Marlowe1 writes (with customary eloquence):
“the educational culture of the U of C, I suggest, could be a light and a beacon in a time of turbulence. True disinterested intellectual attainment has always been honored here as an ideal, and every Chicago undergrad to some degree participates in it by virtue of its enshrinement in the Core.”
I certainly hope that so! I’m somewhat pessimistic, however. The wider culture seems little interested in “true disinterested intellectual attainment,” and I’m somewhat worried that the influences of that wider culture have fatally infected the U of C. The basic question that keeps arising on this forum is whether, for better or worse, Chicago remains a singular educational institution. Responding to the societal and market forces Markovits analyzes, the University has sought to become “one of a handful of prestigious schools” attractive to the credential-seeking “meritocrats.” That effort, itself, reflects apparently unstoppable forces. And it seems to me that Chicago’s new project fundamentally works against its old ideal of “disinterested intellectual attainment.” I do not want to be right about this.