 A Capital Friendly Culture for Further Education
Academy Chains
After the Hillcole Group
Against What We Are Worth
Ambassadors of Capital in Schools
An Educational Mansion House for Business
Apprenticeship and the Use-value Aspect of Labour Power
Artistic Outlook
Ayers Rocked In His Own Universe
B Generation
Bourdieu on Capital
Bourdieu on Cultural Capital
Bourdieu on Social Capital
Brown PFI Monster
Business Sponsorship of Schools
Business Takeover of Further Education
Cambridge University Occupation
Caught in the Storm of Capital
Co-payment in Hospitals and Schools
Cold Hands and Quarter Moon
Communitarianism for Schools
Compulsory Consumption and Uni-Nanny
Conforming Schools Conforming Kids
Copy/South Dossier
Creating Monsters
Creeping Privatisation in Higher Education
Critical Mass
Critical Pedagogy and Capitalism
Critical Space in Education
Delivering E-Learning
Digital Rights Management
Distillation
Dorothy L. Sayers
Douglas Kennedy: best-selling novelist
E-learning for Free at the BBC
Edison Schools in the UK
Education and Inspections Bill (2006)
Education As Culture Machine
Education Fireworks
Education for Debt
Education Incorporated
Education Markets and Missing Products
Education Repetition
Education the HSBC Way
Education White Paper
Education, Globalisation and the Learning Society
Employers and School Leavers
Evaluating Different Teaching Methods
Everything Louder Than Everything Else
Finance and Fear
Five Endings of Desires
Foibles, Frolics and Phantasms
Freedom
Freewill
French New Wave Cinema
Full Report Ruth Rikowski's Book Launch for Globalisation, Information and Libraries
Gender and Spokesperson in Group Work Issues
Global Trading
Globalisation and Education Revisited
Habituation of the Nation
Higher Education and Confused Employer Syndrome
Hitchcock: classic auteur
Human capital, the knowledge economy and business
In Retro Glide
In the Dentist's Chair
Kids in the Land of No Dreams
KM Critique
Lazy Brit Kids
Learning in the Earthworks of Capital
Learning Investments
Learning to the Max
Librarianship and Human Rights
Lifelong Learning and the Political Economy of Containment
LSBU Strategy
Marketisation of the Schools System in England
Marx and Education Revisited
Marx and the Future of the Human
Marxism and Education Revisited
Marxist Educational Theory Unplugged
Maturity and Freedom
McDonaldization and Education
Michael Jackson
Michele Roberts
Miss Allison and Novel Writing
Moneythought in Higher Education
Mrs Thatcher and Holes in the Kitchen Floor
Multiculturalism and Faith Schools
My Tony Blair
New Ideas in Ruth Rikowski's Book - Part 1
New Ideas in Ruth Rikowski's Book - Part 2
New Labour Policy for Schools
Nietzsche's School
Nihilism and Educational Values
No Learner Left Unhassled
Notes on the Confessions of John Denham
On Education for Its Own Sake
On Education Studies
On the Capitalisation of Schools in England
On Transhumanism and Education
Open Access
Outsourcing Public Services
Peter Wilby on School Privatisation
Planet of the Capitorg
Plato
Playgound Risks and Handcuffed Kids
Poems by Gregory Rikowski
Poems by Victor Rikowski
Post-Fordism and Schools
Post-Fordism in Primary Schools
Postmodern Dereliction in the Face of Neoliberal Education Policy
PowerPointlessness in Higher Education
Private Schools as Charities
Privatisation of Schools in England
Privatisation of Student Debt
Races in the Imperial War
Readings for Teaching Course
Recruitment and Labour Power
Revealed Recruitment Criteria through the Use-value Aspect of Labour-power
Robotic Ethics
Ruth Rikowski Updates (Archives)
Ruth Rikowski Updates (Archives)
School Fees and the 1944 Education Act
Schools: Building for Business
Science Fiction Films and Horror
Second Time as Farce
Snowballs and Risk in Schools
Social Contract Theory and Political Obligations
Socialism is not Dead
Speed of Life - Part One
Speed of Life - Part Two
Stroppy Individuals and Oppositional Cultures in Schools
Sustainability Policy at London South Bank University
Ten Points on Marx, Class and Education
The Business of Becoming a Business for Academies
The Capitalisation of Schools - Federations and Academies
The CBI and the Business Takeover of Schools
The Commodification of Education
The Education White Paper and the Marketisation of Schools
The Evolution of Federations of Schools
The Last Parents Evening
The New Japanisation of Schools
The Profit Virus - The Business Takeover of Schools
The Standards Language-game for Schools in England
The Which Blair Project
Three Types of Apprenticeship - Three Forms of Mastery
Tony and Caroline Benn
Tony Benn: Letters to Grandchildren
Transport
Turney's and PPU
Uninspiring Towers
Universe of Capital and My Space
Universities in a Neoliberal World
Utopia and Education
What Can Nietzsche Teach Ya
When Bullies Roam the School
When the Bowers Break
Why Employers Can't Ever Get What They Want
Will Hutton and His E-Foss
Wolf on Marx Without Sparks
Women in World Wars
| What Can Nietzsche Teach Ya?
