"How Universities Have Betrayed Reason and Humanity—And What's to Be Done About It" c/o Nicholas Maxwell

In order to make progress towards a good, civilized world – one in which there is peace, democracy, justice, individual liberty, and sustainable prosperity, for everyone – we need to learn how to do it. That in turn requires that our institutions of learning, our universities, are rationally designed and devoted to the job. They are not. For a century or so, they have pursued knowledge and technological know-how, and have not engaged in public education about how to solve those problems of living, local and global, that we need to solve to make progress towards a better world. The pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how dissociated from a more fundamental concern to help solve problems of living has actually made possible the genesis of many of our global problems: the climate and ecological crises, the lethal character of modern war, the menace of nuclear weapons, pollution of earth, sea and air, population growth, the degradation of democracy as a result of social media and the internet. In giving priority to the pursuit of knowledge and technology, as at present, universities betray reason and humanity. We urgently need a revolution in our universities so that the basic task becomes to help humanity resolve conflicts and problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways – the pursuit of knowledge being important but secondary. 

See From Knowledge to Wisdom: https://philpapers.org/rec/MAXFKT-3

See also “How Universities Have Betrayed Reason and Humanity—And What's to Be Done About It”, Frontiers, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsus.2021.631631/full

Best wishes

Nicholas Maxwell

Science and Technology Studies, University College London 

Website: www.ucl.ac.uk/from-knowledge-to-wisdom

Publications online: http://philpapers.org/profile/17092http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/view/people/ANMAX22.date.html

My source: 

Philos-L "The Liverpool List" https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy/philos-l/