DES FISHER
The Fulcrum (University of Ottawa)

OTTAWA (CUP) — It’s true: university students have all the power. Unfortunately, it also means we’re responsible for the world’s sorry state and its lousy prospects.

If you look at who has the wealth and the power, it’s university graduates. And it’s been that way for a while. You would think all these well-educated people could turn the world into a utopia, but a peaceful and prosperous world seems as distant a dream as the flying car.

Politicians are a predominantly learned lot. The ones who make it to the very top are especially likely to possess diplomas. Two of Canada’s major political parties are headed by PhDs, and the prime minister holds a master’s degree in economics. American President Barack Obama was a law professor at the University of Chicago. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown earned a PhD in history. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is a lawyer. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has a doctorate in quantum chemistry. Need I go on?

Those who advise these leaders, whether from the professional public service or the competitive private sector, are also mostly university-educated. With the incorporation of business and management training into university, even the corporate elite have framed pieces of paper in their offices.

It makes sense, really. Only the most knowledgeable should counsel our decision-makers and the easiest method of certifying knowledge is the university degree.

Then there are the other important institutions of our society. Schools are filled with university-trained teachers. The legal system is nearly all lawyers. The media is replete with journalism-degree holders. Engineers carry alumni cards, too. International institutions like the World Bank and the United Nations are staffed by economists, political scientists and countless other recipients of advanced degrees. Hospitals employ doctors and nurses and other health professionals who have attended medical schools at universities.

Yet, why is it that only doctors (and, in Canada at least, engineers) have historically taken oaths to first do no harm? Shouldn’t that be the oath that all university students take upon admission? If we are to go on to such important positions, if we are to be the leaders of our society, we should all vow to do only good.

Some argue that the university has no business turning us into ethical, upstanding citizens. It is there merely to transfer knowledge and skills. Political and moral assertions or advocacy are beyond the scope of academia — they are extra-curricular.

What a narrow vision. I guess we have to leave the ethics training to our parents and peers, instead, or to society in general. Or maybe reality TV.

Yes, let’s gather up all the smartest people in the world inside a single institution and then gather up all the potentially smartest of the next generation in the same place, let them mingle and learn from each other, but not let them give or receive any instructions on morality or purpose. What a grand plan! Perhaps just by chance they will invent the fusion reactor instead of the nuclear bomb.

Of course, the odds are stacked against that. The end result is exactly as you’d expect. History repeats itself, and injustice and war continue to flourish.

Take the war in Iraq, for example. Not only were the United States best and brightest in George W. Bush’s cabinet advocating for it, but so were many politicians, journalists and even academics. This was something that a first-year philosophy student could see was plainly wrong. Hell, the invasion’s supporters had to come up with a whole new rationale for war to defend it: the Bush Doctrine.

Welcome to university: If you can’t find a theory to justify your actions, invent a new one.

Next, look at the wonderful financial innovations of the last decade. We should all give thanks to the math and statistics PhDs who invented derivatives so complex that ordinary economists and bankers couldn’t understand them or manage them, leading to the financial crisis and the recession. Without those geniuses, where would we be?

In other words, our world is the way it is — for better and for worse — because of the people who pass through the halls of ivory towers. Our successes come in large part thanks to them, but so do our failures. For how much brain power universities bring together, I’m surprised they haven’t figured out a way to hold their graduates to some moral standards. For how much suffering this oversight has caused, I’m surprised that the ivory isn’t stained with blood.

– –