Tough Talks

“… it seems to me that conservatism, in the sense of conservation, is of the essence of the educational activity, whose task is always to cherish and protect something — the child against the world, the world against the child, the new against the old, the old against the new…”

— Hannah Arendt

In our current political climate, media has exacerbated and publicized social tensions. Mostly these are tensions that have always existed but have not always been issues of large-scale public contention. The proliferation of mass media has led to increased political divisiveness and one-sidedness and has left behind the opportunity to use media platforms as a way to expand the imagination, and understand those who inhabit the world alongside us. This one-sidedness is evident in the increasingly polarized private American education system where instead of encountering expansive thinking students are continually exposed to the same liberal ideas. Education should be enlightening, yet it tends to keep us in an isolated bubble reinforcing an individual outlook on the world. This isolation is especially evident in the current trend on college campuses of instituting safe spaces, trigger warnings, and disinviting speakers whose ideas are considered too “controversial” or “offensive” by some. How do we break out of this bubble on college campuses? How are we going to change the world if we are only exposed to one…