Thus the paradox of our educational culture: A relativism designed to promote tolerance and cooperation leads to suspicion and conflict. If there is a truth out there that we can hope to access, if only imperfectly, then intellectual conflict is meaningful and purposeful: It might help us inch closer to truth. But if there isn’t any truth apart from the equality of our endlessly diverse selves, then every debate is a personal battle. Every act of persuasion, no matter how reasoned, is an attempt to dominate, and to be persuaded is to submit to someone else’s reality. Epistemological relativism makes a free, open debate an aggressive, winner-take-all battle of wills.
Brilliant take on why colleges are struggling so much with free speech.
Exactly! " Every act of persuasion, no matter how reasoned, is an attempt to dominate, and to be persuaded is to submit to someone else’s reality." Excellent!
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