"...the universities are an extension of The Palace" Very interesting answer. I'd love to see an extended version of it on your blog. That said, don't you think the quoted bit is more true when stated the other way around? The Palace is culturally downstream from universities.
In the West, universities are almost all government institutions. Trying to pick apart what exactly is the tail, what exactly is the dog, and what is wagging what is pointless - in the end, the tail and the dog are one seamless unit.
I can understand some confusion here if you're making the common mistake of assuming that the front-and-center parts of our government - i.e. the collection of coiffed blackguards who present themselves for election every few years in our system - represent the actual power in The Palace. If that were the case, then the universities would have run conservative under Reagan and the two Bushes, but of course they didn't. By way of explanation, here's something to remember: According to the Office of Personnel Management, there are (not counting uniformed members of the military), approximately 2.7 million people working for the federal government. Of these, 536 (435 Congressional Representatives, 100 Senators, and 1 President) are elected by the people. That means that 99.98% of the federal government is unelected. Not only that, but elected officials often stay a few years, while unelected ones stay for decades. The elected 0.02% may send out orders, but if the rest of the government doesn't like them, then they disappear into the bureaucratic swamp and nothing ever gets done about them. Do you think it a coincidence that the one Presidential candidate that truly terrifies the establishment is the one whose decades of business experience have taught him how to make middle managers actually do what he wants them to?
Long story short, the universities are more a part of the real power structure of The Palace than whatever ham-and-egger you sent off to Congress at the last election, that's for sure.
I can understand some confusion here if you're making the common mistake of assuming that the front-and-center parts of our government - i.e. the collection of coiffed blackguards who present themselves for election every few years in our system - represent the actual power in The Palace. If that were the case, then the universities would have run conservative under Reagan and the two Bushes, but of course they didn't. By way of explanation, here's something to remember: According to the Office of Personnel Management, there are (not counting uniformed members of the military), approximately 2.7 million people working for the federal government. Of these, 536 (435 Congressional Representatives, 100 Senators, and 1 President) are elected by the people. That means that 99.98% of the federal government is unelected. Not only that, but elected officials often stay a few years, while unelected ones stay for decades. The elected 0.02% may send out orders, but if the rest of the government doesn't like them, then they disappear into the bureaucratic swamp and nothing ever gets done about them. Do you think it a coincidence that the one Presidential candidate that truly terrifies the establishment is the one whose decades of business experience have taught him how to make middle managers actually do what he wants them to?
Long story short, the universities are more a part of the real power structure of The Palace than whatever ham-and-egger you sent off to Congress at the last election, that's for sure.
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