"[I]f students feel the modern
university’s job is to create a “place of comfort” rather than an
“intellectual space,” that is hardly all their fault. Many parents of my
generation make it their business to spare their children any exposure
to upset and risk. Then kids and parents alike are wooed by colleges
that promise idyllic experiences at very steep prices.
Yale, for
example, markets its residential colleges as “little paradises.” No
wonder if some students expect college to provide shelter from
intellectual and interpersonal storms.
And no wonder the movement
for trigger warnings and safe spaces is gaining traction at colleges
around the country. Trigger warnings supposedly help students cope with
(or avoid) exposure to upsetting ideas and images; their other purpose, I
and many other free-speech advocates believe, is to chill the
presentation of controversial material. Either way, they seek to make
higher education emotionally safer by making it less intellectually
dangerous.
The trouble is that intellectually safe places are
finishing schools, not universities. They can confer connections, polish
and useful skills, but they will not educate, because to educate is to
inflict and to endure criticism, which is not comfortable."
[New York Daily News]
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