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

[rapsncows at fastmail.fm]

John, Arlo, all
I might pipe in too,
Tim


> John:
> 
>  And there, I think we need a top-down solution - but by "top", I don't
>  mean the university, I mean the society.  The problems you and I both see are
> not caused by a sick academy, they're caused by a sick society, run by an
> uncaring and unseen giant.  In this case, the academy needs to see that,
> aknowledge it and work toward revolutinary change.

[Tim]
So, I agree that the problems of the 'academy' are, preeminently,
societal in nature.  This goes for the entire education system.  But,
the academy, and the entire educational system, is a social structure,
so you cannot expect any revolutionary change to come from the inside. 
The academy is continually finding a sort of dynamic equilibrium with
the slowly changing society it serves.  And, if you compare it with
other social institutions, I think I will have to agree with dmb, I
don't have the exact quote here, but, to paraphrase, the academy is
probably the shining star.  If you look at legislatures; if you look at
judiciaries; if you look at law enforcement agencies... what else is
more fundamental socially than these???  Anyway, these institutions are
far less inclined toward spontaneous self-improvement than the academy.

But, the academy is no place for revolutionaries.  You won't find them
there.  The academy is a place for tortoises (not hares).  And again,
socially speaking, this is probably proper and for the best.  At least
there is a place for the few great tortoises!  This reminds me of a
little blurb of an article that was in the journal 'science' circa 2004.
 I don't remember the precise numbers, but it was something like - and,
you all probably know that 'Science' is the creme de la creme of science
journals - 3 years after publishing only 25% of the articles published
in 'Science' have not been proven faulty.  My point is that even amongst
the best we have to offer, it is not all that great.  Politics, and
deceit, and exaggeration, and over-selling make it into the best of the
academy (at least in the sciences).  Perhaps this has to do with the
fact that the best scientists are more beggars-for-money than
researchers proper.

The point, for me, is that if you want a better society - or any social
structure there-within - you have to do the hard work of making a better
society.  Social structures react to compulsion.  Again, perhaps this is
for the best.

I think the best way to improve the academy, (and legislatures,
judiciaries, etc.), is to work towards a society in which (all) the
individuals are both motivated and at liberty to choose the highest
Quality choice available.  In such a society the academy would naturally
equilibrate, via small individual ideas for improvement, to its
'instead'.

The problem, as I see it, is an issue of Quality outside of the academy.
 There are many reasons for the many individuals, but as RMP said in
ZAMM, ch. 25:

"I think that if we are going to reform the world, and make it a better
place to live in, the way to do it is not with talk about relationships
of a political nature, which are inevitably dualistic, full of subjects
and objects and their relationship to one another; or with programs full
of things for other people to do.  I think that kind of approach starts
at the end and presumes the end is the beginning.  Programs of a
political nature are important *end products* of social quality that can
be effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right.
 The social values are right only if the individual values are right. 
The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and
hands, and then work outward from there.  Other people can talk about
how too expand the destiny of mankind.  I just want to talk about how to
fix a motorcycle.  I think that what I have so say has more lasting
value."

The answer, I agree, is to empower individuals to get to the 'right'
'individual values'; to liberate and permit for the self-motivation, and
to encourage this by so doing one's self - showing that a high Quality
society is the most valuable, and most selfish too, individual goal...

Is it possible to have a society that does not force individuals to
compromise (dynamic) Quality?

Or, is society such a constraint on dynamic (and intellectual) Quality
that we will forever be nibbling at the margins?

Tim
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