On 2011-12-07, at 1:27 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> WHich is to say what? That some who have had some deeper knowledge of the university are critical lof it, while those who have been left out still idealize it?
>
> I think several people on the list have written that they have had experience of working within and without academia and have found academia to be more stifling, less intellectually alive, and less collegial.
My impression is that opinion is split on the list among those "who have...some deeper knowledge of the university". Those whose forays into university teaching were, by their own admission, generally unsatisfying have been the harshest critics of the institution. I have to think this has coloured their perspective to some extent. Cox, Rudy, and Yates, who seem to have found the experience rewarding, have emphasized the contradictory character of the universities as seedbeds of resistance to the system. Their outlook would be generally consistent with that of other radicals who have participated in the equally compromised trade union movement.