Since I was a little kid, I've always loved politics. A few days after I first learned where my family stood on the most pressing issues of the day, I asked my mother a simple question, mom, are we right about everything? Ah, yes. We weren't. I mean, most things we were right about most things, but there are a few positions my family held which I no longer agree with, which means they were wrong about them. Or does it mean I'm wrong about them? Or maybe we're both wrong about them? I came from a conservative Irish Catholic home, but I went to a primary school with students from all sorts of different backgrounds. And we were engaging in dialogue constantly. Yeah, I know most kids aren't interested in politics per se, but we all hold strong opinions from an early age and spend a good deal of time defending those views from others. We know children can handle exposure to adversarial ideas. Why do we insist on protecting college students from them? I believe letter A is the best. I believe letter A is the best as well. I like the letter B. As the dean of your university has come to my attention that you're making the other students feel unsafe on campus. What I'm making them feel unsafe? I'm making a new son of a... See, a few college administrators seem to believe that hearing new points of view can be unsafe for damaging to students on a theoretical level. Ironically, this kind of thinking can actually put people holding whatever view is being demonized in real danger. You've got to give a good reason why so much support your position. Because I'm not allowed to. Why should you be? It's an interesting question. Just imagine he could freely express his views to others. There would be three basic potential outcomes. Wow, I hadn't considered that. I guess I support B now. Wow, I hadn't considered that. I still support A but not as much as I used to or not for the same reasons. Wow, I hadn't considered that. I still completely disagree. Here's why. As you may have noticed, every one of these outcomes increases people's understanding of the world and each other's perspectives and... No one got beat up. In the end, there are only two possible ways of confronting disagreement. Talking it through? Or one party forcing the other to conform? But then again, who knows? Can you trust any of what I'm saying? I did mention at the beginning of the video that I'm not so sure that I'm right about everything. Maybe I'm completely full of it. Maybe I'm just a little bit full of it. Maybe we're all a little bit full of it. We have some bad ideas that need airing so that we can test their validity on others. And maybe the only way we can get to the truth is by being able to discuss all ideas. The belief and freedom of expression isn't just a single ideal. It's THE single most important ideal for the functioning of our society. It's the very cornerstone of our search for truth. And if we remove this cornerstone, no matter how good our intentions might be, everything else falls. So let's keep it in place and keep the conversation going. Thanks so much for watching. If you liked this video and want to learn more about the topic, please check out fee.org for more content. Thank you so much.