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In Reply to: Power is dangerous. posted by jeb on November 08, 2006 at 13:35:24:
Here's a quote from an interesting article on the disease of intolerance in liberal education:
"Okay, why is academic freedom important? Because in order to think, in order to exercise your freedom, you need to be educated – and in order for people to be educated they need to have the freedom to consider a very wide range of ideas, to have their own preconceptions questioned, and questioned vigorously’, says Kaminer. ‘They have to learn how to tolerate ideas that are really abhorrent to them. They need to learn the difference between ideas and actions. They need to learn that people can have very different ideas, and they can debate them without coming to blows."
and
"‘Asking why academic freedom is important is like asking why love is important, or why it’s important to eat when you’re hungry.’ Wendy Kaminer is momentarily stumped. For her, the need for free thinking and free speech in universities, both on campus and inside the classroom, is so obvious, such a no-brainer, that: ‘You know what? I’m having trouble articulating a defence of it!’"
Check out the whole thing here:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2031/
It's titled:
Brendan O’Neill
‘The left has been infected by the disease of intolerance’
American free speech warrior Wendy Kaminer on liberals, hate speech and how students have become 'Young Authoritarians'.
