Brad McCormick wrote:
>
> Christoph Reuss wrote:
> >
> > Keith Hudson wrote:
> > > I see from today's Times that our country is not the only one with rotting
> > > universities. In Paris, The Sorbonne, founded in the 13th century and once
> > > France's most renowned university with the highest standards of
> > > scholarship, has now given a doctorate to a 63 woman who wrote a thesis on
> > > astrology (repeat: astro*l*ogy, not astronomy).
> >
> > Perhaps this incident is more a sign of political corruption than of
> > academic decadence:
> [snip]
>
> I think there's lots bigger problems in the universities.
I was talking about "this incident" (the Sorbonne singled out for a singular
case Teissier), whereas you are talking about "the universities". And I
mostly agree with what you say about _them_. What I objected to was the
idea of generalizing from the singular case&univ. to _all_, especially in
ignorance of what is likely to be the real background (Jack Lang corruption).
> The only proper study of man (woman, child) is the study of
> dialogical discourse, because we are persons only insofar we
> we participate in dialogical interaction. As Hans-Georg
> Gadamer said: "We are a conversation." This sounds pretty weird,
> doesn't it? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
...but correct for the FW List. ;-)
> The universities have been rotting as least since "what
> was once the leisured pleasure of a privileged few has become
> the obligatory tedium of everybody".
While I agree that not all is well with today's universities, I doubt
that it would be a good thing to return to the "once". But with increasing
inequality and injustice due to neoliberalism, it seems we are on the way
to that. (And even worse than "once", because now the "privileged few"
are selected for bully "elbows" rather than talent.)
Chris
