Universities, like people, are duplicitous and loathe having their duplicity exposed publicly. They therefore seek ways of obscuring the truth of their decline while also creating the impression of ever-increasing achievement. But how is this grand trompe-l’œil to be sustained? How can you cease to do, or at best do very badly, what you claim…

Such despots know very well that their strategy of repression will allow the real tools of oppressive power to flourish. Their plan is simple: 1. Select a useful enemy—an “Other”—to convert rage into conflict, even war. 2. Limit or erase the imagination that art provides, as well as the critical thinking of scholars and journalists.…