Excellence must flee from socialism
I am more and more convinced that the aesthetic principle of removing what is superfluous, attributed to Michelangelo, could be generally applied to manage any institution. It is counter-intuitive because it encourages contention, simplicity, saving, and almost spirituality. Its artistic roots go beyond reason. It attempts to sort out what is in excess, refutes quantity and resorts to Aristotelian proportion. It also requires life experience and is, thus, no matter for youths.
This principle of “removing what is superfluous” is not well-understood by scientists and engineers, which is why those trades waste so much.
Why do university rectors believe they are so special, and do not imitate doctors or judges’ discretion? They win an election, become isolated, stalk too many flatters and lose their way. They should focus merely on what is important, serve one’s country, and forget vanity and personal ambition, which are matters for minor people.
Is it not enough for them to pose for a portrait, like criminals entering prison, but without wearing prisoners’ striped uniforms?
Those who practice quantitative ideology think that numbers are objective and impartial, and that rankings and surveys evaluate well. Campbell’s Law, which is relatively recent (1975) and has been mentioned before on this blog, does not recommend quantitative evaluations of people and organisations. Not only do they evaluate badly, but they also give contrary results to those sought, which spoils the situation.
Socialists and trade unionists are against eliminating public spending and breastfeed it from their ideological mother’s bosom. They dream about everything being public. In order to satisfy both, university rectors do not cut spending. They could easily help Spain without traumas now that so many people from the baby boom are retiring by reducing public spending and debt, and also due to the country’s low birth rate that reduces the quantity of children, and with digitisation that allows administration posts to be reduced. However, they do not for political reasons
Double degrees are invented. Improvement is shown off in the ranking of those universities that offer the most degrees.
As the university is politicised, and given a conflict of interests, some are more equal than others. Equality means the stick policy for dissidents and the carrot policy for friends. Spaniards have many virtues, but tolerance is not one of them.
As the university is politicised, and given a conflict of interests, some are more equal than others. Equality means the stick policy for dissidents and the carrot policy for friends. Spaniards have many virtues, but tolerance is not one of them.
One drop of wisdom is worth much more than a ton of science. At the public university, we have too many scientists and too few wise people. The wise must surely leave university because there they would not leave them alone. Any decision is voted. As the majority is mediocre, the wise would flee from so many silly envious people.
I graduated in (1978) and did my PhD (1982) at the traditional socialist University of Valencia (UV, Spain), General Studies. Since October 1978, I have worked at the UPV, and have been a professor since 1991. This means I know a bit about both universities. I am not thrilled about affirming that both have become much worse by being enraptured by rankings, propaganda and socialism. All university rectors catch the socialist virus in the Board of CRUE Rectors.
The UPV lives off income stemming from matters of prestige and quality, feeds off populism and looks at itself in the ranking mirror and thinks: how good I look. Those parents who studied there 20 years ago think that it still conserves the disappeared pedigree.
The UPV’s quality and prestige grew since it was founded in 1968 until the rector terms of Justo Nieto, which ended in 2004. Since then, and coinciding with the time Zapatero became the Spanish Prime Minister, the UPV and Spain have not stopped getting worse.
In 2004, some engineers started leading it. They defended equality, propaganda, quantitative ideology and rankings, the socialist “make known” culture instead of “know-how”. Moreover, as what is not good for the beehive cannot be good for bees, we teachers-researchers are increasingly being abandoned, and we also do administration work, while administration workers no longer work for teachers, but for managers. So we are all equal. Serving others is not very socialist and egalitarian
The pensions (with a bit of luck) that we will be paid (but I doubt our children will be) are practically equal for everyone because the basic salary is similar for us all and pensions are calculated on the basic salary, which is yet another socialist egalitarianism.
Another defect that no-one talks about for having lethal effects for both student learning and general freedom is that when new faculties open, there is at least one department in them all, or two at the most, which are very hegemonic in terms of their size and votes. This guarantees local authoritarian power forever in all faculties
Not only do university deans always come from these hegemonic departments, but their power is projected in an authoritarian way when drawing up syllabi that move towards their interests. This excludes liberal contents, such as the economy of the Austrian school, which is only taught at one public university in Madrid and at private universities.
The tendency is downward: (socialist) contents, demands, selection methods and liberties. Dissidents are ideologically repressed, years worked, and category, merit and capacity are not respected, because votes are what count.
The rectors who have followed Justo Nieto have focused on image, (socialism) equality, and have renounced ethics and the entrepreneurial risk. The consequence is what we have today: a squandering university that produces perishable knowledge, and does not encourage the entrepreneurial risk, freedom and innovation. Students and administration workers are spoilt and time is spent looking in the ranking mirror.
