Academic Capitalism And The Humanities

“Academic capitalism” first refers to the academic works of institutions and teachers are already marketed or closed to the market behavior in the field of higher education.With the deepening of the market economy,academic capitalism has gradually became into a kind of social and cultural system,which has changed the order of scientific research in traditional humanities,resulting in significant changes in college mission,academic orientation,teacher role and university governance.As the market assimilating and integrating,the university is no longer a single entity;society no longer has a simple "ivory tower",no longer have pure citizens and scholars.All of these institutional changes have allowed the academic activities of the humanities to face the reconstruction of the new social environment.Under this environment,the relatively weak humanities is coonfronted with greater opportunities and challenges not only in the project issues,but also in performance evaluation and such aspects as results published.By the influence of capital,currency and the role of the market,Humanities are heterogeneous,human intellectuals are facing be marginalized and islanding.When the capital is controlling the academic,humanistic intellectuals often wander between the academic rationality and capital rationality.It is fundamentally result from the combination of the homogeneity and conflict of capital logic and cultural logic.Therefore,to understand the two mechanisms’ operation and interaction can help us to correctly understand the academic capitalism’s influence to human sciences.In the face of the opportunities and challenges brought by academic capitalism,the humanities science will consciously resist the cultural patterns in this market economy because of its inherent cultural characteristics and basic values.At the same time,the non-basic value orientation of humanities also become its inherent dependency of the times and the market environment.Humanities and intellectuals themselves should hold their positions on the basic values of truth,perfection and aesthetic,and the state and society should give the necessary attention,protection and policy guidance to the humanities.