<p>IHate: I appreciate your coming out of the closet as to what your complaint is, but from my perspective there are two enormous problems with it. First, one of the issues seems to be that you had ridiculous expectations going in, and you are angry about how far short of your expectations Chicago has fallen. But, guess what?, no institution would have come anywhere near meeting your expectations, because they were not realistic at all. (I, by the way, speak with a lot of experience of the “other peer institutions”.) </p>
<p>Second, the dynamic you describe – whenever someone wants actually to do something, others jump down his throat with theoretical objections – is a dynamic common to academic institutions the world over. Indeed, it’s a dynamic common to non-academic institutions, too. Ever watched someone try to do something like reforming the health care delivery system? The dialectic between theory and practice is a feature of human culture. Chicago didn’t invent it, Chicago isn’t the place where it is most virulent, and if you closed down the university tomorrow it would still be just as bad everywhere else. What’s more, if you do a little poking around, you may find that among peer institutions Chicago somewhat stands out for its attention to practicality in some respects. I’m not talking about actually accomplishing things – that’s not what academics are about – but there is a great deal of respect for the people who do actually accomplish things. There’s something of a crush on Chicago politics there – people are very willing to admire how effective they can be, despite their lack of purity from anyone’s standpoint. And of course you have the legacy of Leo Strauss and his cult of power. </p>
<p>One of the things I affirmatively like about Chicago, that separates it somewhat from other elite institutions, is that the doctrinists there seem to be a little less doctrinaire than elsewhere, because they actually spend time talking with one another and, more importantly, listening. For example, Harvard law professors communicate with one another mainly in the press, and you wouldn’t believe how much contempt they tend to have for the colleagues who disagree with them. At Chicago, liberals and conservative coexist in a very collegial environment, and actually adjust their positions to reflect things they have learned from one another. It’s not completely an accident that an ultra-conservative Chicago dean hired Barack Obama, or that he expressed confidence that Obama understands markets, or that Obama might in fact understand markets. </p>
<p>That’s the University of Chicago in action. It doesn’t automatically make you a better person in a couple of years. It doesn’t actually accomplish anything, if that’s all that happens. But if you mix it together with a few people who do want to accomplish things, and add a little luck, maybe the world gets better.</p>