Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The curious propensities of academics posted by Richard Seymour
Louis posts this from Upton Sinclair on college presidents as clerks of capital:Thus the college president spends his time running back and forth between Mammon and God, known in the academic vocabulary as Business and Learning. He pleads with the business man to make a little more allowance for the eccentricities of the scholar; explaining the absurd notion which men of learning have that they owe loyalty to truth and public welfare. He points out that if the college comes to be known as a mere tool of special privilege it loses all its dignity and authority; it is absolutely necessary that it should maintain a pretense of disinterestedness, it should appear to the public as a shrine of wisdom and piety. He points out that Professor So-and-So has managed to secure great prestige throughout the state, and if he is unceremoniously fired it will make a terrific scandal, and perhaps cause other faculty members to resign, and other famous scientists to stay away from the institution...
It is a passage that Stanley Fish could do with perusing, judging from this and this.
Labels: academia, capitalism, colleges, education, neoliberalism