Re: (Fwd) Complaint about violation of academic freedom in hiring

[Harry Veeder <eo200@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: Re: (Fwd) Complaint about violation of academic freedo

Geoffrey Gardiner wrote:

> <snip>
> "Error is a hardy plant, and academic error is a poisonous
> one."
>
> I now finance my own research and need do nothing to keep any
> University
> Senate happy.
>
> What would have happened to Darwin if he had been a salaried employee
> of a
> Bible Belt college, instead of a very rich man whose income was so
> great he
> spent only half of it?
>
> Academic freedom requires money, and that is sufficent 
> justification  for
> inequality of wealth. But it takes a long time to get it, even for a
> Keynes.
> In his impecunious days Keynes got away with his iconaclasm because he
> was an
> insider, born into the Cambridge elite, and, of
> course, fairly clever.

Academic freedom is a state of relative political freedom and economic

liberty outside the university.

If poverty and/or persecution are tolerated in the wider economy,

then there is really no academic freedom anywhere.

The professional academic is not more deserving

of an income that allows him/her access to decent food, clothing

and shelter and to form healthy social relationships,

than a uneducated street person.

Harry Veeder