The submissive university
Ingrid Robeyns,
Crooked Timber,
Nov 09, 2024
I have many thoughts about this article on education funding cuts in the Netherlands, but I want to focus on two items in this post. The first is the author's assertion that universities "are not supposed to serve any master other than truth, in all its dimensions." The second is that "politicians with authoritarian aspirations try to undermine public institutions because they are crucial for truth-telling." These is an element of truth to each of these assertions, but in a more important sense, they are not true: universities serve societies , and authoritarians would rather universities served the state. Now there is a lot of nuance here I'm eliding, but my takeaway is this: universities were strongest when their mission was based on providing knowledge and learning for all, and the further they move away from this ideal, the more reasonable the authoritarian case seems to be against them.
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