Rarely has public debate felt as adversarial as it does today. Express a nuanced opinion online and all too often you won’t be engaging in good-faith discussion, you’ll be abused, “called out” and “cancelled”. Have we forgotten how to simply disagree?
The new provost of University College London, Dr Michael Spence — an Australian Anglican minister and an expert in intellectual property law — said this month that we had reached the point where universities need to start teaching their students how to discuss controversial topics without shouting each other down.
“Practising the norms of disagreeing well, not making an enemy of other people, trying to work out where there is common ground — these are core intellectual skills,” he said.
In schools, handling