Governments have lost interest in the university and its potential. The Chinese Cultural Revolution showed how easily political forces can exploit anti-intellectual sentiments into a massive popular movement capable of destroying art, science, and medicine. There are several explanations, but among the foremost must be failure of the quixotic hopes vested in it. Reason was misrepresented as an all-powerful, divine force, with its own supreme mission. In fact, it has no aim and no inherent goodness.
Reason is simply and solely a tool, without any legitimate claim to moral content.
It is a biological product fashioned for us by the process of evolution, to help us survive in an inhospitable and unpredictable physical environment. It is also a tool to enable us to compete with other animals that are larger, faster, and stronger, with longer claws and more powerful jaws. Indeed, my strongest argument is that we must make every effort to exercise and preserve the faculty of reason. This task has become a challenge because reason has been discredited by exaggerated claims and false hopes. Those who oppose reason have no difficulty in pointing to its failures, but these failures have all stemmed from misguided expectations.