I know I haven’t been updating this blog because I’m too lazy. Years 2 and 3 have been an exciting flurry of business (both work and busy-ness). I constantly spew bite-sized thoughts that stream into my mind on Instagram Stories anyway, and I am remarkably easily bored and excitable, so longer, more considered pieces on Blogger aren’t sustainable. I digress. Many exciting life updates! I’m now officially done with my undergraduate PPE programme at King’s College London. I loved every bit of it: the depth, rigour and intellectual intensity of the course, the international student community, the bustling city of London and all the travel opportunities around Europe. Words can’t do justice to the profundity of the experience. In typical Quincean fashion, I milked everything I could out of the three years: went to Cumberland Lodge (for free) as a photographer with the Philosophy Department in Years 1 and 3, clinched the Principal’s Global Leadership Award (PGLA) in my second year (spending
tl;dr I believe the purpose of the university is not to solely pursue truth, champion social justice or impart vocational skills, but to grow the person by being wholesome and balanced in various ways, possibly combining the above aims. In “Why Universities Must Choose One Telos: Truth or Social Justice” , Jonathan Haidt’s central argument is that each university must (and can only) explicitly choose between truth and social justice as its telos. This is because truth and social justice are compatible at the individual level, but not at the institutional level. He attributes truth to Mill and social justice to Marx. Clearly, he stands by Mill, suggesting that academic freedom and intellectual diversity exist if and only if truth, not social justice, is king. Although he tokenistically tries not to moralise the issue by allowing universities to choose between the two teloses, he doesn’t bother to do a good job at it. “At the very least, be explicit about the choice!” In “