Studied Mediocrity

It's instructive to go to a professional professors' meeting
In my field, which is philosophy, you got to a congress of philosophers
And you'll find, when they all get together in the bar or in the restaurant, in somebody's room
The one thing they don't talk about is philosophy
It is very bad form indeed to show interest in philosophy among your colleagues
The same is exactly true in clergy gatherings. They don't talk about religion
What they both talk about is politics, church politics and academic politics
'Cause it's bad form to be brilliant on a faculty, because it outclasses your colleagues
Thereforе, faculty people tend to cultivatе

[Chorus]
The studied mediocrity
(Studied mediocrity)
The studied mediocrity
(Studied mediocrity)

And you gotta watch out for that
I mean, if you get mobs of students coming to your lectures
You get pretty black looks from your colleagues
But you see, what it is
It's scholarship about scholarship, and not scholarship
Just as learning because learning is good for you is irrelevant to learning
The whole idea of improving yourself by learning is irrelevant to the learning process
And in the same way, doing business
Is doing business
Doing business, such as manufacturing clothes, is a very good thing to do
I could conceive that it would be extremely enjoyable
Something one could be very proud of to make good clothes
Course you need to sell them, 'cause you need to eat, but to make clothes to make money
Raises another question
Because then your interest is not in making clothes, it’s making money, and then you're gonna cheat on the clothes
And then you get an awful lot of money and you don't know what to do with it

[Chorus]
The studied mediocrity
(The studied mediocrity)
The studied mediocrity
(The studied mediocrity)