- The Guardian
- Issue #2112
Neoliberal universities and the raygun effect
In my opinion, the nightmare around “b girl raygun,” Australia’s disastrous and embarrassing competitor in the inaugural breakdancing competition in the Olympics, exposes the very worst of the modern neoliberal university: elitism, nepotism, delusion and racism.
Breakdancing, for what it’s worth, is a delight to watch. Competitors from all over the world, from China, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, showed not only that it is definitely a sport and an art with dedicated fans and dedicated practitioners.
B girl raygun did not live up to the global standard: that’s the bottom line. All she could do was come up with academic arguments against power moves (the spectacular moves breakdancers do), to hide the fact that she couldn’t herself do them. It’s like a concert pianist arguing that they’re proud they can’t play the difficult passages in a Liszt Étude because playing piano is just about artistry, not technical mastery.
The fact is, technical mastery and artistry go hand in hand.
Worse: something went wrong in the selection process. Not only does this show we were second rate, it also showed that Australia is still largely a closed society, unable to open itself to the world standard or rate itself appropriately according to merit.
So what’s the key problem? This is a failure of criticism. Nobody dared to criticise Raygun. It’s a failure of honour; Australia will chauvinistically celebrate its athletes even if they completely shame themselves in view of the world. It’s embarrassing.
We need to reform our system of talent recognition, stop worshipping university “experts,” fake professors and academic narcissists, and not be so deluded as to fail to recognise the basic world standard.
This is happening across the board, in many areas, many fields. There is a loss of understanding as to what constitutes true authority, true achievement, real talent. Western Sydney and Greater Melbourne are teeming with migrant communities; within them would be a growing community of breakdancers. Instead, because Raygun spoke the academic language of power, and because everybody trusted it, she became the authority.
Andy,
Canberra
