Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

possibility of involving a lot of people I still aimed at a process of realization in which
reliance upon self-organization was leading.
I start to realize that for me this reliance upon self-organization is not only a moral
imperative. This reliance is also based on a perspective on our contemporary society
and consequently developments in Higher Education. My acting is or may be a response
towards the way I see things happening in the world from a broader perspective.
If so, my acts still are my response, and are in a way within my professional life my
responses related to what I see as influential societal developments. So in a last part of
this chapter I reflect upon my perspective on what is happening. My expectation is
that against the background of what I will call the foolishness of the world, continuously
tensions will arise between a planned change approach in which predictability
and accountability are sought and daily life in which actual and unforeseen problems
are to be coped with. These tensions are not reserved for the UAS I work for, but I
assume are common in a lot of organizations.
A foolish world? Some tentative reflections
The performance agreements as ordained by the State Secretary can be seen as one in
a series of political or governmental efforts to protect the Dutch people against the
foolishness of the world, in trying to guarantee Higher Education of outstanding
quality. Outstanding educated people are seen as needed for the collaborative and
competitive battles a globalized world dictates. The performance agreements are a
sequel in trying to manage Higher Education according to what I earlier introduced as
NPM, which amongst others fosters the use of management instruments which are
regularly used in the private sector. Quite some politicians, boards and managers of
public organizations firmly believe that with the use of these management instruments
the overall results of an organization will improve. For others there is very little
evidence for this overall improvement. NPM even would lead to counterfeit quality
(Carter et al., 2011; Stacey, 2010) or pervert consequences (Raad voor Maatschappelijke
Ontwikkeling, 2011). Even a member of the review commission, set up by the State
Secretary to evaluate the performance agreements, openly pronounced that control
of the realization of the performance agreements is impossible (Brouwer, 2012). For me
this dissension, even in the heart of the institutions, is an illuminating illustration of
the experienced foolishness of our days.
The experienced foolishness of our world evolves out of unpredictable, uncontrollable
and in any case fast developments, indicated by, what from an economic perspective is
called globalization. Globalization reveals an interdependency which manifests itself in
unexpected and often unwanted consequences in the social and economic life of many
people. Nowadays worldwide people have to deal with the paradoxes of modernism in
which growing differentiation goes along with growing dependency, in which growing
control goes along with more freedom of choice and pluralism, and in which a growing
richness in possibilities goes along with a growing vulnerability (Loo and Reijen, 1997).
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