Treason of the Intellectuals - Hedges

[Magda Hassan]

Julien Benda argued in his 1927 book "The Treason of Intellectuals""La Trahison des Clercs"that it is only when we are not in pursuit of practical aims or material advantages that we can serve as a conscience and a corrective.

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"The desire to tell the truth," wrote Paul Baran, the brilliant Marxist economist and author of "The Political Economy of Growth," is "only one condition for being an intellectual. The other is courage, readiness to carry on rational inquiry to wherever it may lead … to withstand … comfortable and lucrative conformity."

Yep. So many universities are part of the whole corporate structure these days. And indeed have brought it in to being. Fee paying students for big money making courses. Whole departments of history and philosophy gone in some places. Tenure is gone. Funding is comes with corporate strings attached. High work loads and short contracts for the lower ranking lecturers and tutors.