“The very possibility of civilized human discourse rests upon the willingness of people to consider that they may be mistaken.” Those words were spoken in June 1968 by the great historian Richard Hofstadter in his commencement address at Columbia, which had been convulsed that spring by violent arrests of students protesting the Vietnam War. Hofstadter defended the students’ freedom to “confront difficult and inflammatory things,” including “the most troublesome questions of politics and war, of sex and morals, and national loyalty.” Speaking to both the enraged left and the bewildered right he insisted, however, that the willingness to think and rethink in view of new evidence and experience is indispensable to any civilized society.
This principle is today in urgent need of revival. For those of us who make our lives in universities, it should be self-evident because anyone with a will to learn knows that the best way to do so is with zeal leavened by humility. It should be self-evident, but alas it often is not.