Childeish questions.

Childeish questions. The criteria used in the British universities' currentassessment of research quality prompt the question: how would GordonChilde have fared, if assessed that way?Two recent books about Gordon Childe (Harris 1995; Gathercole et al.1995), and Peter Gathercole's recent lecture (1994), have providedsome sombre som��bre?adj. Chiefly BritishVariant of somber.sombreor US somberAdjective1. serious, sad, or gloomy: a sombre message2. and thought-provoking reading. Not so much about Childe theman (though what mythologist could have invented a more evocativesymmetry than his Australian entry to the British stage, his life as thePrince of European Prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to whilst remaining essentially an Outsiderthere, and his return to Australia and dramatic resorption resorption/re��sorp��tion/ (re-sorp��shun)1. the lysis and assimilation of a substance, as of bone.2. reabsorption.re��sorp��tionn. into thelandscape that bred him?); not so much about the personality. as aboutthe political circumstances that on several occasions surrounded hiswork. Certainly Britain and its Empire were at war when he arrived inOxford in 1914, and still sensitive long after he returned to Australiain 1917: but it is still a shock to read the military censor'sgloating reports on his mail, and of the machinations of reactionaryuniversity politicians to get rid of a socialist and pacifist, and tohave him dismissed even from a school-teaching post (Mulvaney in Harris1994). The unease revives, after the security of a chair at Edinburghand recognition in London, with the reminder that Childe was declaredpersona non grata non gra��ta?adj.Not welcome; not approved: The aide, having been declared non grata, was expelled from the country.[From persona non grata.] in the United States United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. in 1945 (Peace in Gathercole etal. 1995), and that McCarthyite distrust of all 'big ideas'led to a general suspicion in that country of historians andanthropologists who raised their eyes from technicalities togeneralizations. It is fashionable now to parody ideas of socialevolution as an ideology of conservatism; it is salutary to be remindedthat once they were subversive and dangerous, and that what are nowfamiliar names in undergraduate textbooks came during that era underpolitical suspicion. It has the same capacity to cause incredulousdisquiet as the kindly letter (reproduced in Bernal 1987: 388) from agroup of faculty members in a US university in 1919, telling a colleaguethat he had no hope of a tenured position in a classics departmentbecause he was Jewish, and that it would be best to stop trying to findone.It hits one unexpectedly because universities aren't supposed tobe like that. Of course there have been departments where mediocrityrules and talent is seen as a threat, or whole disciplines that seem attimes in the not-so-distant past to have been seized by a collectivedelusion (say) that one city in the 5th century BC was the touchstone ofcivilization, and its pots were worth their weight in gold; but that isnot the same thing as outright proscription of a challenging point ofview by nameless censors within the system. (Certain funding bodies seemto get quite close to this model, however.) Perhaps, for a short time,British universities did come near to espousing a system - publicfunding Public funding is money given from tax revenue or other governmental sources to an individual, organization, or entity. See alsoPublic funding of sports venues Research funding Funding body , with academic autonomy - best calculated to achieve the ideal.Not any more. Abolition of the difference between polytechnics anduniversities has eroded the concept that universities are not just aboutteaching but about the critical scrutiny of received knowledge. Now theyare assumed simply to be concerned with imparting an agreed set offacts. A few of them may be privileged to conduct 'research' -specifically designed on the engineering/applied scientific model, witha measurable output and preferably with industrial application'goal-rational, value-free, commoditized learning. Most disturbing is thesystem of appraisal applied in economics: high scores for'mainstream' (Orwellian term!) economics - econometricmodelling, value-free number-crunching - low scores for criticalappraisal of what it all means, and alternative - including Marxist -interpretations. (And, across the board, low scores for teaching, if itkeeps you from 'research'.) Who assesses the assessors? Andwho can question their assessments, as subversives are quietly notre-appointed, and 'mainstream' attitudes stifle criticalquestioning?To put it bluntly, who would hire Childe today? A good publicationrecord (though too few articles in journals with 'rigorouseditorial and refereeing standards': Research. Assessment Exercise1996: Archaeology Panel Assessment Criteria) would be balanced against apoor administrative record ('abysmal': Wheeler) and a lowprobability of pulling outside grants from EU funding programmes (notnotably sympathetic to the idea that the dawn of European civilizationis attributable to Near Eastern irradiation and Hegelian dialectic). Noquantification; simply not 'mainstream'. Ironically, betterthan average on industrial application - he did, after all, write a bookcalled The history of tools (for the Young Communist League): but,overall, not the model of a dynamic manager likely to appeal toappointing committees today. Well: it has long been an aphorism aphorism(ăf`ərĭz'əm), short, pithy statement of an evident truth concerned with life or nature; distinguished from the axiom because its truth is not capable of scientific demonstration. amongscientists that neither Darwin - the amiable bug-collector - norEinstein - wild-haired, woolly, and never wearing socks - would havereceived a grant from one of our research councils; but biology andphysics, in a sense, are beyond the stage of requiring such primitivegenius. Archaeology arguably is not.What Peter Gathercole reminds us is that Childe constantly wrote fortwo readerships: his technical, prehistoric audience with its fineknowledge of pots and pin-types, and a discerning general readershipwhich needed to be told why prehistory mattered. Much archaeologicaldiscussion is now about material culture, and its long-term changes;borrowing a question from anthropology, it is about why people wantgoods. There are, perhaps, few more vital questions for the long-termsurvival of humanity. If we are to stay alive without depleting theplanet, we must lose our dependency on material consumption. We cannotany longer afford to indulge without restriction those tastes that wehave successively acquired during the Neolithic and Urban Revolutions,and after. To ask why we did so, and why material culture now seems toarrange us to suit its convenience - we have to re-think the Childeanquestions - and with a Childeish sense of simplicity.ReferencesBERNAL, M. 1987. Black Athena: the Afroasiatic roots of classicalcivilization 1: The .fabrication fabrication (fab´rikā´shn),n the construction or making of a restoration. of Ancient Greece 1785-1985. London:Free Assocation Books.GATHERCOLE, P. 1994. Childe in history (6th Gordon Childe MemorialLecture. 1994), Institute of Archaeology The Institute of Archaeology is an academic department of University College London (UCL), in the United Kingdom. The Institute is located in a separate building at the north end of Gordon Square, Bloomsbury. Bulletin 31: 25-52.GATHERCOLE, P., T.H. IRVING & G. MELLEUISH (ed.). 1995. Childeand Autralia: archaeology, politics and ideas. St Lucia: University ofQueensland The University of Queensland (UQ) is the longest-established university in the state of Queensland, Australia, a member of Australia's Group of Eight, and the Sandstone Universities. It is also a founding member of the international Universitas 21 organisation. Press.HARRIS, D.R. (ed.). 1995. The archaeology of V. Gordon Childe.London: UCL UCL University College LondonUCL Universit�� Catholique de LouvainUCL UEFA Champions LeagueUCL Upper Confidence LimitUCL University of Central LancashireUCL Upper Control LimitUCL Unfair Competition LawUCL Ulnar Collateral Ligament Press.