As for the meaning of university, it is difficult to understand why the Greek word scholé, meaning free time, became scola in Latin and turned into school in English. The place where people were being educated and taught didn‘t mean school, it mea ...
As for the meaning of university, it is difficult to understand why the Greek word scholé, meaning free time, became scola in Latin and turned into school in English. The place where people were being educated and taught didn‘t mean school, it meant leisure. This is completely different when we are describing current universities. The current university is perceived as a place of work and production, which has been given over to the dictatorship of only economic thinking. It‘s seen as an economic institution that teaches a basic understanding of the economic world. Indeed, the funniest and most tragic thing is that only the economy, which has become a dictator, is being presented as freedom symbol and guarantor. Using the words of Friedrich August von Hayek, the loss of economic freedom is equal to the loss of any freedom,m, and later becomes a path to slavery. Making economic thinking the basis of university life is also a path to slavery. Looking from a philosophical perspective, it‘s difficult to see how a world of economic necessity can become a symbol of freedom, but that‘s what the citizens of Western societies believe in at the moment. This means that there is a crisis when it comes to the concept of freedom. The world of only economy and work is not a world of freedom. Work begins with the necessity of survival in nature and society. Based on the Christian division, it can be said that artes liberales are different from artes serviles. If we want to understand what is happening in current universities, we must first say that artes liberales is replacing artes serviles. Students and teachers are perceived as workers, and their activities are perceived as production or an act of learning to produce. The student is no longer just a student, and the teacher is no longer just a teacher. They must be called die Arbeiter in Ernst Jünger's terms. The worker is no longer an economic category, but a philosophical one. The concept of „worker" describes the essence of the current university. We gather in a factory, an economic corporation, and a division of the Ministry of Economy. It’s hard to talk about a connection to the old academy world. It‘s difficult to read Immanuel Kant’s book The Conflict of the Faculties, where it‘s said that the greatest of all faculties is the faculty of philosophy. When Hannah Arendt says that vita activa has replaced vita contemplativa in the New Age, she says too little. The university has become a manufacturing society that is managed according to the principles of factory management. Teachers „produce“ students who will have to produce products, and their overall performance is assessed according to production principles. Something that used to be a matter of household (the economy) has today become the basis of political and university life. A factory doesn‘t need vita contemplativa nor artes liberales. Even human' soul is now interpreted scientifically and technically. During the Soviet era, university lecturers were called „representatives of mental work". The question is, is it really that different in today‘s Western world? „Mental work" has gradually become „intellectual work"; from Kant‘s Vernunft, it descended to Verstand. It‘s almost a death sentence. Lecturers are trying to adapt to the current economic corporation called the university, and it‘s nothing more but their spiritual death. Imagine Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, or Kant producing scientific products. An economic man doesn‘t trust anything that is not work, science, and production, and something that cannot be used for production. He is annoyed by everything that God sends to people as grace - philosophical wisdom, taste, a sense of beauty, love, and trust. Analytical Anglo-Saxon philosophy is becoming „a good philosophy“, because it requires only hard work in mastering technical discourse, meanwhile another form of philosophical study is described only as „primitive” soul education, not work. It‘s worth remembering Ludwig Wittgenstein. In his words, even after answering all possible scientific questions, the problems of human life would not be touched. Today, however, things are slowly changing - meaningless science is better than the artes liberales, because meaningless science is work and serves work. How are students' bachelor's and master's theses evaluated at the university today? We know the answer - as tasks, work. Only a little insight is given into the content itself. The most important thing is that the student’s work meets certain formal requirements for the work to be done well. Lecturers began to provide social services to students, much like utility workers. Such service is much more important than the teachings of philosophy, because the public has lost the awareness of the importance and meaning of vita contemplativa. „True philosophy“ today resides in the faculties of economics and management, the university‘s department of economics. In other words, John Newman’s idea that the university needs to educate gentlemen has been destroyed. Why did this happen? Because the perception of the meaning of artes liberales was destroyed, it didn‘t serve the production. It served cognition, human development, wisdom, and was a goal itself. Those who understood the essence of philosophy knew that human life shouldn‘t be managed according to the five-year university strategic activity plan or economic indicators. It‘s all about university rankings. Love for wisdom has been replaced by love for a good place in the rankings. Ranking takes God’s place. University fails when it‘s viewed from a purely technical organizational perspective, as a factory, company, or economic corporation. Why? Because a human was not created only for work. Because a human must reflect on the meaning of his life, how he acts, he must touch on questions that modern science doesn‘t allow him to reflect on – it‘s called philosophical, metaphysical, and theological questions. Humans' inclination for philosophy is natural, and turning university into a factory is a perversion. The only truly free knowledge is a philosophical approach to things. If there is no such thing in the university, there is no artes liberales left either. These are two inseparable things. Today’s university is no longer an academic institution but a manufacturing institution. The saddest prophecies of Karl Marx have come true. When the university is focusing on applied sciences only, „sciences“ that serve ideologies like gender studies, philosophy that panders to is called „positivism" or „scientism", universities fail to be a place for academic education. We no longer see an important guardian of humanity, which has always said that the purpose of human life is not just work, produproductiond anagement. The world of Plato’s ideas is not a factory world. St. Thomas Aquinas said that in a society that helps man develop, there must be people who dedicate their lives to contemplation - philosophy and theology are all