Reclaiming our agency

Underlying this idea of cashing in from whatever is the trend at moment is loss of human agency

Over the weekend, Japanese baseball player, Shohei Ohtani became the highest paid athlete in the world. The Los Angeles Dodgers signed a 10-year $700 million contract with Ohtani. This, of course, has made news in many parts of the word, not only because Ohtani is an exceptional player but also because of the size of the contract. While the price tag here is extraordinary, we have gotten used to contacts that go in hundreds of millions of dollars for our favourite football players. Clubs in Europe, and most recently the Gulf countries, are offering contracts that are hard to fathom, especially at a time when pledges for supporting life-saving commodities in areas of conflict or global neglect have continued to dwindle. Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia and Palestine are just a few places where such funds could save millions of lives.

Some Pakistani friends and observers, while commenting on the most recent deal, mentioned how much money there is to be made in entertainment and sports, and why Pakistan is not cashing in. I know some of these colleagues and friends quite well, so I know that they are probably coming from a good place, and want to see Pakistan and Pakistanis do well. More money for entertainment means (potentially) more tax, more advertising revenues, etc. Yet, this line of thinking makes a certain assumption about global trends and assumes that these trends are inevitable, and here to stay. The best we can, and we should, do is to utilise these for our maximum benefit.

Underlying this idea of cashing in from whatever is the trend at the moment is the loss of human agency. We assume that because there is a demand for entertainment, there is big money there, and this is just how it is. We should not question why it is there, but take it as a given and try to utilise it for our own benefit. By accepting this we forgo our ability to question the trends or what we consider inevitable. We lose the ability to ask if going along is the right thing, or should we ask if there are other important causes that remain woefully underfunded while money in sports, or entertainment, continues to break all previous records. By arguing to cash in, we lose our most important asset — our agency.

Let me illustrate the idea of agency with another example — this time closer to my own area of work. Every year, several newspapers or magazines from around the world rank universities. Most academics know that these rankings are inherently flawed. Yet, despite their inherent problems, most universities’ administrators continue to participate in them. They spend precious resources, hire staff and consultants who advise them on strategy so that they can move up a notch or two. The administrators do that because they have, in their minds, believed that these rankings are here to stay, and are now a permanent part of the higher education enterprise. Instead of pushing back against the rankings, or simply disregarding them, they become a party to the enterprise. By participating, they lose their own agency to stand up to something that is deeply problematic.

Another example: a close friend who is a senior administrator at a university, while commenting on the current situation in higher education in the US where powerful donors are increasingly interfering in university decision-making, told me that he wished more richer people from the Global South would start writing bigger checks to the university, so they would also have a say in university affairs. It is all about the money, he said. He told me that he thought that “our people are not playing the game properly”. Again, while I recognise his frustration, I believe that the right approach is not to accept the status quo, or play the game, but push for a better system. We all know that the system is broken, but the right answer is not to get in the race, but to change it. We should not let go of our agency that easily.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2023.

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