We have many social institutions, which each serve many social functions. Sometimes people make arguments about how we should judge or see each one based on claims about what each one is “really” for. For example, Agnes Callard
I agree that this is an important function of universities.
(OTOH, don't young people already spend a lot of time without contributing economic productivity? [c.f. the enormous public education programs everywhere] Maybe a few extra years are actually hurting rather than helping.)
Agnes Callard is my very favourite writer at the moment. Every time I read her very personal philosophy I'm just blown away. I can't really defend her writing here in social sciences terms - I think Hanson is right that successful institutions do lots of different things. But I'll defend it as a piece of philosophy. I think philosophers essentially do two things: (1) come up with new ideas; (2) analyse ideas deeply. The creative side of philosophy is often overlooked, but it's just as important as the analytical side. Here she was trying to add a new(ish) idea into the stale university debate. But yeah, she didn't successfully support the idea that accessing intellectual goods is the only or most important function of a university.
An important function of universities is missing from the whole discussion above - to provide a socially acceptable way for young people to spend several years without contributing any (immediate) economic productivity.
These young people use this time in various ways, of course. Some just party a lot. But others spend it learning useful skills, or developing their intellectual potential. Sometimes they are helped in this by the classes the university offers, but that's not at all essential. What is essential is that their parents or peers aren't telling them to "get a real job", rather than spending their days reading Aristotle or implementing a Lisp interpreter in bash...
This is a very good example, and while policing is often delegated to a different organization, armies are very, very good at disrupting legible and stationary organizations within their territories.
Occupy Wall Street didn't respond to the police attempts to force them out of Zuccotti Park with violent resistance, in part because the police have recourse to the US Army, and while the Occupy crowd might have been able to outfight a few cops, they had no chance at establishing a military organization adequate to handle a real army that perceives its mandate as legitimate. Though the US police have also militarized in recent decades.
Occupying territory, i.e. maintaining a right-of-way to move armed people from point to point within a territory, and using this advantage to disrupt rival social institutions and establish a monopoly on organized violence at scale. Claiming the resources extracted by tax-collection institutions. Training young people to feel loyal to the army and respond to orders in their chain of command. An army can be much worse at winning wars than another army, but still comparably good at all these things.
I want to know too! The US military regularly says that it is good at winning wars, NOT at doing humanitarian missions.
Hmm, maybe this is an example (if so, it is the only one that comes to mind): The People's Liberation Army of China is better at being a civilian police force in a totalitarian regime than a combat army.
Universities' current form could be constrained by the need to appear to well-intentioned people at some point in their history as though they were trying to deliver some good, even if careful investigation would reveal that they are very poorly optimized for that goal.
Likewise, education in general might not be an efficient way to teach the content of a curriculum students would want to learn, but it's still heavily constrained to maintain the pretense that it is about that. Armies are often very bad at winning wars but good at other goals, but you could still say winning wars is what armies are for.
It's more surprising to say X is for Y when people don't even mostly think that, but society may have forgotten supposed purpose Y even though X's form is inexplicable without the idea of goal Y.
I agree that this is an important function of universities.
(OTOH, don't young people already spend a lot of time without contributing economic productivity? [c.f. the enormous public education programs everywhere] Maybe a few extra years are actually hurting rather than helping.)
Fair enough.
Agnes Callard is my very favourite writer at the moment. Every time I read her very personal philosophy I'm just blown away. I can't really defend her writing here in social sciences terms - I think Hanson is right that successful institutions do lots of different things. But I'll defend it as a piece of philosophy. I think philosophers essentially do two things: (1) come up with new ideas; (2) analyse ideas deeply. The creative side of philosophy is often overlooked, but it's just as important as the analytical side. Here she was trying to add a new(ish) idea into the stale university debate. But yeah, she didn't successfully support the idea that accessing intellectual goods is the only or most important function of a university.
An important function of universities is missing from the whole discussion above - to provide a socially acceptable way for young people to spend several years without contributing any (immediate) economic productivity.
These young people use this time in various ways, of course. Some just party a lot. But others spend it learning useful skills, or developing their intellectual potential. Sometimes they are helped in this by the classes the university offers, but that's not at all essential. What is essential is that their parents or peers aren't telling them to "get a real job", rather than spending their days reading Aristotle or implementing a Lisp interpreter in bash...
This is a very good example, and while policing is often delegated to a different organization, armies are very, very good at disrupting legible and stationary organizations within their territories.
Occupy Wall Street didn't respond to the police attempts to force them out of Zuccotti Park with violent resistance, in part because the police have recourse to the US Army, and while the Occupy crowd might have been able to outfight a few cops, they had no chance at establishing a military organization adequate to handle a real army that perceives its mandate as legitimate. Though the US police have also militarized in recent decades.
Occupying territory, i.e. maintaining a right-of-way to move armed people from point to point within a territory, and using this advantage to disrupt rival social institutions and establish a monopoly on organized violence at scale. Claiming the resources extracted by tax-collection institutions. Training young people to feel loyal to the army and respond to orders in their chain of command. An army can be much worse at winning wars than another army, but still comparably good at all these things.
I want to know too! The US military regularly says that it is good at winning wars, NOT at doing humanitarian missions.
Hmm, maybe this is an example (if so, it is the only one that comes to mind): The People's Liberation Army of China is better at being a civilian police force in a totalitarian regime than a combat army.
What else are armies good at?
Universities' current form could be constrained by the need to appear to well-intentioned people at some point in their history as though they were trying to deliver some good, even if careful investigation would reveal that they are very poorly optimized for that goal.
Likewise, education in general might not be an efficient way to teach the content of a curriculum students would want to learn, but it's still heavily constrained to maintain the pretense that it is about that. Armies are often very bad at winning wars but good at other goals, but you could still say winning wars is what armies are for.
It's more surprising to say X is for Y when people don't even mostly think that, but society may have forgotten supposed purpose Y even though X's form is inexplicable without the idea of goal Y.