

  In Flanders the situation is even more extreme. Teachers of infant classes (that is, from the age of two-and-a-half) work with development targets linked to various basic competencies that infants are expected to possess. Recently, friends of ours were told by their child’s teacher that her ‘cutting-out skills’ were below par. Judgements such as this can cause young parents to panic, so that the next step will be extra coaching for infants. These days, all childre
n must be highly skilled, otherwise they won’t ‘make it’. And whether you’re an individual or an organisation, you have to stand out. It’s all about ‘top schools’, ‘top teachers’, ‘top universities’, ‘top research institutes’, and ‘top sport’.

  The other area of concern is a growing group of people who regard themselves as failures, often from as young as ten, and whose identity is shaped accordingly. These are the third group of youngsters: those who want to make it, but don’t. ‘Loser!’ has become a term of abuse in primary-school playgrounds. Some of those losers rebel, but the majority become insecure, socially awkward, depressive, and fixated on consuming. The teachers who are there to guide their early steps often feel failures themselves because they are only lowly primary-school teachers, right at the bottom of the Niagara Falls of educational diplomas — unless, of course, they work at a top school with top pupils.

  Many people will acknowledge that the system is flawed, yet at the same time see no alternative. Surely competency-based education is crucial to the success of a knowledge economy? The simple answer is: no, it isn’t. As anyone with long-term teaching experience knows, the last few decades have seen a serious and universal decline in the standard of education. Despite the stress on competencies, this doesn’t just mean that pupils are less well-equipped in terms of cultural baggage. Basic skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic have suffered equally. In today’s economy this hardly constitutes a problem, because most professionals, from doctors to carpenters, need less knowledge than formerly. The process of de-skilling, to use an ugly word, is happening everywhere. Human skills have been replaced by technology and computers, and even medical specialists must toe the line and follow treatment protocols.

  At present, there is a growing demand for moderately educated but not overly critical individuals as job fodder. In a neo-liberal society, the function of education is not so much to train individuals to a high level as to select youngsters and mould them to fit a certain profile that will guarantee the highest productivity. What they actually do in the workplace will largely be learned there, rather than at school.

  Good luck with the new contract!

  The individual’s new identity as entrepreneur goes hand in hand with a new life goal: success. Success is something to be aimed for all the time — not just in exams, but also on holiday, in relationships, and in the workplace. The traditional focus on ‘the good life’ sounds ludicrously old-fashioned by contrast, not least because it implies life in a community, whereas the word ‘success’ tends to be confined to the individual. Here the Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre perceives a shift from communal ethics to a world order in which the individual has apparently become the norm. In his magnum opus After Virtue, MacIntyre explodes, among other things, the myth of modern moral freedom. Yes, we have been liberated from priests and the morality they imposed on us; but, no, this does not mean we are free. Quite the reverse. A new morality has arisen, with its own high priests, who force it upon us with Jesuitical fervour, arguing that it is scientific and therefore not to be questioned. Its commandment is ‘measurable effectiveness’, which is also the mantra of the first modern high priest, the manager. The high priest’s second-in-command, the father confessor, has now been replaced by the psychotherapist, whose mantra is ‘adaptation’. To this end, psychotherapists have devised their own personal Rank and Yank system, veiled by a pseudo-psychiatric diagnosis that I shall look at in the following chapter.

  According to MacIntyre, systematic effectiveness is nothing more than a moral fiction, a fable. Actually, it is a double fiction. On the one hand, it remains completely unclear whether neo-liberal management is effective — and there are numerous economic proofs to the contrary. On the other hand, the term ‘effectiveness’ obscures the actual goal: greater short-term profit. The moral aspect is, if possible, even harder to spot, hidden away behind figures and statistics that may not be questioned, let alone subjected to moral debate, on the grounds that they provide objective proof. Meetings nowadays often start with a presentation of the latest stats, followed by an announcement of measures that the dictatorship of figures makes almost inevitable. MacIntyre does not shrink from specifying the moral aspect: the large-scale manipulation of individuals. Not just manipulation of the way in which they organise their work, and thus their lives, but, more broadly, manipulation of the way they think about themselves and others.

  The main thrust of that thinking is clear. If success is the new moral standard, those who commit the sin of failure need to be referred by the high priest (manager) to the father confessor (psychotherapist) for further treatment. All this must be done as efficiently as possible, of course. It is painful to see how mental-health disorders are these days almost automatically translated into economic losses. The most eye-popping example was a small article in a Belgian newspaper of 21 January 2012, reporting that suicide was costing Flanders €600 million a year, ‘seriously threatening our economy’. What appallingly selfish behaviour!

