Individualized grading, combative philosophy, and neoliberal subjects

Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber responds to Jonathan Wolff and to Brian Leiter on the question of the combative style in philosophical discussion. Bertram: 

Sometimes combat might be the right stance, but seeing that as the default mode for philosophical discussion leads far too often to destructive Q&A sessions that aim at destroying the opponent and bolstering the amour propre of the aggressor. Where the aim is victory, then all kinds of rhetorical moves can prove effective: there’s no reason to think that truth will emerge as a by-product.

For my part, regarding blood-on-the-floor seminar rooms, I wonder to what extent the practice of awarding individual grades creates the impression among students of a zero-sum game in grades (whether or not a true zero-sum game is in operation*), exacerbating the combativeness aspect: “if I tear down Jones, that’s one less person in the top grade cohort I have to worry about.”

Perhaps more of a reach -- but that's supposed to exceed one's grasp, isn't it? -- is the connection of individualized grades with the neoliberal self-entrepreneur, which Jon discusses below, in relation to Mike Konczal's review of Mirowski.

(The worry about what sort of subject is formed in professional networking and the self-brand management that academic self-entrepreneuralism requires is found in Helen's discussion I think.)

But let's think about it for a minute: in seeing co-operation as "cheating" aren't we creating the conditions for artificial and fragile competition? Recall Hayek's worry (as parsed by Daniel Klein):

that the social-democratic ethos is an atavistic reassertion of the ethos and mentality of the primordial paleolithic band, a mentality resistant to ideas of spontaneous order and disjointed knowledge

Let's accept, for the sake of argument, that Klein expresses a (type of) neoliberal understanding of anthropology (okay, I can't resist: "hélas."). So we see that from this perspective, a teacher's job is to prevent cooperation (= social-democratic ethos = "cheating") and to establish the conditions for competition in awarding individual grades. That is, to contribute in some degree to the constitution of the atomized, competitive, self-entrepreneurial ... "neoliberal subject."

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* The question of grade inflation can be put here, as one way of defeating zero-sum games in grades.