Three Letter Acronyms

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  • aka Calum Da Jazbo
    Late member
    • Nov 2010
    • 9173

    Three Letter Acronyms

    Marina Warner gives a concerning and depressing account of developments in Universities, their management and likely future in the current lrb

    We have a situation in which a lecturer cannot speak her mind, universities bring in the police to deal with campus...


    She refers to Three Letter Acronyms - TLAs; forms of language promulgated by the new transactional managerialism that now occupies all public organisations:

    As universities are beaten into the shapes dictated by business, so language is suborned to its ends. We have all heard the robotic idiom of management, as if a button had activated a digitally generated voice. Like Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty-Four, business-speak is an instance of magical naming, superimposing the imagery of the market on the idea of a university – through ‘targets’, ‘benchmarks’, time-charts, league tables, ‘vision statements’, ‘content providers’. We may laugh or groan, depending on the state of our mental health at the thickets of TLAs – three-letter acronyms, in the coinage of the writer Richard Hamblyn – that accumulate like dental plaque.
    whilst the image of 'plaque' clogging the dentures with detritus and corruption is striking, it fals to capture the true toxicity of the "newnewspeak"; a far more telling metaphor is that of the 'prion' - a protein that both misfolds and transmits, and causes lethal deterioration in brain functions in dementia CJD and Alzheimer's Disease .... 'prion' derives from protein and infection so that which should build strength and structure creates decay and weakness invading discourse these agents deny thought and reason, they are chanted in mindless argument with dissenters accused of heresy and 'bad faith' and these agents kill the ability of organisations to hold meaningful discourse about their nature, aims and practices

    Warner is chilling; her account of the wreckage created by transactionalism in the University is familiar from the NHS, and imv will be when the BBC future is debated ...

    meanwhile ponder this from Collini [recognise the response style?]
    As Stefan Collini says in his trenchant study What Are Universities For? (2012), ‘compelling and often devastating criticisms appear to have had little or no effect on policy-making. The arguments have not been answered; they have merely been ignored. Rather than blaming academics for not speaking out sufficiently strongly, the conclusion … is that those who make policy are just not listening.’
    Warner describes 'cruel optimism' a form of self delusion
    People open themselves to exploitation when the sense of self-worth that derives from doing something they believe in comes up against a hierarchical authority that is secretive, arbitrary and ruthless. Cruel optimism afflicts the colleague who agrees to yet another change of policy in the hope that it will be the last one.
    i am not a pessimist [see the future of bbc thread] but i do not wish to delude myself with the cruelty of misplaced optimism and trust ... we have real challenges ... to define promulgate and protect the values that, as Warner has it, cannot be measured .... and to attack and destroy the 'newnewspeak' of brain death and domination
    Last edited by aka Calum Da Jazbo; 18-03-15, 17:42.
    According to the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.
  • Nick Armstrong
    Host
    • Nov 2010
    • 26572

    #2
    I hate all acronyms - the capitalised business ones. I can NEVER remember what they mean. I always make a point of stopping anyone who uses one at work, and asking them to remind me what it is. Slows the buggers down, they hate it. Plus it's actually true, I need the reminder.

    Except I don't mind useful shorthand ones like tbh, imho etc)
    "...the isle is full of noises,
    Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
    Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
    Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

    Comment

    • Beef Oven!
      Ex-member
      • Sep 2013
      • 18147

      #3
      Originally posted by Caliban View Post
      I hate all acronyms - the capitalised business ones. I can NEVER remember what they mean. I always make a point of stopping anyone who uses one at work, and asking them to remind me what it is. Slows the buggers down, they hate it. Plus it's actually true, I need the reminder.

      Except I don't mind useful shorthand ones like tbh, imho etc)
      And it takes longer to say "double-u, double-u, double-u" than it does to say "world wide web"!!!!

