long live the (auditor) king

In The (im)possibility of intellectual work in neoliberal regimes Bronwyn Davies writes:

Don Watson describes the all-pervasive language of neoliberal managerialism as ‘‘unable to convey any human emotion, including the most basic ones such as happiness, sympathy, greed, envy, love or lust. You cannot’’ he says ‘‘tell a joke in this language, or write a poem, or sing a song. It is a language without human provenance or possibility’’.

Here is more about that language:
Oppressive state language--that is, currently, the language of neoliberal government--is more violent than its bland, rather absurd surface might lead us to believe. It is at work here, busily containing what we can do, what we can understand. It is the language in which the auditor is king. It is a language that destroys social responsibility and critique, that invites a mindless, consumer-oriented individualism to flourish, and kills off conscience.

And what it means to think critically:
To critique is risky work, not just because it might alienate those who are deeply attached to, or personally implicated in, the discourses to be placed under scrutiny but also because to draw attention to the very terms through which existence is made possible, to begin to dismantle those very terms while still depending on them for shared meaning making--even for survival--requires a kind of daring, a willingness to envisage the not yet known and to make visible the faults, the effects of the already known.

Stay tuned. This story has a happy(ish) ending.