Are tourists a boon?

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The people who run London, for example, love to boast that the city is attracting record numbers (17.4 million in 2014). And they want more. “They especially have their eye on the high-spending shoppers who currently stop in Paris.” For them, a “flourishing” tourist industry is the tourism hallmark of success – which it probably is, in terms of the cash it brings in. Trouble is, it doesn’t always enrich the lives of the local residents – think of all those tourist coaches clogging up the streets of the West End, or the selfie-stick-wielding throngs on Oxford Street making the pavements a hell on earth. But it’s exciting to discover that one European city has called a halt. Ada Colau, the new mayor of Barcelona, has dared to “challenge the conventional wisdom that tourism is the bright white hope of a modern economy”. The raft of new policies she has introduced include a moratorium on new hotel licences, and a clamp-down on unregistered apartment-letting. Calau is putting the residents’ interests first. Is it too much to hope that London and other cities might follow her example? (Mary Dejevsky, The Independent)

Bravo! Probably few, if any, readers will have visited Oxford Street (London) recently. Take my word, it is a vision of Hell. The hordes of people who seem to have arrived in London with whole extended families, each with half a dozen children in tow. They yell at one another, oblivious of others around them. Others have their heads down, consulting their mobile phones. Selfie photographers are the least of the problem. The phalanxes come straight at you, leaving you to dodge or skip round the small armies, gazing in windows. If you want to buy something you discover that major department stores, like Selfridges, have gone up-market, catering to the very rich tourists. Where I live is not much better; the armies are more modest, but so are the widths of the sidewalks. It matters not that English can seldom be heard, but it does matter that shopping has become quite unpleasant for residents. There is little Epicurean ataraxia on the streets of London, Summer being the worst.

Religions

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Epicurus believed that if there were gods they took no interest in human beings, but caused only aggravation to one another up there on Mount Olympus. People had been killed for not being superstitious, so it was wise to allude to the gods existing, even if you knew it was a charade.

Personally, I think we should be tolerant and applaud those whose acceptance of organised religion gives them peace of mind, and teaches good moral behaviour. To each according to his need. It is when the preachers talk party politics, promise financial success on earth, advocate violence or assaults on human rights in the name of god, or who prey upon the insecurities of their flocks to profit financially, these people should be encouraged to get proper day jobs.
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Panic stations!

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Yet another conservative think tank has been established in Washington DC, called the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP, as they call themselves). They intend to concentrate their attention on people with below-median incomes or net worth, looking at conservative market principles and harnessing or bending them to help Americans struggling to survive in the transition from manufacturing to an information economy. “It’s about helping people”, Lanhee Chen, Romney’s former policy advisor, is quoted as saying. “Conservatism needs to be about listening more and lecturing less”. Gasp!

Wonderful what the imminent death of your political party can do to the imagination! For decades these people have ignored their middle class (working class to the British) supporters, bestowing all the attention and goodies on the very rich who, in return, finance them. America is, as a result, disgracefully unequal, and power is concentrated in a tiny minority of coddled wealthy. Suddenly, conservative intellectuals, faced with a huge revolt on the part of the proles, are having to actually think about the voters. Epicurus would be gracious about this development. He would probably say (in Greek) “Better late than never, although I think conservative principles are unlikely to offer an answer. But top marks for trying.”

A question of priorities

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Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, among the world’s 10 wealthiest couples, with a net worth of $55.2 billion, have announced a $3 billion effort to accelerate scientific research with the ambitious goal of “curing all disease in our children’s lifetime.” They will be giving away 99 percent of their Facebook shares to “advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation.”

I don’t want to rain on their parade or comment on the ingratiating and grovelling article that drew my attention to this development, but my personal belief is that there are other, greater, priorities. Just two such issues are global climate change, which, if not slowed or reversed will claim millions of lives, young and old; and the huge projected growth in population to over 11 billion (estimated) in a world where food will in any case be in short supply and clean water be a precious resource. In the case of the population issue, most people are dismissive; others blitz you in pseudo science to “prove” you can’t possibly be right and that excess growth in population is a non-issue (tell that to the people living along the sewer that is now the Ganges – the water is already toxic and is being used to irrigate crops along its length). Strange how human beings can be in denial about the most weighty and threatening things in their lives.

American higher education going off the ( tenure) tracks

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Non-tenure track teaching staff – commonly referred to as adjuncts – now make up approximately 70% (yes, you read it correctly) of all teaching staff in American higher education. This means that roughly three out of every four courses an American student takes are taught by someone without job security who is working on minimal pay.

Years ago tenure was attacked for a number of reasons: it was accused of encouraging laziness and indifference to the students; it was unfair (why should one class of employee be exempted from being sacked for incompetence); it meant that older teachers could stay on way beyond their sell-by date. Above all, it was expensive and universities couldn’t rid themselves of ga-ga professors.

So tenure was cut back (or is disappearing) and we can now see clearly how students are being short-changed as a result. The administrators (or, as they are known,”nobodies”) have acquired unacceptable power and income. In some cases speech has been curtailed because, if an adjunct professor complains, he or she may never be asked to teach again. The only people who have gained are the heads of the colleges and the penpushers .

The larger picture is one of exploitation and control. One fifth of adjuncts have no health insurance. Half of all adjuncts are seeking full-time employment and are unable to obtain it. They are at the mercy of students who can get them fired if they are tough on the grading of lazy youngsters. Many have to take second jobs, cannot query their contracts, and can have their classes canceled without notice. The average adjunct lecturer receives only $2700 per course taught. While that amount is sometimes portrayed as easy money, in addition to class time lecturers have to prepare course content, create exams and assignments, grade, advise students, and, of course, travel from campus to campus. When academics are employed on a casual basis, such activity is not compensated, meaning that the true rate of pay is often around the minimum wage. Meanwhile, people have started to believe that if you are an adjunct you are an academic failure. And yet the whole business plan of universities is based on cheap adjunct labour. Why bother to go to college, some are asking?

The fact is that colleges and universities are being run as ordinary businesses, ever expanding to take more students and rake in more revenue, with little benefit to students. Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, takes home over $3 million a year – about 140 times what an adjunct, teaching eight courses, would earn. The average pay for public college presidents was $428 000 in 2014. Some college sports coaches are paid even better: the 10 most highly paid college coaches in 2015 each earned more than Gutmann, with some bringing home more than $7 million.

Academia as a whole is supposed to work as a force for scientific inquiry, challenging conventional wisdom and independently assessing the truth of various claims and studies. The Enlightenment idea was that universites were there to search for truth, and pass on to new generations the knowledge and wisdom that comes from free thought and debate over centuries. A friend who is involved in this academic world calls higher ecucation a “bubble about to burst”. Let it burst, but return to the old meaning of a “place of learning”.