Slate's College Week: Slate is holding a symposium this week on how to reform higher education in America. Interesting reading, as always, and in particular I enjoyed this piece on the importance of examining religious and ideological viewpoints thoroughly.
It seems to me that what is missing from discourse these days - and what, in all modesty, this blog seeks to foster - is a sense of 'learned disagreement,' wherein each side is passionate for their cause yet knowledgeable of its strengths and its weaknesses.
The idea that discourse can still be profitable without the 'sharp edges,' as this piece accurately calls unpleasant truths, is a bad one and a wrong one. To what degree higher education dulls those sharp edges in the interests of avoiding offense, it will cease to educate.