In the 1960s President Clark Kerr of the University of California explained why the multiversity can absorb dreamers and utopians without exciting affection. The 'idea' of a multiversity is that it has no conception of 'essence'. The multiversity has a long nave with plentiful seating and many smaller circumjacent chapels. In the next decade, David Riesman and Gerald Grant continued in the same vein but added: 'Occasionally a visionary from one of the side altars will seize the main pulpit ... to lecture the vulgar utilitarians and then march off to found a rival church.' Among the Luthers they placed Robert Maynard Hutchins.

LRB 13 February 1992 | PDF Download