Anton came up with this term, academentia, and it seems just perfect. Here are some words by Steve Hedley, Dean of Law, Cork (?)...
‘… Most departmental members have little interest in making the university run like a well-oiled machine, especially as that vision consigns them to the role of mere obedient cog. Viewed from the departmental level, both the perspectives and the loyalties are very different – which gives the university much of its character, and makes it so hard to govern. As a generality, the academics’ viewpoint and allegiance will be discipline-based rather than tied to the particular institution. Fidelity to the university as a whole may be weak, or indeed (if it conflicts with fidelity to discipline) hardly discernable at all...
Their loyalty is owed to the people they know and whose activities they understand, not to others, with whom they might occasionally compete for parking space but whom they otherwise ignore. And whatever rationality and purpose may inhere in central university processes is very probably not apparent from the point of view of typical department members. This limits the influence that central university management has, or can possibly have, on the individual departments, and hence on the university’s activities as a whole.’
Of course, 'loyalty' is just what is demanded by everyone nowadays (the company, the State, religion). In fact, all sorts of institutions, including the family, need a kind of unswerving loyalty to sustain and perpetuate themselves. Whence the need for representatives, spokespeople, PR people, spin managers, image stylists, consultants, trainers, 'educationists', in fact, a whole body of scroungers and second-tier court jesters jostling for position and influence.
But why even loyalty to a department or a discipline? Every subject of inquiry has heterogeneous methodologies, manifold assumptions that are deeply implicated in the internal history of the subject. And both are not unrelated to political and social contexts.
What is the university if it doesn't cultivate the willingness and capacity to take a step back in order to distance oneself from the dominant discourse, the orthodoxies of your time? But more than that, why should one always have to think along those narrow grooves in the first place? Is there, ultimately, a fundamental distinction between an intellectual and an academic, the latter nothing more-and increasingly so- than an official for this or that faction, a trained expert, a 'gamer' who has lost the ability to speak like a human being or be really concerned about the fate of human beings?
University: Clarity. Independence. Opposition.
The reality is probably more like: Fuzziness and deliberate bewilderment. Subservience. Conformity. Meekness.
'"MY LIFE
has fallen under the rule of a "dark drive"..The small-at times exceedingly small thing called "demand of the day" which is made upon me in my position at Frankfurt, I mean, the struggles with people and conditions, have now become the core of my existence..Now I only inquire when I find myself inquired of. Inquired of, that is, by men rather than by SCHOLARS...[T]he question asked by human beings have become increasingly important to me...'
--Rosenzweig.
‘… Most departmental members have little interest in making the university run like a well-oiled machine, especially as that vision consigns them to the role of mere obedient cog. Viewed from the departmental level, both the perspectives and the loyalties are very different – which gives the university much of its character, and makes it so hard to govern. As a generality, the academics’ viewpoint and allegiance will be discipline-based rather than tied to the particular institution. Fidelity to the university as a whole may be weak, or indeed (if it conflicts with fidelity to discipline) hardly discernable at all...
Their loyalty is owed to the people they know and whose activities they understand, not to others, with whom they might occasionally compete for parking space but whom they otherwise ignore. And whatever rationality and purpose may inhere in central university processes is very probably not apparent from the point of view of typical department members. This limits the influence that central university management has, or can possibly have, on the individual departments, and hence on the university’s activities as a whole.’
Of course, 'loyalty' is just what is demanded by everyone nowadays (the company, the State, religion). In fact, all sorts of institutions, including the family, need a kind of unswerving loyalty to sustain and perpetuate themselves. Whence the need for representatives, spokespeople, PR people, spin managers, image stylists, consultants, trainers, 'educationists', in fact, a whole body of scroungers and second-tier court jesters jostling for position and influence.
But why even loyalty to a department or a discipline? Every subject of inquiry has heterogeneous methodologies, manifold assumptions that are deeply implicated in the internal history of the subject. And both are not unrelated to political and social contexts.
What is the university if it doesn't cultivate the willingness and capacity to take a step back in order to distance oneself from the dominant discourse, the orthodoxies of your time? But more than that, why should one always have to think along those narrow grooves in the first place? Is there, ultimately, a fundamental distinction between an intellectual and an academic, the latter nothing more-and increasingly so- than an official for this or that faction, a trained expert, a 'gamer' who has lost the ability to speak like a human being or be really concerned about the fate of human beings?
University: Clarity. Independence. Opposition.
The reality is probably more like: Fuzziness and deliberate bewilderment. Subservience. Conformity. Meekness.
'"MY LIFE
has fallen under the rule of a "dark drive"..The small-at times exceedingly small thing called "demand of the day" which is made upon me in my position at Frankfurt, I mean, the struggles with people and conditions, have now become the core of my existence..Now I only inquire when I find myself inquired of. Inquired of, that is, by men rather than by SCHOLARS...[T]he question asked by human beings have become increasingly important to me...'--Rosenzweig.
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