A case for doing the uncomfortable, essential work of listening to ideas we dislike.
There seems to be a growing tendency, in public health, universities, and elsewhere, not to engage with anyone who holds views with which we may disagree. We can see this in a hesitance to invite speakers to events whose views fall outside the mainstream of accepted opinion (or our own opinion), in an unwillingness to appear in certain spaces where ideas we do not like have been aired, and in a general sense that the social distancing of the pandemic era seems to have extended into the realm of ideas, keeping us and our institutions from the perceived intellectual and moral dangers posed by contact with divergent points of view.
It seems particularly troublesome that this language of exclusion appears to becoming common in the very professional and intellectual contexts that are committed, at least nominally, to a free exchange of ideas. There was a time when phrases like “I won’t share a stage with…” and “We shouldn’t platform…” were reserved for the most extreme forms of speech, the most obviously objectionable voices. And even then, efforts were often made to give such voices a hearing, with the understanding that when the objectionable are nevertheless allowed to speak, it sends a signal that free speech remains of utmost importance, a value worth even the discomfort that can come when the right to speak is exercised by those whose ideas we dislike.
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