We can’t "..exchange the anxiety of autonomy for the comfort of following orders" because, eventually, reality defeats bluster

Cleopatra, Queen of Denial

With humility, caveats, and accountability, predicting the future can be useful.  Without all three, predicting the future can be self-serving, hypocritical, and dangerously influential.  In higher education, we can (and should) accelerate the times when reality deflates - and defeats - bluster.

"...prophets are people too, blinded by their own self-interest, swayed by their own self-promotion, neither omniscient nor omnipotent. In a political culture that treats its consultants as demigods, this is too often forgotten, by the consultants themselves most of all, ... Of course arrogance, or at least self-assurance, is a consultant’s stock in trade. That’s what we buy when we buy advice: not just the content of it but the authority, even the grandiloquence, with which it’s delivered. We exchange the anxiety of autonomy for the comfort of following orders."  See more from "The Oracle's Debacle"," by Frank Bruni, The New York Times, Sunday Review, The Opinion Pages, online November 10, 2012, in print November 11, 2012 [more excerpts below]

• How can we avoid  “...the intellectual sin of the century: passing judgment on the fate of others in the name of their future as you see it, . . . concerning which you claim exclusive and perfect information.”  See more from Francis Fukuyama's review of One Man’s History: Tony Judt Reviews His Life’s Journey, New York Times February 3, 2012 
• How can we deal constructively with issues that have been distorted by hyperbolic claims from polarized groups? 
• How can we "clothe the emperor" when it's not enough to reveal the emperor's nakedness?  See more from "Clothing the Emperor"  

More excerpts from The Oracle's Debacle:

"...Rove just gave all of us a mesmerizing reminder ... The oracle suffered a debacle. 

...

"Rove’s awful election night proved that you can’t buy momentum or create it simply by decreeing it, and that there’s a boundary to what bluster accomplishes." - from"The Oracle's Debacle"," by Frank Bruni, The New York Times, Sunday Review, The Opinion Pages, online November 10, 2012, in print November 11, 2012 [more excerpts 

IMAGE selected by Steve Gilbert 20121111

Photo of Copyright: Havanafama Theatrical Company

Date 29 May 2010

Source Own work

Author Wiki havanafama

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACleopatra_Havanafama.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Cleopatra_Havanafama.jpg

[edit]Licensing

By Wiki havanafama (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license:

  This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.