Don’t mollycoddle

Geoff Miller asks if the quality of public discourse has deteriorated in recent years (Letters, 17 November). In recent months we have had disturbing reports that our universities have banned speakers from their campuses, and are giving ‘’trigger warnings’’ before teaching certain pieces of literature.

If students do not learn the art and science of rational discussion in university, where on earth can they do so? As J S Mill said, the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. By banning a speaker or opinion you are not only assuming your own infallibility but denying yourself a vital part of a liberal education – namely, the ability to learn to weigh arguments.

DOUG CLARK

Muir Wood Grove Currie, Midlothian