I graduated from a meritocratic institution 20 years ago. Got there on a scholarship, studied unhindered by the politics of the day for 5 years, and it made me

I graduated from a meritocratic institution 20 years ago. Got there on a scholarship, studied unhindered by the politics of the day for 5 years, and it made me who I am today. Unfortunately the same institution is today spending too much time and energy on various socio-political abstractions, hence it is not being able to offer the same opportunities for scientific exploration I enjoyed during my time there to the new generation. From my experience, the pinnacle of education was around the end of the cold war here in the West, then it started going downhill once we lacked a properly defined adversary and started to look for enemies and oppressors in our own midst.