The Intellectual Rot of the Industrially Necessary University

Found a good quote from Claudian:

Emitur sola virtute potestas.

(True) power is purchased by virtue alone.

“Academics aren’t fake; they are our best. But they are trapped in a system that sucks that positive energy right out of their souls, that fakes learnedness and virtue at scale, that perverts and diminishes their work, yes, but even more so them.

I know that a lot of them get it. I know that a lot of them will join us in our efforts to reshape the University through internal reform.”

Wow. How to distribute this remarkable piece of work to where it can have the most effect? I know that we can email a link, but those easily get buried or deleted unless they go to an existing ally. If I had a paper copy with a catchy front cover I would personally deliver it to my local University’s DEI office and physically hand it to a person there with an admonition which would hopefully entice someone within the office to read it and pass it around.
And if nobody was around I would tape it up in a prominent location within that office, along with a brief sticky note in red marker.

You could. It will not work. The DEI people would ignore the substance of the argument and quite likely dog-whistle to each other that you are racist trash simply because you do not agree 100% with them. Your perceived external threat to them would allow them to reaffirm to each other the unique and vital role of their office to defend against the racist trash anti-DEI hordes, including yourself.

If you are lucky and they are not smart, one of them might leak it for awareness-raising purposes or otherwise cause it to go viral, effectively spreading Ben’s argument. If you are unlucky or they are smart, they will just recycle your paper.

Upton Sinclair best stated the core problem: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”

I don’t know how to make change come from the inside of universities when so many allied and powerful people are dependent on their job roles not changing, or think they are. Ditto with the federal bureaucracy.

My hunch is that the only peaceful way to change academia is by finding new jobs for most of the people who now work in academia.

I also like the idea of creating parallel structures to academia. But to last, I imagine they’d have to be created by some crazy idealist with a ton of money and a master plan including what to do about backsliding. Otherwise the new structure will be easily corrupted by greed.

Coding bootcamps are one example of such a parallel educational structure. My shallow understanding is that some are great (most students can easily find jobs for relatively not a lot of tuition) and others are corrupted (most students pay big bucks for not a lot of useful knowledge or job prospects).

Exactly, and how it gets presented matters. The pitch would be something like:
“This is circulating and it’s catching people’s attention. You might want to become familiar with it as it has the potential to put you in a really defensive position. Knowledge is power.”
Luck is where opportunity and preparedness meet. Catalysts are commonly required for a difference to be made.
If anyone even hints that I’m racist trash - I’m ready.

I dig it. Curious to hear what happens.

Oh, they won’t hint it to you, just to each other. If you post it on DEI’s door or step into the office and give it to the front office person sitting there, they will be incredibly polite and formal as their goal will be to get this crazy dude out of their office in roughly 2.0. The front office person will not read it, as they are overloaded with enough bureaucratic nonsense already and reading it will not make them any more money. But if you’re lucky, they will give it to their boss and both will giggle a little.

And but curiosity #2: What is your planned response if they did hint that you were racist trash?

In my corporate days, Compliance was the DEI of the day (at least in my co); reputation risk, what you right in emails, harrassment, insider trading…

All legitimate and material issues. Compliance is necessary and it was healthy.

But the creep began, Compliance Summits, monthly trainings, the staffing (orgs just like Ben outlined). The problem was there were few issues for them to deal with - their reports showed very few issues being worked on - but the problem was NOT that the company and it’s people were pretty damn “compliant” - the problem WAS the people being hesitant to raise the issues. Ah yes,

The bad stuff had to be there - the Compliance teams just needed to get people comfortable to divulge them…so more trainings and group “Sensing” sessions and the nudging began…was that conversation harassment due to the tone of the dialogue? Did your peer acquire something large after working on a deal (insider trading)? I heard the whispers of the investigations into benign issues (and proven to be benign).

C’mon - the Compliance Department can’t be Compliant if the company and it’s people are Compliant. The Compliance Grand Poo-Bah needs non-compliance for his/her survival/relevance.

A structure to deal with wrongs is necessary. A bureacracy to advertise to stakeholders that we are vigilant and can prevent misdeeds is wholly unnecessary.

I’ll send that to you privately. These comments here are in the public realm

While this was a remarkably descriptive write-up of how things seem to currently exist within the higher educational framework, it is exceedingly difficult to see a process by which it can be healed internally. Rather, I fear that it will be altered externally, either by a large group of companies discriminating against graduates of a certain group of universities, so the ultimate value of that degree is diminished, or by political fiat, where federal or state aid to a university will only be available with a particular ratio of students to both faculty (low ratio) and administrators, (very high ratio) which will result in universities seeing their funding diminish. after all, look how a few large donors pulling their donations from Harvard, Penn and MIT forced change. if the government stops paying, I could see real change.
But absent a revolution in Congress, I don’t see the second happening anyway.

Agree, It is the funding by government backed loans that permits the distortion to continue. Tax endowments substantially unless used for free tuition for all undergrads, re-design loan programs with limits on amounts borrowed, implement a ratio of administrators and full time faculty in order to qualify for government backed loans. Restricting the source of funds will drive eventually stop the disproportionate escalation of prices…And yes, surely I dream

I thought this was a good interview with Ben Sasse, and I think points towards a path of internal reform.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-harvard-of-the-unwoke-university-of-florida-is-fixing-higher-education-13f22b77