The Automodern University: The Universal Individual and the Backlash against Social Discourse

Abstract

This chapter argues that contemporary American research universities are a prime symptom of automodernity because not only do these institutions demonstrate the global spread of capitalism to all aspects of modernity, but they also produce some of the strongest ideological justifications for the backlash against progressive social movements.¹ Furthermore, one of the major influences of this reaction to postmodernity can be traced to the use of critical theory as a way of transforming real collective action into the abstract realm of textual politics. This transformation not only means that the academic class is spending its time critiquing texts instead of changing the world, but also that critical theory has helped to produce an economic division between the few academic theory superstars and the growing majority of disenfranchised, nontenured faculty. In turn, the concentration on research and publications in the university reward system has worked to turn faculty members into competitive individualists who become just another cog in a neoliberal capitalistic machine.