Op Ed: The University of Washington Budget War Sagas, Already in Progress

Our Flickr pool's Great Beyond gives us "Broken Obelisk at night"

The cuts have already come down.

Now they come down again, but this time with more shock, more force, more impact. Straight from Olympia. Tens of millions will be lost in this saga. But the tens of millions tally up to something more profound than cash: the loss of minds. Young minds who want to learn. Wise minds who want to teach.

Our minds, if we let this happen as a region.

The University of Washington, like every kindergarten, elementary, junior and high school and higher learning institution in our country is facing a war of historical dimensions.

What is this war about?

It is about whether we should measure the worth of knowledge and thinking with a calculator. It is about whether a free, thriving and independent learning academy has a place in our society. It is about whether our state and our citizens envision a future where knowledge for the sake of future knowledge is a value.

It is about whether the inexorable forces of capital will finally possess our academies once and for all, banishing any form of education that does not graduate a suited widget maker with no independent mind at all.

Today, the Washington State Legislature moved to deal with our state's seemingly bottomless projected deficits by cutting $700 million from the current year budget. $50 million from education.

But what is at stake is more insidious than the loss of funds. It is the identity of education in our society, the relationship it has with capital, and the tools by which we will finally measure the dollar worth of a human mind.

There will be more dispatches from the university war sagas as the winter wears on.