fbpx

Listening: An Antidote to the Modern University’s Incoherence

Our universities are struggling under competing epistemological trends. Teaching students to master these requires developing their power to listen.
Regardless of whether we are for or against current European Union (EU) policies, the EU fails even the most minimal test of what counts as a democracy. This discussion should be prior to whether we are in favor of or against migration, an EU army, or EU tax powers.
At the heart of the international refugee crisis are political realities we are so far unwilling to acknowledge. Iraqi refugees wait in Jordan, powerless and running out of money and options, holding on to the hope that passage to the US or Europe will somehow materialize.
The individualism required by a society of autonomy shuts down love, dependence, and self-sacrifice. To extinguish grief, we are told, we must extinguish the grieving.
Economics takes for granted the problematic view that everyone acts in their self-interest, and that this is the best way of understanding the world. The latest research within the discipline is, however, transforming these fundamental assumptions.
The Abrahamic religions provide a radical interpretation of the importance of speech: it is the primary way in which God reveals himself. Because persons of faith believe that God has spoken, they are called to develop and deepen their capacities for listening. This aspect of free speech is often overlooked when concentrating on laws about what can or cannot be said.