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%ACADEMIC POLITICS 760706
Politics is the process of allocating scarce communal
resources. Citizens with a high level of
intellectual/rational ability are relatively rare and
constitute a scarce communal resource. The process of
allocating their time is thus a political process. This
process traditionally takes place within academic
communities. It is only indirectly related to the secular
political process. The allocation of intellectual ability
tends to be more responsive to the disposition of the
intellectuals than to the essential communal needs.
Intellectuals tend to seek truth for its own sake, not for
the help it may be in meeting essential communal needs.
They tend to absolutize the value of truth and shy away
from attitudes which affirm the relevance of truth to
basic human needs. They fear that attention to the human
utility of truth will block the way to the collection of
greater quantities and greater generalities of truth---
which might in the future meet human needs, provided
tomorrow's intellectuals are interested in meeting basic
human needs.
Intellectuals tend to feel that all truths are
valuable, and so do not have meaningful criteria to make
comparative evaluations of truths. They also tend to
forget that not all values are truths. Intellectuals too
often confuse truths with values, and presume to be
apolitical while they allocate scarce intellectual
communal resources.
Much has been said about monopolies within the
business community. There are laws to regulate business
monopolies. Monopolies exist within the academic
community which is unaware of them. Perhaps it is felt
that those who are dedicated to the search for truth are
immune to the corruption of power, and so will not abuse a
monopolistic situation. Via collusion academics control
which truths are marketed through their monopolistic
system. Their system enjoys both vertical and horizontal
integration, much as the energy industry of the 1970's. To
enter the academic political system requires submission to
a socialization process in which the novitiate picks up
the traditional value system and learns how to make
traditional value judgements. Thus the academic community
can control the market and define which truths are
valuable and which truths are not valuable.
(c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in
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