(1/6) It is a mistake to view academia as an institution which was built to seek truth but which has been captured by other interests. Throughout history, intellectual institutions have usually served the interests of the elites above the truth. This is what they were meant to do
(2/6) This is obvious when we consider academias of the past (e.g. race science of the 19th century, catholic scientists of the middle ages, soviet biology, etc), and when we consider other societies today (e.g. sociology in China). We are not an exception to this rule.
(3/6) Of course, often elites have no interest in hiding the truth and may have an interest in finding the truth and in these cases academia will seek truth more reliably (e.g. physics and biology post Christianity).
This is probably the way it must be, at least to some degree.
This is probably the way it must be, at least to some degree.
(4/6) Why would elites of any society support an institution which violates their own interests? This seems implausible. Even if elites were only interested in truth in all domains, this would represent an alignment of interests rather than elite interests being overridden.
(5/6) Of course, it's useful if academia claims it seeks truth in all domains, and it's useful if the people saying this actually believe it. But this should not fool us such that we are shocked when academia reveals itself for what it really is.
(6/6) [To be clear, I am claiming that this is a good general model for academia and similar institutions. I am not claiming that no academic or group of academics has ever done anything that violates the interests of the elites that run such institutions].
[Also, to be clear I'm not saying that programs like 19th century race science or medieval science didn't produce true findings. I'm saying that it is obvious that they operated in a biased fashion and were not simply trying to discover whatever happened to be true].
