Friday, November 13, 2015

A More Reasonable Take

From Tyler Cowen on the university stuff. His best point:
4. My personal preference is to see controversial ideas discussed and debated openly on campuses,more so than is currently the case. Those ideas are going to be out there anyway, so let’s have universities contribute to shaping the broader social discourse. For instance imagine that more advanced forms of genetic engineering someday become possible, and parents can selectively abort an embryo with a higher chance of being gay. Do we really want to be in a position where universities have shied away from discussing this issue for decades? I say no, realizing that in the meantime some peoples’ feelings will indeed have ended up being hurt. If you are gay, and sitting in a classroom discussion of this topic, or maybe you just have a gay friend — whatever — I doubt if there is a fully comfortable way for this discussion to proceed. Yet the rest of the world is going to be talking about this, the internet above all, and making the university a “safe space” won’t make the broader world one, if anything the contrary.

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