The function of a university (as explained by Gramsci and Marcuse) is to produce minds indoctrinated with 'progressive' thought - so indoctrinated that any ideas that are hostile to the cause will be rejected by them (without consideration) ...Paul Marks at Samizdata.
Maybe the smartest thing I've ever read on Al Gore's Intarwebz about the Intellectual class was Eric S. Raymond on Gramscian Damage. My own, poorer attempt at analysis is here.
In any case, I entirely agree with Marks:
As for reforming the universities - they can not be reformed. They must be de-funded - no more taxpayers money for them (directly or indirectly).
Harsh, but unfortunately all to well earned. And I say that as a son (and a son-in-law) of University professors.
5 comments:
oddly enugh I find a lot of the roots of my Small-Govenment conservative nature were planted while persuing my Marine Science degree at the University of Maine.
A college AND a State school. But I learned in my oceanography class that "Global Climate Change" (in those days they called it "The Greenhouse Effect") Was likely bunk. In statistic class I learned how people cook numbers, and how to look at a study and tell if the results are legit or not. From the people there I learned that Guns weren't dangerous OR scary, and normal folks carry them (and the stupidity of Gun-Free zones), I learned that if a student was given free tuition and one had to workstudy to pay the bills, the worker tried harder to get better grades than the student given a free-ride. I learned the war on drugs was pure stupidity, and I learned that even reputable people like professors are perfectly willing to lie to forward an agenda.
Coming from a University dominated region where technology results are directly traced and credited (whether true or not) to the "Excellence" of that indoctrination, I see it every day - and yet it is invisible to most. They will abide with the indoctrination and link it to their wealth - and lie, cheat, and steal to maintain its status-quo.
Weer'd, you're quicker on the uptake than some folks (like me). Can't blame University of Maine, tho.
I agree with every word you said here.
DirtCrashr, at least in Silicon Valley there are people whose job it is to find cooked/poorly thought out business plans. Admittedly they're at VC firms, not Universities.
But yeah, it's about the money, and maintaining power and prestige.
Stanfu Grads get premium leverage out of that sheepskin and are often quite the wise-guy VC's themselves.
Sometimes the lever that a VC uses is the means to separate an inventor from his company and profits for their own enrichment - not just straightening out paperclips and bizzaro biz-plans - and such success they attribute to the holy GSB and make donation offerings of burnt busineessmen, sacrificed for a building to remind themselves of them.
Dirtcrashr, I think it was William F. Buckley who said that he'd rather be governed by the first thousand names in the Cambridge telephone directory than by the faculty of Harvard.
Sounds like you feel the same way about Sandhill Rd. ;-)
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