Maggie's Farm

We Conservatives may be guilty of nurturing a "flattering consensus" in our own ways, insulated from rigorous debate. Thompson uses the neoneo piece we linked a while ago about the lack of intellectual diversity in the academy, and takes it a bit further, concluding:

If students and faculty are spared serious, thoughtful contact with opposing arguments, their own views can easily become lazy, reflexive and glib. One can simply feel one is right, or ought to be, and that may be the end of the process. This should matter irrespective of one’s political leanings. If a person wants to be right about a given issue, it helps to know why their ideas are sound, if indeed they are. And knowing why an idea is sound generally arises from that idea being tested, vigorously, by people who disagree.