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Jacqueline W's avatar

As regards academia I think this is why the last redoubt of conservativism and scepticism in universities is often found in engineering since they are judged more on whether the things they produce actually work.

John Carter's avatar

This responsibility-dodging is something I've been thinking about myself, recently. It pervades the entire system. Managerialists seek to remove agency from the managed, while also seeking to occult their own agency via obscurity and secrecy. All agency is deposited in The System, but mechanical procedure can have no genuine agency. The result is not just a disappearance of free will but a disappearance of will per se: the ability to actually do things evaporates.

Riffing on your comparison of China to culturally similar neighbors, one wonders if the economic successes ascribed to managerialism were achieved in spite of them rather than through them. We think of it as a necessary evil, but I am not so sure it is necessary at all.

Lorenzo Warby's avatar

The comparison with Japan strongly suggests not necessary.

https://www.youtube.com/live/OZQifZ3E_x8?si=8mZvBlHuo3a4E-DU

the long warred's avatar

The best American Educator was Booker T. Washington; get a trade, a profession, a skill, then university.

Thomas Buraine's avatar

Consultants or so called experts in academia are the worst.

Commercial consultants do sign a contract and can be sued for performance.

Academia produces consultants and advice in gross tonnage with projects of far larger scope and when it fails they blithely go on their way and deny it was anything to do with them. And they especially go after younger minds with concepts that have already spectacularly failed and obscure and unproven change theories with no basis in reality.

This has to change. It's destroying the western world and culture.

John Carter's avatar

FYI, first link, "bullshit", is broken.

Lorenzo Warby's avatar

Fixed, thanks for letting know.

John Carter's avatar

No problem!

Old Scamel's avatar

I can ‘t get this article to play audio--is it a bug of the new format, or a feature?

Lorenzo Warby's avatar

It is not intentional on my part.