The times they are a'changin'...and a'changin'...and a'changin'

 What's so scary about free speech on campus?

"Back in the 1960s, a free-speech movement swept North American campuses and launched a

new era of social and political ferment. It was a heady, liberating time – time for dissent, challenge and dangerous ideas. It was perhaps the counterculture's finest hour. Today, university campuses are where free speech goes to die. Undesirable speakers are cancelled or shut down and unpopular opinions are suppressed. The inheritors of the counterculture believe that free expression is like kryptonite – so deadly that it will cause lethal damage unless it is contained or neutralized." – Margaret Wente, Globe & Mail, November 14, 2017

I was a university student from 1965-70. At that time, the desire for freely expressing

opinions,and promoting them in new ways, was part and parcel of the university ethos, even at relatively peaceful Queen's U. The times, the folk singers warbled, were a'changing (https://www.youtube.com/watchv=e7qQ6_RV4VQ).

Thus we saw an outpouring of student vilification re the war in Vietnam and racism, strong promotion of the new feminism, and an awakening concern with the environment. Throw in the sexual revolution, consumer rights, and a strong sense of egalitarianism and its concomitant suspicion of all authority, and you've pretty much captured how my culture attempted to shape me as an impressionable young person. To a large extent it was successful, particularly the belief that all ideas should be on the table and freely debated.

It is particularly in this latter case that I find today's Canadian universities virtually unrecognizable. There was a time when academic freedom was the be-all and end-all in the pursuit of knowledge, and looking for a good debate was akin to a sporting event. Now campuses are characterized by a secular fundamentalism about what is and is not allowable to even discuss, and "safe spaces" for select groups (but definitely not others) is paramount. 

The intellectual ferment that led to the liberation of many previously unacknowledged or suppressed societal segments (e.g., feminists, gays, pacifists, environmentalists) is now squelched in order to protect the psyches of just such people, and the newly suppressed are kept firmly in hand. In some ways we've gone back to the 1950s. But of course I would be vilified in the social media, and possibly expelled from the universities, for saying so.

How culture has changed since my youth is not my main point, however, but a segue to this: Culture is at best a shaky foundation upon which to build a worldview, if one is attempting to live Christianly. As I illustrated above, in many ways university culture has done a one-eighty since my days as a student. Many bedrock beliefs have been discarded. We were absolutely sure of certain truths regarding free speech and fulsome debate then that are no longer accepted. Was the culture right then? Or is it right now? How to decide?

The trouble with living in a post-religious faith culture is that we are bereft of enduring principles and values with which to think through issues of right and wrong. Faith has an absolutism about it that does not fit well in our "that's fine for you but not for me" age. Are we wrong to look to faith for principles, values, and goals that run counter to the prevailing culture?

That's next.