Usehername
On a mission
- Joined
- May 30, 2007
- Messages
- 3,794
University is not exclusively about providing education or getting people to learn. At least the case is such in the United States. In the United States, the University must offer the kind of services that the public will be willing to pay for, otherwise it would not survive as the government is not willing to offer ample support for such an institution.
What is the majority of the public in the United States willing to pay for? Obviously for whatever they deem to be important. What exactly is it that they deem to be important? That is what Keirsey may describe as SJ values. First of all making money, having a high status in society. In order to do that, genuine and deep learning is not necessary. What is necessary is having some very basic skills and knowledge that will make it believable to most superficial, ordinary people that you are quite skilled and knowledgeable. By the standards of the contemporary society, having genuine knowledge isn't important, it is only important to ensure that other people think that you do.
Since the students make the payments that keep the Universities in business, it is important to provide the kind of a program that they will want to enroll in. That is, one that does not lead them to do any genuine learning but only forces them to learn to do things in a one simple, straight-forward way. This is desirable by the students because it will convince most people that they are knowledgeable.
Today, most people are not accustomed to learning, they would much rather memorizes a number of rules regarding how to do things and mindlessly implement them till the very day that they retire. (No wonder so many seniors in this country suffer from the Alzheimer's syndrome) Since these people are the ones who are calling the shots with respect to what must taught at the Universities, there is no reason to expect for such institutions to be devoted to learning.
Most institutions are mere bureaucratic organizations as most people find them easy to deal with. To do away with bureaucracy means to force people to think for themselves. No-one is ready for this. If you want an institution that is devoted to learning, start a private school of your own. You are not going to have an easy time finding a University where learning is one of the main institutional purposes. Making a genuine effort to get people to think for themselves is a subversive and a revolutionary proposition at this point. Most Deans would find the suggestion of making people learn instead of earning an income for the institution or making the public happy by giving them the educational program that they want earnestly baffling.
While you make some valid points, given that around 3/4 of profs are N, your premise that the SJs are the ones running the universities is grossly unsubstantiated. Sure, there'll be some SJs in there, but the population from which the committees are selected are distinctly N in the first place. I know for fact that my dean is INTP (I took 15 credit hours with him while he was teaching), I know for fact that my university president is an INT(probably INTJ), etc. I have suspicions about some of the other key players being N, but I don't know them well enough to argue those ones. Besides the point, given that academia is so N-heavy, the SJs in there would be willingly aligning themselves with more Nish values (knowledge for knowledge's sake), not vice-versa. I'd suspect that a lot of the NTs would be more pragmatic about the business end of it than a lot of the SJs.
You wreck your argument by overstating it. It surely has its merit, but your conclusions do not ring true in my personal experience, and they do not align with the population sampling of MBTI statistics from the university environment.