Continuing ethical decay and the active hijacking of viable structures explains so much of what is wrong in today's world.

More and more it seems permissible to exaggerate, to lie, and to mislead.  All that's needed is some rational loosely held in the back of their mind, like a child crossing his fingers behind his back as he tells a whopper. 

Lacking the ethical restraint of honesty, the chosen tactic is to subvert the objective purpose of a structure to fit the liar's own agenda.  A University, a political party, the legal system, a science magazine, the business they work for - Hey, we're talking ready made structures with all kinds of goodies - they can subvert some money, some power, or prestige towards their secret agenda - as long as they maintain a false facade that parallels the structure's intended purpose and hides what they are doing - can't let anyone see those crossed fingers.  I particularly hate it for being such an ugly mixture of condescension, hypocrisy and cowardice.

A political party's major purpose for being was to simplify and amplify the political expression of those citizens sharing basic principles.  They gathered together (where they could agree) that the voices of many would speak louder than one.  What we have now are hollowed out shells, hijacked by insiders working their secret agendas with special interests, putting forth politicians dressed up like pigs in party-dresses, pretending to dance to their supporter's tunes while never letting their snouts get far from the trough.

Universities were intended to take all of our amassed intellectual treasure and pass it, like a bright Olympian’s torch, to the next generation - and to do so in way that taught critical thinking, key skills, and help the young find character.  How else can a culture keep itself alive - much less grow and improve?  Now, universities are the hijacked puppet-palaces of a faculty that mostly don't want to teach, don't want to be called teachers (they are scientists, consultants, professors - let the teaching be done by grad students), and they don't want to have to defend their activities or intellectual positions.  It doesn't require great cognition to see the agenda behind tenure or PC language requirements or peer review or the jealous guarding of the academic journals from impure thoughts.  Do you see that secret agenda?  More money, less teaching, and much more prestige - strutting about in the intellectual equivalent of the Emperor's clothing, safe behind rules prohibiting any mention of their nakedness.

Science has always had a purity all its own.  How can anyone who loves ideas not love science?  However pessimistic I might feel over nonsense that appears in the political arena or the "Humanities", or what passes for intellectual reviews, I could refresh myself and feel good about being human just by watching the ingenious minds in science at work in peeling back the ignorance hiding this or that piece of our universe.  That makes it such a sad, sad thing to see it used, manipulated, and hijacked everywhere it has some structure to grab hold of (magazines, university departments, grant money mechanisms, government departments, etc.)

sigh.... (end rant)

Steve

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p.s., I often attack the Academy and its inhabitants, but I hope everyone here understands that my distaste for so much of what I see there only makes me more appreciative for the existence of those few people of Tibor's stature.  God only knows how he endures much of what raises my hackles - especially when he is stuck in the middle while I'm not even near the edges. 

And I hope he has more to say in this vein.