Philosophical Farce: University, Challenged

Universities long ago crossed the threshold into becoming vocational colleges. The old pretense of cultivating intellect has collapsed into bureaucratic ritual. Degrees, even doctorates, are now less a marker of insight than of endurance — square pegs forced into square holes, ticking rubrics until compliance is complete. What is rewarded is not originality but conformity, the ability to sustain the format long enough to be handed the token of passage.

The result is a culture where intellectualism is no longer alive. Philosophy, once a living practice of inquiry, has become a hollow game of self-interest and professional positioning. Every paper, every conference, every citation is part of a transactional economy, a currency of one-upmanship rather than thought. For this reason I decry all academic philosophy, all of it, as an enormous wank — a terrible generalisation, yes, but one that captures the truth of a system more invested in reproducing itself than in propagating any genuine life of the mind.