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> Universities, which in Britain have an 800-year history, have traditionally been derided as ivory towers, and there was always some truth in the accusation. (...) Across the globe, that critical distance is now being diminished almost to nothing, as the institutions that produced Erasmus and John Milton, Einstein and Monty Python, capitulate to the hard-faced priorities of global capitalism.

I never looked at Oxford people with the same eyes again after reading Giordano Bruno's works and about how the professors in there treated him. From his wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno#England.2C_1583...):

> His views were controversial, notably with John Underhill, Rector of Lincoln College and subsequently bishop of Oxford, and George Abbot, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. Abbot mocked Bruno for supporting "the opinion of Copernicus that the earth did go round, and the heavens did stand still; whereas in truth it was his own head which rather did run round, and his brains did not stand still",[23] and reports accusations that Bruno plagiarized Ficino's work.

I've recently read a book by French historian Jacques Le Goff who was saying something along the lines of: "the University as we know it was born around year 1,000 and flourished for the next couple of centuries, only to become more segregated and focused on itself starting with the 14th century, so much so that the Renaissance happened outside of its sphere of influence".

So I will keep my hopes up. This downfall of the University as an institution has happened before but we still managed to create and produce great things outside of it.

> I never looked at Oxford people with the same eyes again after reading Giordano Bruno's works and about how the professors in there treated him.

Dude, you are going to be bummed when you find out how the rest of humanity has treated everyone

I now that, after all I'm a subscriber on /r/syriancivilwar , is that when you're a professor at a place like Oxford supposedly you don't actively fight against science.

Thank you for this comment...I thought I was going insane for a minute reading the others.

Thank you for this comment.

> If anything, he seems to be suggesting the opposite, that the humanities should be returned to their traditional place in the public square, questioning and criticizing the prevailing ideologies of the day

Yes, he want to be nostalgically talking with like-minded people in an open space. That's my fault, I've misread it. A bit of self criticism from his part would certainly lead to the conclusion that such kind of study does never lead to any actionable result.

Anyway, there's no problem inherent in that. The only problems he faces is that he wants to do those things on the taxpayer money, and wants to sell it to students as some incredibly useful skill. People are stopping to accept that.

>Again, where in the article does the author suggest this course of action? If anything, he seems to be suggesting the opposite, that the humanities should be returned to their traditional place in the public square, questioning and criticizing the prevailing ideologies of the day:

Ok. Questioning and criticizing on which grounds? Either there's a right thing to do, and anyone informed can point out that the public is ignoring it (in which case, universities are useful for such), or, as the humanities academics tend to say these days, there is no right answer, in which case they really have given up grounds for criticism.

What I'm bloody fed up with their doing is claiming the sole ground to make normative claims, and then asserting no such claims at all!