about that. Philosophical contemplation is necessary not only for the individual but for society as a whole. Unfortunately, the Western world is no longer the world in which philosophical reflection is valued. The tourism industry is not a philosophical contemplation, even when tourists visit Athens or Jerusalem. Today‘s students' knowledge of philosophy in many respects does not reach the 1579 year level. The philosophical reflection of university graduates today is appalling, a sign of true barbarism. When the main goal and an idea is that science can and must make a lot of money, the university is absorbed into the social and political organism, thus losing its autonomy. What is the opposite of a „labor university"? First of all, a university that cares for the human soul, which is not just about specific tasks, it‘s not a tourism and careless life object. It must provide a relation with matters of meaning. The current Arbeiter type of university impoverishes students spiritually, making them one-dimensional people, as Herbert Marcuse noted. It‘s obvious that following the logic of productive thinking, current universities are beginning to expand into the realm of captive thinking. The experience of the world is not only about what the natural or applied sciences tell us. Avoiding utilitarian, productive goals, students need to see what a pragmatic relation with the world cannot show. The West is not only making a panopticon from universities, but also an Auschwitz for the spirit. God also does not fit and is unwanted in the daily work of an Arbeiter. It‘s difficult to understand why such beliefs are being praised today and understood as better than faith in God. Why did faith in God become somewhat lower than faith in production? In one of his excellent books, Joseph Pieper asks, Isn’t the fact that universities are doing a lot of pointless research today a consequence of cutting ties with religion? It really may be that there is a close connection between the humiliation of religion, the contempt of philosophy, and the turning university into a factory. None has ever seen such n attack on philosophy and theology as in recent years. Why? Because it disturbs those who want to make universities a total labour place. The natural and technical sciences don‘t need academic freedom, because only philosophy and theology in the true sense of the word are free and speak of freedom. The more academic studies lose it‘s philosophical character, the more productive determinism takes over the university. Science is not about freedom, it‘s about determinism. When scientists say „we need philosophy," it‘s not worth responding to their request with joy. Philosophy is not a maid, although, frankly, it‘s now perceived as just that. The reality, however, is different, and in Isaiah Berlin's words, „philosophical concepts cultivated in the silence of a professor's office can destroy civilization". Philosophy and theology suffocate in the current university, and at the same time, it also means the death of the university as an academy. There is not even the slightest doubt that those who suffocate philosophy will sooner or later experience philosophical defeat and spiritual capitulation. It‘s only a matter of time before the anti-philosophical university collapses without being able to handle the burden of its meaninglessness. There may be a high political price to pay for this, linked to reflections on the fate of the West or even the Western sunset. The conflict of civilizations is not just about natural resources, wealth, power, and influence. The main dispute is about the meaning of human life. Cognition of facts is different from cognition of the concepts and categories that shape our understanding of the world. Civilizations differ in those categories. There is a huge difference between the world of a person who believes in an immortal soul and the world of a person whose main purpose has been shaped by a consumer society. Who can ensure that admiration for science, production, and technology one day will not turn into hate towards it? After all, we don‘t have the experience of living longer in this newly created nonsense. What will happen when the old sources of philosophical and religious meanings end? How will this change democracy? How will this change Western culture and the human spirit? What will our managers do when people ask what‘s the purpose of our gain? Are there no dangers in such drastic revaluation hof ofumans' values related to anarchy of unprecedented proportions? Is there no danger of Western cultural empire collapse on an unprecedented scale? These are real questions that have no scientific answer. What is clear is that when it comes to holding accountability for bad consequences, we won‘t be able to find whose fault it is, because their creators don‘t understand responsibility, which is a philosophical category. Does a university have to teach responsibility? Most think not. If not, then who has to teach it? Tabloids and magazines? Mass culture and communication? If universities don‘t teach civic and political responsibility, then who needs such universities? Is it that university is only for a careless lifestyle, for making friends, and gaining technical knowledge? Indeed, today‘s university has become nothing else, but a school for individualism and atomization that is harming itself and society. Students and lecturers are becoming a community of people who have nothing in common. The university has major political challenges today, and these are its main challenges. People no longer know how to be responsible for themselves, society, the state, and the nation. Students no longer know how to think about the common good, because their teachers don‘t know it. Everyone only cares about themselves. The university is gradually becoming an anti-cultural force. When university becomes a factory, an economic corporation, a derivative to get a profession, it‘s causing great damage to society as a whole. The famous Greek Democratic Pole emerged along with philosophy, and it's not accidental. Whether n pole is facing difficulties, it needs philosophy and vice versa; when philosophy falls, we must search for political reasons. Society is going through a crisis and a recession, and citizens are going through a spiritual crisis. A concern for your soul is unimaginable without a pole of worry, and this cannot be imagined without a worry for the university's destiny. Unfortunately, our Western universities are already at the point where speaking out about human nnnature iss sthe ame as for an atheist to speak of God. Universities are no longer a place where it's worth finding a meaning of life. This is difficult to acknowledge, but failure to do so would only worsen this situation. Therefore, we must acknowledge that we are living in a time of university crisis. Alasdair MacIntyre called his famous book of ethics After Virtue. A new book, After University, seems to be coming. It's hard to expect that after the end of virtue, the university will continue to remain an institution with a moral meaning. It's enough pretending. The university can only survive by preserving its moral meaning.
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