Vestnik Vysshey Shkoly
Sign inSign upJoin
Submit an articleSubmit
2026, no. 9
PHILOSOPHY & SOCIOLOGY

J. BAUDRILLARD — EDUCATION AND THE UNIVERSITY AFTER MAY 1968

Mzia J. Kuparashvili

DOI 10.20339/am.09-26.032pp. 32–41UDC 378:180 RUB

PDF

Bookmark

Abstract

This article attempts to explain what is happening in the modern educational system by examining the views and attitudes of French postmodernists toward the events of May 1968. It is based on the works of J. Baudrillard. An analysis of the works of postmodernists — who were contemporaries, direct witnesses, and often participants in the birth of the new university and the transformation of the status of knowledge and the symbolic value of a degree — helps clarify many issues and explain the shortcomings of education today. A brief overview of the university’s history and an analysis of the deep-rooted connection between its structure and the Catholic Church allowed the author to frame the negative processes affecting education within the legitimate contemporary order of capitalist rules and to expose the foundation of the simulated, false, game-like format in which today’s educational system operates. The events of 1968 can be viewed both as the emergence of a new social actor and as the beginning of a qualitatively new, different level of university education — one that leaves much to be desired. Along with the devaluation of knowledge and degrees, the work of faculty members has lost its value; everything that previously constituted the substance of their professional activity (monographs, textbooks, teaching materials) has lost its significance for the university and for the assessment of their qualifications. However, even as the value of knowledge and degrees has declined, the very structure of higher education has not collapsed at all. It mimics the process of knowledge production, but in reality merely sustains university corporatism — the result of the work of effective managers in education — and, in full accordance with consumer society, simulated reality, and symbolic exchange, becomes a key element of Baudrillard’s hyperreality. Modern university educational standards reveal a deliberate disorientation of faculty members, while the constant changing of the rules of the game — in the form of a symbolic exchange — creates a sense of controlled chaos, within which new markers of distinction and new parameters of elitism and status are devised, thereby legitimizing them through the norms and knowledge of scientometrics.

Keywords

  • postmodernism
  • university
  • intellectuals
  • student protests
  • state power
  • the value of a degree
  • hyperreality
  • simulation
  • consumer society

References

  1. Baudrillard, J. Passwords: From Fragment to Fragment. Yekaterinburg: U-Faktoriya, 2006. 199 p. (In Russian).
  2. Lyotard, J.-F. The Postmodern Condition. Moscow: Institute of Experimental Sociology; St. Petersburg: Aleteiya, 1998. 160 p. (In Russian).
  3. Foucault, M. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Moscow: Ad Marginem, 1999. 479 p. (In Russian).
  4. Deleuze, G. Negotiations, 1972–1990. St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2004. P. 233. (In Russian).
  5. Deleuze, G. May 68 Did Not Take Place. Moscow: Ad Marginem Press, 2016. 96 p. (In Russian).
  6. Readings, B. The University in Ruins. Moscow: HSE Publishing House, 2010. 304 p. (In Russian).
  7. Skripnik, K.D. The Magna Charta Universitatum and the Historical Foundations of Its Principles. Izvestia Ural Federal University Journal. Series 1. Issues in Education, Science and Culture. 2015. No. 1 (135). Pp. 50–60. (In Russian).
  8. Baudrillard, J. Symbolic Exchange and Death. Moscow: Dobrosvet; KDU Publishing House, 2011. 392 p. (In Russian).
  9. Foucault, M. Intellectuals and Power: Selected Political Articles, Speeches, and Interviews. Translated from French by S.Ch. Ofertas; edited by V.P. Vizgin and B.M. Skuratov. Moscow: Praxis, 2002. 384 p. (In Russian).
  10. Mitin, A.N. Reflections on “Academic Capitalism”. Business, Management and Law. 2014. No. 1. Pp. 120–125. (In Russian).
  11. Nefedova, A.I. On the Concepts of “Academic Capitalism” and “Entrepreneurial University”. Higher Education in Russia. 2015. No. 6. Pp. 75–81. (In Russian).
  12. Akimova, E.N., Shatayeva, O.V. Academic Capitalism: Changing the Paradigm of Higher School Development. Bulletin of the Moscow State Regional University. Series: Economics. 2020. No. 3. Pp. 8–17. https://doi.org/10.18384/2310-6646-2020-3-8-17
    DOI 10.18384/2310-6646-2020-3-8-17
  13. Baudrillard, J. Simulacra and Simulation. Moscow: POSTUM Publishing House, 2015. 240 p. (In Russian).
  14. Jacobs, J. Dark Age Ahead. Moscow: Evropa Publishing House, 2007. 264 p. (In Russian).
  15. Kostiukevich, S.V. Modern University Education: Eclectic Chaos and Conflict of Values. Alma mater (Vestnik vyshey shkoly). 2023. No. 5. Pp. 16–28. https://doi.org/10.20339/AM.05-23.016
    DOI 10.20339/am.05-23.016
  16. Grudzinskiy, A.O., Balabanova, E.S., Pekushkina, O.A. European Technology Transfer: Cooperation without a “Brain Drain”. Sociological Studies. 2004. No. 11. Pp. 123–131. (In Russian).
Rubrics
PHILOSOPHY & SOCIOLOGY