The rationale for tenure is still valid. But the system has turned the academy into one of the most conservative and costly institutions in the country. Yes, conservative: Economists joke that their discipline advances one funeral at a time, but many fields must wait for wholesale generational turnover before new approaches take hold.
Interpretation
The concept of tenure is justified, yet it also maintains a conservative and expensive academic system.
In this quote, Francis Fukuyama argues that while the rationale behind the tenure system in academia is still relevant, it has resulted in an institution that is slow to change and adapt. He highlights the irony that new ideas in many academic fields often only gain acceptance after the older generation of scholars passes on, thus perpetuating a conservative approach that hinders progress and innovation.
In practice
In a discussion about the challenges of modern academia, this quote could emphasize the need for reform.
If people who have to work together in an enterprise trust one another it is because they are all operating to a common set of ethical norms....such a society will be better able to innovate...since the high degree of trust will permit a wide variety of social relationships to emerge.
The desire for economic prosperity is itself not culturally determined but almost universally shared
It was the slave's continuing desire for recognition that was the motor which propelled history forward, not the idle complacency and unchanging self-identity of the master
What Asia's postwar economic miracle demonstrates is that_x000D_ capitalism is a path toward economic development that is potentially_x000D_ available to all countries. No underdeveloped country in the_x000D_ Third World is disadvantaged simply because it began the growth_x000D_ process later than Europe, nor are the established industrial powers_x000D_ capable of blocking the development of a latecomer, provided_x000D_ that country plays by the rules of economic liberalism.
I went to Goucher College in Maryland for the best possible reasons - to learn - but then I dropped out at 19 for the best possible reasons - to become a writer.
I've always had an abundance of material about the subjects of my biographies.
One of the greatest gifts adults can give - to their offspring and to their society - is to read to children.
Too many young musicians today want to win polls before they learn their instruments.
I will venture to say there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit [in London], than in all the rest of the kingdom.
This book of Montaigne the world has endorsed by translating it into all tongues.
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