It is hard to listen to people in this totally open fashion, instead of leaping to interpretations, drawing premature conclusions, and interrupting with advice. It's just as hard to learn how to listen to a book. It's ironic that the art of doing nothing, which I've worked so hard to perfect since childhood, is not much appreciated at the universities. People there seem to have forgotten that so much of the work we do takes the form we smile at in Sperber's anecdote about his father. The main concerns these days seem to be funding and legislation, budgets and bottom lines, accountability and productivity, management and efficiency, market forces and competition, technology and change.
Higher education is, after all, a business.
The green lawns of the campus evoke a pastoral tradition. The campus has been set aside from the hustle-bustle world of commerce and the demands of ordinary life, as a place where people can slow down, read, listen, and learn. Today we're told that history is accelerating, that society changes faster every day. If we rest for a moment, the future will zoom out of sight, and the university will be left behind. Indeed, universities have begun to market themselves.