We need to reconfigure education around "action-based learning" IMHO.

I remember a really interesting conversation with a guy who used to work at the famous Xerox Palo Alto labs at the time when it was all happening.

He believes that the new "digital" generation need a refresher course in the analogue world that underpins theirs. If its not in the manual, they have no idea.

You are correctly identifying an intellectually entropic phenomenon through book-researched PhD closed loops.

A sort of intellectual "Oozlum Bird" - the fabulous creature which flies around in ever-decreasing circles until it disappears up its own fundament...

But, where you look to Veblen (and I don't blame you, he's part of the same "Quality" tradition) I always look to Pirsig and my "Bible" - "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".

Your door-hanging basically requires liberal applications of "Gumption".

And that is an increasingly rare commodity these days....

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson