For university students to indulge the knee-jerk reaction, “This concept or idea offends me, I don’t like this, so take it away,” is not progressive or adventurous. It’s weak, solipsistic. It’s treating a vital endeavor as equal to the ‘Like’ button on Facebook.
In all disciplines students should grow to understand what they don’t like as well as what they do. Education is not a following-your-bliss haze of unchallenging indulgence. Education necessitates knowing your enemies as well as your loves, earning all the tools to fight the battle you will choose to fight. Foolish to embrace your own ignorance as a friend. Impossible to hope to make a difference in that wider world that education should open to you if you keep slamming the door.
Any institution of learning belongs in the razor-edged real world. This is where ideas contend. Battle. Bleed. It’s not a sanctuary of pleasant pastures and contented agreement.
Pain is a great teacher.
