PREFACE
“racket” behavior isn’t an accident; it’s the predictable outcome when logic is subordinated to Mammon. Different logics (relational, paraconsistent, contextual Indigenous systems) don’t need this endless grant-chasing coherence machine because they navigate incoherence differently — through balance, relation, or layered truth rather than domination via predictive control. Critics of Dean might call his rhetoric overstated, but the structural diagnosis resonates with broader observations: declining public funding per student in many systems, ballooning admin costs, precarious adjunct labor alongside highly paid star researchers chasing industry money, and a culture where questioning the foundational assumptions of the field too radically can threaten one’s funding and career. In short, yes — since the shift toward Big Science and neoliberal pressures, much of academia has become more racket-like: maintaining the industries (tech, defense, pharma) that feed it, prioritizing status and wealth pipelines over raw confrontation with reality’s incoherence. This makes Dean’s call for plural logics and wayfarer-style seeking (beyond utility) feel especially pointed