  The fact that matters could be seen from the opposite perspective — that our economy poses a serious threat to our health — apparently occurs to nobody.

  Yet it had all started so promisingly, with freedom and autonomy within reach. A meritocratic system is unquestionably beneficial at the outset. As the manager of her own life, the individual obtains more say over her work, and is paid better, too. Her loyalty to the enterprise for which she works and which is offering her these opportunities accordingly grows. Not only does her job satisfaction increase, but also her sense of responsibility, both towards her own work and towards the enterprise as a whole. She is part of it; it is her company, school, or hospital, and she’s happy to work a few extra hours when necessary. Morale improves, and morals are enhanced. Working for an enterprise like this is a pleasant experience.

  But it’s inherent in the system that after a few years, the situation is completely reversed. Only the best — that is, the most productive — are to be rewarded, so a measuring system is devised. Quality criteria are then imposed by the powers that be, fairly soon followed by a rigid top-down approach to quality that stifles individual initiative. Autonomy and individual control vanish, to be replaced by quantitative evaluations, performance interviews, and audits. From then on, things go from bad to worse. Deprived of a say over their own work, employees become less committed (‘They don’t listen anyway’), and their sense of responsibility diminishes (‘As long as I do things by the book, they can’t touch me’). They are reluctant to put in extra hours unless they get paid proper overtime. Solidarity towards colleagues becomes a thing of the past. At best, they are people who will share a moan about ‘the system’; at worst, feared competitors. Loyalty to the enterprise disappears. Morale deteriorates and morals decline. Working for an enterprise like this makes people sick.

  This pernicious trend has replaced a fine balance of tension with a state of opposition. Formerly, a dynamic tension existed between the individual and society when it came to the allocation of rights and obligations. Society protected its citizens and provided them with general amenities, education, and health care. In exchange, citizens sacrificed part of their autonomy, and complied with society’s laws — the codified expression of communal ethics. A democratic system allows this pact to be modified, albeit gradually and without upsetting the balance between the interests of the community and the individual.

  Neo-liberal morality has swept that balance of tension aside (‘There is no such thing as society’) and replaced it with a state of opposition between individual and organisation — an opposition that very rapidly becomes hostile. Selfish genes oppose each other in the form of competing enterprises: the individual-as-entrepreneur against the enterprise-as-enterprise. Both are out for all they can get, and neither trusts the other an inch. Moreover, the individual-as-entrepreneur is up against another obstacle: other individuals-as-entrepreneurs, who also want all they can get.

  This harmful trend is destroying work ethos and, in
the long run, communal ethos as well. If we no longer have any say over our work, we lose our sense of responsibility. If we no longer feel part of an organisation, why should we do our best for it? If we keep hearing that it’s all about individual success, why should we worry about social obligations? We are only doing what’s expected of us. What we expect of others, on the other hand, must be clearly set out on paper. Communal ethos has been replaced by the contract, invariably leading to ever more absurd rules and regulations. Which is curious for a system that sets great store by deregulation.

  The more contracts there are, the greater the decline in ethics and the growth in CCTV surveillance. In terms of moral development, this represents a relapse to infancy. The moral norm is suddenly once more external to the individual, and has to be made visible, otherwise no one will toe the line. We have lost internalised authority, hence CCTV. Just like toddlers, adults need to be incentivised to follow the rules by means of material reward (the sweets of our youth). And just as in the case of children, this approach has more negative than positive effects (‘Take the money and run’).

  It is an ominous sign that nearly all human interaction is now regulated by contract, from work to marriage, from upbringing to psychotherapy. For readers not in the know, it is standard practice these days for care workers to sign ‘contracts’ with psychiatric patients and youngsters who have behavioural problems — as if a signature on a piece of paper were sufficient guarantee against theft, truancy, suicide attempts, drinking, and binge eating. How sick must a society be if it has to regulate the upbringing of its future citizens by means of a contract?

  Team building in the form of survival weekends

  The sweeping changes to Western European education took place more or less simultaneously with changes to the system of labour organisation. Economies of scale resulting from mergers sparked an increasing need for managers. Human-resources policy was rationalised, with individual and quantifiable merits gradually taking centre stage.