4 ms·

This sounds more or less like In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell.

• photochemsyn 4y ago
  That's a great reference. Here's a bit from that much longer article that seems relevant here, re academic institutions: > "The method of a hereditary leisure class without duties was, however, extraordinarily wasteful. None of the members of the class had been taught to be industrious, and the class as a whole was not exceptionally intelligent. It might produce one Darwin, but against him had to be set tens of thousands of country gentlemen who never thought of anything more intelligent than fox-hunting and punishing poachers. At present, the universities are supposed to provide, in a more systematic way, what the leisure class provided accidentally and as a byproduct. This is a great improvement, but it has certain drawbacks. University life is so different from life in the world at large that men who live in an academic milieu tend to be unaware of the pre-occupations of ordinary men and women; moreover, their ways of expressing themselves are usually such as to rob their opinions of the influence that they ought to have upon the general public. Another disadvantage is that in universities studies are organized, and the man who thinks of some original line of research is likely to be discouraged. Academic institutions, therefore, useful as they are, are not adequate guardians of the interests of civilization in a world where every one outside their walls is too busy for unutilitarian pursuits." https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/ https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/ The image of academic students as show ponies doing specified routines (with plenty of meaningless busywork) for their degrees fits with that structure.