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

[John Carl]

Tim,

I agree with dmb and Arlo also, that the academy is the shining star of
social change.  As I've said to Arlo before, because it's our best and
brightest hope, we sometimes critique it more closely.



>
> But, the academy is no place for revolutionaries.  You won't find them
> there.  The academy is a place for tortoises (not hares).

John:

Well, I'm not so sure about that.  Maybe where we're at now, what you say is
true.  But in times and places of totalitarian control, it's usually the
university that is the hotbed of rebellion and change.  In our
materialistically oriented culture, perhaps not as much but even here I'd
say more idealism and hope for improvement stems from the crucible of young
people being exposed to big ideas than any other social institution.

Tim:

> 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.
>

John:

I believe society reacts to intellectual changes.  New ideas bring about new
social patterns, and this occurs in educational institutions more easily
than corporations or government.

Tim:

>
> 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?
>
John:

I'm thinking that the way to encourage this pursuit of individual quality,
is get 'em while they're young.


"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not
depart from it."

Prov 22:6