Students, who arrive at university already indoctrinated in socialism and separatism without realising it, are then spoilt so they vote the dean, who snuggles up to them and sings them a lullaby about constituting commissions, which will allow the students who abandon a subject to still pass it, and to pass others without teachers intervening.
We should not be surprised to find psychopath politicians, tyrants, in governments because this is what tends to happen to spoilt people, who also learn trickery and no ethics at the politicised public university.
We live in a kingdom of quantity and screens, where rankings seduce mediocre and evil people. A ranking orientates whoever is disoriented, and simplifies the complexity of management and the need to think less. It allows evil people to easily deceive by taking the ranking that best suits them. They are, by the way, paid for and very costly.
You need to know a lot about numbers so they do not deceive you. Numbers have personalities, characteristics, and weak and strong points. Today the P in UPV, my university, stands for populist. Tradition and common sense have disappeared.
The autonomous chaos of degrees is such that the UV also offers engineering degrees, while the technological UPV offers Fine Arts. Both offer many double degrees, of which some are absurd like Mathematics and Geomatic and Surveying Engineering.
The regional Valencian government should deal with the matter to avoid offers being duplicated and squandering because they underlie public taxes and regional debt. It must not worry about losing votes because it has already lost them at university after leaving education to socialists for so many years.
In a few years time, we will have some degrees with only about 10 students and we will have to maintain them because we cannot abandon public students. The public expense of teaching so few students will be higher than paying them grants to study at Harvard. I do not know what use managers are.
Spain has 31 university students for every 1,000 inhabitants, while Italy, with its more competitive economy, has 17. The families of Spanish students only pay 20% of the real cost. Spain has 1.2 million public university students (250,000 private ones), which produces a tremendous debt and many graduates are not employed. The inflation of degrees with a lowering level of expectance devaluates them
On 8 September, the UPV’s “Welcome Day”, quite by chance I heard a programme broadcast by the Onda Cero radio at about 13:00h, which must have been paid for because the programme was advertised some days before. As a radio listener and teacher, I felt ashamed to hear the lies being told.
During this programme, leaders naturally engaged in the university’s propaganda and sickly-sweet journalists said that the UPV is one of the best universities in the world with the Vice-Rector present, who kept quiet. One female interviewee, who holds a high post at the university, boasts about innovation. There will be an equality management post; in other words, socialism injected straight into veins
We all know that the UV was socialist since before Marx was born. The young UPV was not until 2004, but it is now, and it is also populist. It has become a socialist crèche for unemployed youths who wish to work as civil servants.
The children born of the present extremely low Spanish birth rate, with an alarming drop in children aged up to 12 years, will arrive at university in 7 years. Instead of amortising teachers and administration workers’ pensions, and putting digitisation to good use to reduce administration posts, superfluous public spending is not cut, but is squandered with numerous double degrees. The Valencian Community is ruined with 55,439 million euros of regional debt, which is 44% of its GDP.
Who pays all this wasted money? Our children and grandchildren. Ruining a country is betraying the native land.
How can a Valencian university be claimed to be one of the best in the world when unemployment is twice that of our neighbouring countries?
If excellence existed, would there not be many more technology firms to innovate and create jobs?
Exhibiting awarded socialist researchers is no proof of excellence. Even Nobel Prizes are politicised. This is a bit like TV ads with good looking men and women, with perfumes or cars
The manufacturing and innovative fabric should grow thanks to private graduates’ innovative capacity, not to public researchers. Graduates do not have this because the socialist level of expectance has been lowering for more than two decades. It is not a matter of having more, but better graduates with demanding modern syllabi that include liberal ideas to encourage entrepreneurship and to eliminate socialism.
So what will all of today’s other students do? Learn strengthened vocational training to do manual jobs that are not accepted and done by immigrants
Sadly, public education and research in Spain are mediocre and waste talent. Socialism is indoctrinated by doing away with liberal ideas, which is why no enterprising is done. We lose the energy with voting, elections. Everything is politicised. The mediocre majority crushes creativity and pursues dissidents.
Research guided by a broken lighthouse of absurd rankings does not innovate, but produces perishable people who do not take the risk. Being a bad European is worse in Spain.
All those who keep quiet, obey and cooperate with increased public spending are betraying their country. The first mission of civil servants is not the growth of the institution they work for, but not wasting spending because we are being ruined. It is not nostalgia, as the leftish outlook tends to classify it, but proof of what goes on. Today’s rector still has time to rectify.
Full agreement