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August 28 - September 2, 2020
If the telos of a university is truth, then a university that fails to add to humanity’s growing body of knowledge, or that fails to transmit the best of that knowledge to its students, is not a good university.
There will always be inconvenient facts for any political agenda, and you can judge a university, or an academic field, by how it handles its dissenters.
We agree with former Northwestern University professor Alice Dreger, who urges activist students and professors to “Carpe datum” (“Seize the data”).
1. Entwine Your Identity With Freedom of Inquiry
Endorse the Chicago Statement.
Establish a practice of not responding to public outrage.
In an age when outrage can be swift and intense but has a short half-life, universities should allow time for tempers to cool.
Do not allow the “heckler’s veto.”
University presidents must make it clear that nobody has the right to prevent a fellow member of the community from attending or hearing a lecture. Protest that does not interfere with others’ freedom of expression is protected speech and is a legitimate form of productive disagreement.
2. Pick the Best Mix of People for the Mission
Admit more students who are older and can show evidence of their ability to live independently.
If universities stop admitting so many students whose childhoods were devoted to test prep and resume building and start admitting more students who can demonstrate a measure of autonomy, the culture on campus is likely to improve dramatically.
Admit more students who have attended schools that teach the “intellectual virtues.”
Include viewpoint diversity in diversity policies.
3. Orient and Educate for Productive Disagreement
Explicitly reject the Untruth of Fragility: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.
Explain that classrooms and public lectures at your university are not intellectual “safe spaces.” (Of course, students have a right to freedom of association, and they are free to join and create those elsewhere, on their own time.14) Discourage the creep of the word “unsafe” to encompass “uncomfortable.”
Explicitly reject the Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always trust your feelings.
Explicitly reject the Untruth of Us Versus Them: Life is a battle between good people and evil people.
Encourage politeness and empathy without framing issues as micro-aggressions. Try instead to use a more charitable frame, such as members of a family giving one another the benefit of the doubt; when problems arise, they try to resolve things privately and informally.
4. Draw a Larger Circle Around the Community
Foster school spirit.
Protect physical safety.
Host civil, cross-partisan events for students.
Five questions alumni, parents, college counselors, and prospective students should ask universities: What steps do you take (if any) to teach incoming students about academic freedom and free inquiry before they take their first classes? How would you handle a demand that a professor be fired because of an opinion he or she expressed in an article or interview, which other people found deeply offensive? What would your institution do if a controversial speaker were scheduled to speak, and large protests that included credible threats of violence were planned? How is your institution
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there is no simple explanation for what is happening. You have to look at six interacting trends: rising political polarization; rising rates of adolescent depression and anxiety; a shift to more fearful, protective, and intensive parenting in middle-class and wealthy families; widespread play deprivation and risk deprivation for members of iGen; an expanding campus bureaucracy taking an increasingly overprotective posture; and a rising passion for justice combined with a growing commitment to attaining “equal outcomes” in all areas.
We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us, and with just as much apparent reason. . . . On what principle is it that, when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?1 Those words were written in 1830 by Thomas Babington Macaulay, a British historian and member of Parliament.
In March 2018, Utah became the first state to pass into law a “free-range parenting” bill—and with unanimous bipartisan support.5 As we noted in chapter 8, parents in some localities currently run the risk of arrest for letting their children out without supervision. The Utah law affirms children’s right to some unsupervised time, and parents’ right to not be arrested when they give it to them. As more states pass laws like these, parents and schools will be more willing to try out policies and practices that give kids more autonomy and responsibility.
Better identity politics. With the rise of the alt-right and white nationalism since 2016, more scholars are writing about the ways in which emphasizing racial identity leads to bad outcomes in a multiracial society. It has become increasingly clear that identitarian extremists on both sides rely on the most outrageous acts of the other side to unite their group around its common enemy.
This process is not unique to the United States, a fact that can be seen in Julia Ebner’s new book, The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far Right Extremism.
In an interview, she summarized her conclusions: What we have is the far right depicting Islamist extremists as representative of the whole Muslim community, while Islamist extremists depict the far right as representative of the entire West. As the extremes [pull more people from] the political center, these ideas become mainstream, and the result is a clash-of-civilizations narrative turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy.6
Benjamin Franklin wrote this to Samuel Johnson: Nothing is of more importance to the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the strength of a state: much more so than riches or arms, which, under the management of Ignorance and Wickedness, often draw on destruction, instead of providing for the safety of a people.13
A book that American mental health professionals frequently recommend for treating depression is David Burns’s best-seller, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy.
Several studies have found that reading the book—yes, just reading the book—is an effective treatment for depression.
We also recommend Dr. Robert Leahy’s excellent book The Worry Cure: Seven Steps to Stop Worry from Stopping You, which is more focused on anxiety, and ...
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Ask yourself what someone might say who disagreed with you.
Of course, anyone who is suffering from severe psychological distress should seek professional help.
Categories of Distorted Automatic Thoughts MIND READING: You assume that you know what people think without having sufficient evidence of their thoughts. “He thinks I’m a loser.” FORTUNE-TELLING: You predict the future negatively: Things will get worse, or there is danger ahead. “I’ll fail that exam,” or “I won’t get the job.” CATASTROPHIZING: You believe that what has happened or will happen will be so awful and unbearable that you won’t be able to stand it. “It would be terrible if I failed.” LABELING: You assign global negative traits to yourself and others. “I’m undesirable,” or “He’s a
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Skenazy, L. (2015, June 11). 11-year-old boy played in his yard. CPS took him, felony charge for parents. Reason. Retrieved from http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/11/11-year-old-boy-played-in-his-yard-cps-t
Conclusion: Wiser Societies 1. Thomas Babington Macauley. From his book review on Southey’s Colloquies on Society, published in the Edinburgh Review in January 1830. Retrieved from http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/macS1.html
