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Ivory Tower Quotes

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Ivory Tower Quotes

“So many sing out of tune and need a little help from their friends, but this may not suffice. Everyone should, thus, leave their ivory tower, now and then, and roll up their sleeves to help the sheeple to break the mold, those who have been doomed to remain unconstructed and unfit to experience revivifying awareness and gratifying conditions. (“Bread and Satellite”)”

AwarenessDoomedIvory TowerSheepleBreak The MoldGratifyingOut Of TuneRevivifyingUnconstructed
Author:Erik Pevernagie
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“If we expect to identify ourselves in a second other but don’t recognize ourselves in our choice, living can turn into bitterness because the wheel of time has set another compass. When we understand that the chosen one is merely a fabrication of our imagination, the ivory tower of our expectations patently crumbles down. Only by revisiting and resetting our emotional construction do we ingrain its substance and viability. ( "Alpha and Omega")”

ImaginationExpectationsChoiceCompassWheel Of TimeAlpha And OmegaIvory TowerIdentifying OneselfSecond OtherEmotional Construction
Author:Erik Pevernagie
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“Many are the scholars who make it their professional occupation to occupy themselves in this towering edifice of culture, exploring its nook and crannies, developing their responses, making their contributions here and there, and helping to hand it on to succeeding generations. For some the temptation proves irresistible to go yet farther and make this the concern of their lives, letting society go its own sorry way while they lock themselves away in this abiding, socially transcendent cultural stronghold, acquiescing in society while pursuing Bildung. As Rotterdam burns, they study Sanskrit verb forms.”

SocietyScholarshipIvory Tower
Book:Until Justice and Peace Embrace
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“He thought of Dr. Stein again. What was Stein’s favorite line? “Understanding is a delaying tactic.” Stein used to get angry about that. When the graduate students would intellectualize, going on and on about patients and their problems, he would interrupt in annoyance, “Who cares? Who cares whether we understand the psychodynamics in this case? Do you want to understand how to swim, or do you want to jump in and start swimming? Only people who are afraid of the water want to understand it. Other people jump in and get wet.”

ActionIntellectualsIvory Tower
Book:Sphere
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“The latent conflict between the intellectual and the economic upper class is nowhere openly engaged as yet, least of all by the artists, who, with their less developed social consciousness, react more slowly than their humanistic masters. But the problem, even if it is un-admitted and unexpressed is present all the time and in all places, and the whole intelligenstsia, both literary and artistic, is threatened by the danger of developing either into an uprooted, "unbourgeois", and envious class of bohemians or into a conservative, passive cringing class of academics. The humanists escape from from this alternative into their ivory tower, and finally succumb to both the dangers which they had intended to avoid.”

ConflictArtistsEscapismBourgeoisieIntellectualsIvory TowerUprooted
Book:The Social History of Art: Volume 2: Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque
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“Critical Race Theory hinges on the dubious assertion that the economic success of the United States is resulted from the free labor provided by the slave population during its founding. This assertion ignores the fact that 94% of all slaves brought to the Americas went to nations south of the border, which, by and large have remained ‘Third World’ economies. Thus, it begs to question: If a slave population is the precursor to economic success, then why did the nations that absorbed 94% of the slave population remain impoverished and underdeveloped economies into the 21st Century? Clearly, slavery did very little to boost their chances at economic stability, much less success.”

SlaveryAmerican HistorySlavery In The United StatesIvory TowerCritical Race TheoryCrtCultural MarxismThird World PovertyAmerican Academia
Author:A.E. Samaan
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“Why do scientists never debate philosophers? It’s because they know they would be destroyed in argument, when they have to actually clarify their ridiculous and embarrassing belief system. Mandarins, in their little priesthoods, hide behind jargon so that they know that no outsiders can laugh at their lack of clarity. They create an in-language so that only the insiders can know how absurd the belief system is, and they all have a vested interest in maintaining the fiction. That’s how the Mandarin system works. They don’t dare to be clear because then it would be clear that they are the emperor in his new clothes and know nothing at all.”

ClarityPriestsAmbiguityJargonScientistsIvory TowerObscurantismSophists
Book:The Mandarin Effect: The Crisis of Meaning
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“Those sad fucks haven’t a clue. Sticking your nose in a book doesn’t entitle you to call yourself an intellectual. You have to take your ideas to the street, confront the stupid wherever you find them, that’s what Zara says. You must force them to think, to see the power of ideas. Those withered academics hiding away in universities aren’t fooling anyone. They can’t hack it. They don’t encourage thought. They kill it. Zara wants to challenge every professor. That’s what her dissertation says. It’s a rallying call for true intellectuals. Intellect is a savage thing, not some cosy, peaceful pet to be shut away in institutions for the mild-mannered.”

AcademiaIntellectualsIvory TowerMandarinsCareerists
Author:Mike Hockney
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“As for mathematicians themselves: don't expect too much help. Most of them are too far removed in their ivory towers to take up such challenges. And anyway, they are not competent. After all, they are just mathematicians-what we need is paramathematicians, like you... It is you who can be the welding force, between mathematicians and stories, in order to achieve the synthesis.”

NeedsHelpingStoriesScienceOrderForceChallengesToo MuchAchieveLike YouMathematicsTowersMathematicianCompetentIvorySynthesisIvory TowerWelding
Author:Apostolos Doxiadis
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“I see top business schools working to bridge this gap [between academic research and business application] by respecting executive education, by having more mature students who proactively draw from faculty what they know they need, and by having faculty who are willing to leave their ivory towers for the murky world of business reality. Unfortunately, at other times, business professors have little or not interest or savvy about business issues.”

