Talking to a university

If you need a league table to tell you what matters, are you really a university?

I like very much these words, a tweet by Steven Curry. I like also that he addresses the university directly, as "you". Will it understand him?

Those excellent words come from the reality perceived by humans. They start from the human conception of "university". Individual humans who work in a university will understand them. But the university, although composed of humans, is not a human; as an anthill is not the same as an ant. To say to it, "you don't need league tables" would be like telling us we don't need light. It needs to understand the landscape within which it is fed, and where it competes with its fellows for resources. There is no point in talking to it about "civilisation", "humanism", "social justice"... None of these will help it maximise the flow of resources. They are as useful to it as astrology or demonology.

The university needs academics so it values them to some degree but they tend to remain tied to the human reality they have learnt from their parents, teachers, books, institutions, alliances. They are a mixed blessing. Among its constituent humans it values most those who align themselves most completely with its reality, who will not ask, "does the performance indicator really represent what it's meant to?", only "how do we maximise our score for this performance indicator?". The possibility of the university, navigating its landscape via a conceptual representation, is realised in their minds.

Professor Curry's words will be understood by these people. They'll listen politely, say something bland like, "yes, of course" and go straight back to devising strategies for maximising performance indicators, NSS score, league table position, income... - to the numbers that define the reality of the university.