      Comment

      • Alain Maréchal
        Full Member
        • Dec 2010
        • 1287

        #4
        Originally posted by Beef Oven! View Post
        And it takes longer to say "double-u, double-u, double-u" than it does to say "world wide web"!!!!
        Try "dub-dub-dub". I'm not sure its ever needed these days - every time I enter a URL (a TLA!) my qwerty pc enters www for me, oddly my azerty doesn't - must be a setting I've missed.

        Caliban would have an apoplexy in France. Everything here has acronyms - even obscure things like CREPS - which is Centre de Ressource d'Expertise et de Performance Sportive - so you can see why the acronym is used.

        Comment

        • greenilex
          Full Member
          • Nov 2010
          • 1626

          #5
          Every so often a spurious science takes over for a while, e.g eugenics and craniology...business studies has strong resemblances, don't you agree?

          Comment

          • aka Calum Da Jazbo
            Late member
            • Nov 2010
            • 9173

            #6
            imv the notion of such passing fashions/crazes/fads does not capture the very real invasion of power structures and behaviour that the corporatist businessspeak has achieved ... Adam Curtis is excellent at unravelling how patterns of thought and language shape and effect power relationships ...
            According to the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.

            Comment

            • Nick Armstrong
              Host
              • Nov 2010
              • 26572

              #7
              Originally posted by Alain Maréchal View Post
              Caliban would have an apoplexy in France. Everything here has acronyms
              I do and I have - regularly. Actually I just laugh! And make noises like SPACK, SMIC, CRAP, PRIC, FLOC, FRIC until someone explains what the hell they're on about...
              "...the isle is full of noises,
              Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
              Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
              Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

              Comment

              • ardcarp
                Late member
                • Nov 2010
                • 11102

                #8
                It's all a LOB.

                Comment

                • french frank
                  Administrator/Moderator
                  • Feb 2007
                  • 30456

                  #9
                  Originally posted by aka Calum Da Jazbo View Post
                  Maria Warner gives a concerning and depressing account of developments in Universities, their management and likely future in the current lrb
                  I only get 'Server not found' with that link?
                  As Stefan Collini says in his trenchant study What Are Universities For? (2012), ‘compelling and often devastating criticisms appear to have had little or no effect on policy-making. The arguments have not been answered; they have merely been ignored. Rather than blaming academics for not speaking out sufficiently strongly, the conclusion … is that those who make policy are just not listening.’
                  But, then, why should they? They are paid to do the job, the critics aren't (so I have been told)
                  Last edited by aka Calum Da Jazbo; 18-03-15, 17:43.
                  It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

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                  • aka Calum Da Jazbo
                    Late member
                    • Nov 2010
                    • 9173

                    #10
                    Originally posted by french frank View Post
                    I only get 'Server not found' with that link?
                    But, then, why should they? They are paid to do the job, the critics aren't (so I have been told)
                    link renewed apologies

                    of course professors and doctors are paid to do the job and we trust know what they are talking about when in comes to healthcare or education .... the managers and politicians are paid to represent peolple or be stewards of others assets [in these cases ours] but both classes are gangsters in their own interest [see Warner's account of their salaries v academic pay]
                    According to the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.

                    Comment

                    • EdgeleyRob
                      Guest
                      • Nov 2010
                      • 12180

                      #11
                      We use FFS quite often at work.

                      Comment

                      • richardfinegold
                        Full Member
                        • Sep 2012
                        • 7737

                        #12
                        Reading through this thread I had to LOL

                        Comment

                        • ardcarp
                          Late member
                          • Nov 2010
                          • 11102

                          #13
                          As long as you didn'y ROTFLYAO...oh dear, that's 8.

                          Is this really Ideas and Theory?

                          Comment

                          • aka Calum Da Jazbo
                            Late member
                            • Nov 2010
                            • 9173

                            #14
                            Is this really Ideas and Theory?
                            IMV
                            According to the best estimates of astronomers there are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.

                            Comment

                            • vinteuil
                              Full Member
                              • Nov 2010
                              • 12936

                              #15
                              ... dnr

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