The world’s worst bad ideas have two key features
which refer both to truth of function, and to truth
of content, in equal measure:
First, they not only prevent us from clearly seeing
some important, relevant aspect of the world, but
actually distort it beyond all recognition;
Second, they strengthen their hold on thought
and perception with self-reinforcing, equally
false “evidence.”
Thus, this essentially closed devil’s loop easily
hardens into the mo- tionless, self-destructive,
rigidity of fundamentalism and absolute
belief. Why would we allow this to happen?
One word: security. We take refuge in delusional,
bad ideas, because they offer us a kind of
comforting—albeit false—sense of security.
Education, in the view being outlined here, has
a vital role to play in an open society. In a
democratic republic where the freedom of ideas
and their expression is guaranteed, centers of
learning ought to be places where these intellectual
freedoms are both exercised and dem-
onstrated at the very highest possible
standard of excellence. To fail
at this task is to risk the failure and
loss of these hard-won privileges
of democracy itself.