[MD] The Academy is Evil! Here's what I'd do instead...

[david buchanan]

John said: 
...I'm certainly not a fan of any kind of "anything goes" mentality which throws open the doors to any nutjob with a holy book and an agenda. ...But the wholesale adoption of a values-free worldview, and the almost police-state-like imposition of this worldview has crippled true intellectual debate and growth oughta be checked somehow.

dmb says:
Police state-like imposition of a values-free worldview? That doesn't sound like a fair criticism of academia. It sounds more like a paranoid conspiracy theory. In the real world, I think it would be hard to find an academic professional who did not rate academic freedom as one the their most cherished ideals. The ability to think independently, critically and creatively are the things that earn respect in that that world. To the extent that intellectuals get famous or earn a good reputation, it's based on intellectual qualities. And what's wrong with that? Why shouldn't we value good thinking and good ideas? If there is a better way to do it, nobody has thought of it yet. But you can bet your bottom dollar that there is a small tribe of scholars working on that question too.

Police state, my ass. Try to find any institution that's more open to new ideas or more concerned with intellectual freedom. I honestly can't think of one single example. Can you?



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