Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

3.3 Defaults-genesis part II: a young lecturer on the move
In 1982 I started to work as a lecturer in philosophy at an Academy of Social Work.
From 1982 until 1998 with great pleasure I lectured on social philosophy and ethics for
students in Social Work, Occupational Therapy and Human Resource Management.
First six years
I came to work in a department with in my view very unprofessional ways of cooperating
and communicating, low quality standards and intensive ideological battles. I
sometimes felt like Alice in Wonderland. Although a junior lecturer within a year I
became the substitute head of the department, because of showing a competence in
leading meetings and sorting things out, and a kind of unusual directness for this
environment. I suppose that I had the support of majority of the members of the
department, who longed for policy-making of the department. For a short while my
nickname became “Johnny Concrete”. I was not afraid to enter into conflicts with
colleagues, students and the management of the Academy.
If ever, there I learned to know the intricacy of communication and relations. Moreover
I became disappointed in the professional competences of my colleagues. Differences
in opinion were laid aside as a matter of ideology, thereby avoiding a critical
professional debate. My expectations were probably high. I became aware of the fact
that professional quality is depending on teamwork. Therefore I concluded you sometimes
have to enforce cooperation if taking time to clarify misunderstandings does not
help.
Although only from the midst of the eighties the Academy I worked was formally a
UAS, its collegial culture was grafted in an academic tradition of professional autonomy.
This tradition implies that the individual academic makes choices about the
courses, the way courses are taught, and reflects privately on the quality of teaching
(Monaghan, 2007). With hindsight I see that the academic cult value of professional
autonomy was functionalized in an extremely relativistic way (Mead, 1923)
After six years of hot debates, often substituting the head of the department and
being a chairman of all kinds of committees I made a switch towards more lecturing
and reading. I was tired of all the discussions which were often an unparalleled mixture
of prejudiced arguments in ideological or personal convictions being used. They
mismatched with my rather rationalistic and analytical approach.
However, if I qualify myself as a rather rationalistic and analytical person I suppose at
that time this also was a partial reaction on the ascribed irrationality of my colleagues.
To survive possibly I overdeveloped a kind of detachment. Moreover, I came to learn
that I am above average sensitive for what is happening during social interactions.
Rational detachment still offers me a provision to escape the cannonade of impressions
which submerges me in all kind of interactive situations.
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