The learning curve

In the last issue I touched on the idea of forethought and planning and on how a number of issues have emerged whose resolution will define how Ireland develops over the next decade and beyond. You see, Irish policymaking for the future is beset by a central paradox. It is that the key actors are politicians, whose horizons and timeframes are circumscribed by their five-yearly evaluation by voters, and civil servants who, though providing continuity and ‘permanent government’, are still moved within and between Departments every five to seven years. In such circumstances, the future is very close indeed and nobody really sees beyond.
What has this to do with students?
Well, look at it this way: for 15 years and more environmentalists have been warning of the threat posed to New Orleans by global climate change. Two risk factors were identified: rising sea levels, which would swamp the low-lying city’s coastal defences, and increased storm activity.
In the end it was the storm that did for New Orleans and thereby, it now looks like, one of the great musical traditions. The warnings went unheeded. Despite all the forecasts and analyses that pointed in the one direction, nobody did what needed to be done.
So when we look forward and warn of the consequences of certain courses of action or inaction, somebody needs to be taking this on board. Somebody needs to be wary and active on behalf of the world that is to come, of the Ireland, taking shape now, that will succeed this one.
Time was when students took this role for granted. To be a student was to be engaged with the worlds of ideas and action. The street was their stage and the world their agenda. Yes, people ate and drank and smoked (Gauloise perhaps!) but these had to take their place in the queue. There was also anger, argument and art. There was poetry, music and musing. There was sex, drugs and rock’n’roll.
The world was there to be prodded into meaning and prod it they did. Sure, a lot of it was self-indulgent faffing, but that’s part of the process too.
Somewhere along the way things changed. Maybe it was the points system. Maybe it was the hard times of 1986-1991. Maybe it was the abolition of fees, which made universities whore after investment and downgraded the old ideal of pure inquiry and pursuit of knowledge and enlightenment. Maybe it was the industrialisation of higher education. And life is a lot more expensive, so nowadays students have to work to play.
Whatever combination of these holds, something changed.
It’s probably more fun now, if you remember your safe sex code and don’t overdo the drugs or drink. For sure life has become a whole lot raunchier and is all the better for that. But insofar as students have also become complacent, well that’s a problem. It’s supposed to be students who accuse their parents’ generation of smugness and conservatism, not the other way round!
The thing is, while the old ideological framework has been overthrown. The new one is to do with change and specifically with knowledge, technology and social justice.
Change is so pervasive that it’s a central dynamic of society. Nothing remains the same for long. And the world we see taking shape is the one that today’s students will inherit and in time come to rule.
Today’s students are tomorrow’s decision-makers and entrepreneurs. So, as they enter or return to the groves of academe, how can they engage with change? How and for what can they agitate? How can they embrace both ideas and action, in a world that is changing even as we watch?
The thing is, it’s not just about dealing with change. It’s also about becoming agents of change, and for the better, in whatever sphere you choose.
It’s also about expectations, about seeing yourself as actually making a contribution in whatever way you can.
It’s about getting a grip on the world, about challenging it and setting and changing agendas. It’s about making a difference. It’s about squeezing the experience of three or four years of study till the pips bleed. And if that gets up the burghers’ noses every now and then, well that’s excellent. Their noses need something getting up in them!
Being a student is about being alive. If you really wring full value from it, it’s potentially the most fantastic period of your life.
In the next issue, I’ll return to some of the things we should be raging at each other over. In the meantime, enjoy!b