New month, new academic year, time to start up the blog after the summer hiatus... The third annual junior fellows transdisciplinary seminar began at Woodbury University last week and we're focusing on the global economic crisis. I've been accused of naivete and foolhardiness in trying such complex analysis and problem solving with undergraduates, but our previous studies of the interconnections between oil consumption, plastic pollution, human migration and sweatshop labor in year one and overpopulation, climate change, urban policy and sustainability in year two have been richly rewarding projects even if the final versions of the students' work were somewhat unfinished and unpolished.
This year's students are investigating issues related to the current global economic crisis (including its origins and consequences) through examining: the need for educational improvements (especially in terms of global and international affairs), the role of grassroots community activism as a source of progressive social change, and the place of governmental intervention in the reform of bank and consumer lending practices. They will also consider how the current global economic crisis affects the conception and implementation of ethics in the corporate world, the demand for technologically and scientifically equipped leaders, and the individual personal transformations and critical consciousness required.
We begin by considering Paul Krugman's "The Return of Depression Economics," where he examines to begin with the causes of our blindness to the approaching crisis. In my words, there are: 1) The End of Socialism left us with no apparent competitors, hence we were smug about our success... "The End of History" and all that; 2) The Mastery of Money Managers left us arrogant, as if we had solved all the problems and all that was left was the tinkering of technocrats; 3) Techno-Wizards rule and any problem can be solved (and productivity and profit increased) by the application of IT, making us fall prey to "heroic romanticism" and false optimism; and 4) Integration into the World Economy as the magic key to rising prosperity seemed like a 'no-brainer,' which itself should be a warning phrase to us all. In short, for those of us aspiring to be transdisciplinarians, the lessons are strong: we were smug, arrogant, romantic, optimistic and thought the magic genie would take care of it all; we need instead to be open, humble, rational, realistic and responsible.
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