Preface
This blog was first written for Wavering on Ether, the blog I have on MySpace [1]. I thought it worthwhile to reproduce it here. It is part confessional, and was originally drafted in response to a very interesting thread on the Socialism Group, started by Stancel.
Glenn Rikowski - the Volumizer, Northampton, 16th October 2006
I have my own story to tell regarding the philosopher with a hammer. In the early 1990s, I was perturbed, nay pissed off, with folks from the educational Left drifting away from Marx and Marxism and towards postmodernism. So I decided to try to make sense of this, and started reading the postmodernist writers. However, I soon sussed out that what I really needed to do was to read the postmodern Godfathers – Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, Deleuze and so on. But this reading programme didn't last long either, as I realised that these guys were all indebted, in one way or another, to Nietzsche.
I put aside any misgivings about reading Nietzsche – and there were many – and began, with The Anti-Christ, then Beyond Good and Evil and just kept going. Over 1992 to 1996 I read most of Nietzsche's published stuff. I also read lots of commentaries on, and analyses of Nietzsche – the secondary literature, plus articles on Nietzsche and education (mostly from a journal called Educational Theory). Yet I still had reservations about all this reading of Nietzsche. I told a few Marxist friends what I had been up to: they disapproved, for a whole bunch of reasons. But I persevered. I read books and articles (there weren't that many) that tried to synthesise, or at least find parallels between Marx and Nietzsche.
This doggedness on my part flowed from a number of factors. First, I just enjoyed reading Nietzsche, and I liked particularly his iconoclasm and his critiques of a vast range of other philosophers. He is a tremendous writer. Secondly, having read a couple of biographies on him I was fascinated by many aspects of his life. But thirdly, and this was most important, reading Nietzsche was helping me to write. On writing style, he was a great teacher for me.
In 1996 my discovery of Geoff Waite's book on Nietzsche was a severe jolt for me [2]. Waite's critique of Nietzsche was relentless and mostly convincing, though I don't agree with him that we should just not mess with Nietzsche at all. Waite seemed too fearful of Nietzsche for my liking; perhaps as I had been before I had started to read Nietzsche. He gave Nietzsche too much respect. But Waite made me reconsider what I was doing. I decided to bring all this reading together in the field of education [3] and [4]. I too tried to bring Marx into contact with Nietzsche, with some success [5].
Looking back, I think I gained from what I did with Nietzsche. One important gain was that I found myself in a great position to critique educational postmodernism! Also, by the late 1990s, people like Nigel Blake were using Nietzsche and nihilism to critique education policy in England, and in quite interesting ways too. But I could show how these critiques were limited, and my reading of Nietzsche helped loads on that score.
On balance, I'm glad I spent so much time with the philosopher with a hammer, beyond good and evil. But I would say that if you do read Nietzsche as much as I did, you might need Waite as an antidote!
Notes and References
[1] See: http://blog.myspace.com/glennrikowski
[2] Geoff Waite (1996) Nietzsche's Corps/e: Aesthetics, politics, prophecy, Or, the spectacular technoculture of everyday life, Durham & London: Duke University Press.
[3] Glenn Rikowski (1998) Nietzsche's School? The Roots of Educational Postmodernism, a paper prepared for the Social Justice Seminar, Semester 2, University of Birmingham, School of Education, 24th March. Online at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=articles&sub=Nietzsche[a]s%20School
[4] Peter McLaren and Glenn Rikowski (2001) Pedagogy for Revolution against Education for Capital: An E-Dialogue on Education in Capitalism Today, Cultural Logic, Vol.4 No.1, online at: http://clogic.eserver.org/4-1/mclaren%26rikowski.html
[5] Glenn Rikowski (1999) Nietzsche, Marx and Mastery: The Learning Unto Death, in: P. Ainley and H. Rainbird (Eds.) Apprenticeship: Towards a New Paradigm of Learning, London: Kogan Page.
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