KnowsWorldNeedsLittlesRealitySchoolInterestIssuesStudentsWillingDrawsResearchBridgesExecutivesFacultyMatureGapsProfessorsApplicationAcademicTowersIvorySavvyBusiness SchoolIvory TowerAcademic Research
Author:Dave Ulrich
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“The library is not, as some would have it, a place for the retiring of disposition or faint of heart. It is not an ivory tower or a quiet room in a sanitarium facing away from the afternoon sun. It is, rather, a command center, a power base. A board room, a war room. An Oval Office for all who preside over their own destinies. One does not retreat from the world here; one prepares to join it at an advantage.”

WorldHeartDoeWarRoomsDestinySunQuietOfficeAdvantageLibraryCommandBoardsAfternoonRetiringTowersDispositionRetreatIvoryOvalIvory TowerFaint Of HeartQuiet RoomAfternoon Sun
Book:The Joy of Books: Confessions of a Lifelong Reader
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“Well, start waving and yelling, because it is the so-called Oxford comma and it is a lot more dangerous than its exclusive, ivory-tower moniker might suggest. There are people who embrace the Oxford comma and people who don't, and I'll just say this: never get between these people when drink has been taken. Oh, the Oxford comma. Here, in case you don't know what it is yet, is the perennial example, as espoused by Harold Ross: "The flag is red, white, and blue." So what do you think of it? Are you for or against it? Do you hover in between?”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWellsHas BeensMightWhiteCasesTakenDangerousExampleDrinkRedBlueEmbraceFlagsTowersExclusiveYellingOxfordIvoryIvory TowerRed White And Blue
Author:Lynne Truss
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“Great question in science - questions like the ones Herschel raised about the structure of the universe - are seldom answered by ivory-tower types engaging in pure thought. They are answered by people who are willing to get down into the trenches and grapple with nature. If that means casting your own telescope mirrors, as Herschel did, so be it.”

PeopleIfsMeanUniverseWillingTypePureMirrorsStructureRaisedTowersEngagingCastingTelescopesIvoryTrenchesIvory Tower
Author:James Trefil
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“There's an interesting book about that called The Third Reich and the Ivory Tower, written by Stephen H. Norwood. It has a long discussion about Harvard, and indeed the school's president, James Conant, did block Jewish faculty. He was the one who prevented European Jews from being admitted to the chemistry department - his field - and also had pretty good relations with the Nazis.”

LongBookSchoolPresidentInterestingWrittenFieldsThirdsRelationJewBlockDiscussionDepartmentFacultyChemistryTowersNaziHarvardIvoryIvory TowerInteresting Book
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“I think public intellectuals have a responsibility - to be self-critical on the one hand, to do serious, nuanced work rigorously executed; but to also be able to get off those perches and out of those ivory towers and speak to the real people who make decisions; to speak truth to power and the powerless with lucidity and eloquence.”

PeopleThinkingRealSelfHandsAbleSpeakDecisionResponsibilitySeriousCriticalTowersPowerlessEloquenceSpeak The TruthIvoryLucidityIvory Tower
Author:Michael Eric Dyson
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“I'm not a believer in putting designers off in an ivory tower. They need to have a voice at the table so they can identify where and why design can make a difference. We also need to understand the business issues. If we don't make our numbers this quarter, we don't earn the right to do something cool the next time.”

IfsNeedsNextVoiceDifferencesNumbersIssuesDesignTablesBelieverDesignerMaking A DifferenceQuartersTowersNext TimeIvoryIvory Tower
Author:Chuck Jones
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“I am an idealist. I often feel I would like to be an artist in an ivory tower. Yet it is imperative that I speak to people, so I must desert that ivory tower. To do this, I am a journalist - a photojournalist. But I am always torn between the attitude of the journalist, who is a recorder of facts, and the artist, who is often necessarily at odds with the facts. My principle concern is for honesty, above all honesty with myself.”

PeopleFeelsFactsArtistSpeakAttitudePrinciplesHonestyConcernPhotographerDesertJournalistOddsTowersTornImperativesIdealistIvoryRecordersIvory TowerPhotojournalists
Author:W. Eugene Smith
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“Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication. If it is true that thought has meaning only when generated by action upon the world, the subordination of students to teachers becomes impossible.”

IfsThinkingWorldDoeRealityActionTeacherImpossibleStudentsCommunicationConcernedIsolationTowersIvoryPedagogyTeacher StudentSubordinationIvory Tower
Book:Pioneers in Education: Essays in Honor of Paulo Freire
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“Only recently serious research into the relationship between photography and art has taken place. Why has it been so long in coming ? In some respects historical research is analogous with that of science. The bringing to light of factual material and the development of ideas is to a large extent cumulative. But when artists themselves were, from about 1910, beginning to tear down the bastions protecting Art in its ivory tower, questioning the idea of Art with a capital 'A', photography was inevitably to assume a new stature both in the eyes of artists and the public, too.”

LongArtIdeasLightEyeArtistTakenTearsSeriousMaterialsDevelopmentPhotographyResearchAssumingHistoricalPhotographQuestioningTowersStatureFactualIvoryCumulativeHistorical ResearchIvory Tower
Author:Aaron Scharf
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