Here’s Your Degree. Now Go Defeat Demagogues. | Bloomberg | April 2016
The following is an adaptation of an address to the University of Michigan’s class of 2016.
The most useful knowledge that you leave here with today has nothing
to do with your major. It’s about how to study, cooperate, listen
carefully, think critically and resolve conflicts through reason. Those
are the most important skills in the working world, and it’s why
colleges have always exposed students to challenging and uncomfortable
ideas.The fact that some university boards and administrations
now bow to pressure and shield students from these ideas through “safe
spaces,” “code words” and “trigger warnings” is, in my view, a terrible
mistake.