The Best Offense

      Following this blog's recent rants about the cultures of childing and injurement, this piece on academic freedom by University of Kent sociologist Frank Ferudi deserves mention here, and to have this section in particular highlighted, asterisked to high heaven, and forwarded to those niggling about their discomforts with the ideas of others:

Of course words can offend. But one of the roles of a university is to challenge conventional truths - and that means academics questioning the sacred and mentioning the unmentionable. A proper university teaches its members how not to take hateful views personally, and how not to be offended by uncomfortable ideas. It also teaches its members how to deal with being offended. And it never turns to the Inquisitor or the Censor for the answer.

I wonder what Voltaire would have to say about the current cultural hullaballoo.   Or Sartre? Ah, je pense que je sais: "L'enfer, c'est les auteurs."

      (And for once, I guess it's appropriate to interject, "Pardon my French" --- for more reasons than one.)