At last week’s assembly, the boys discussed the political concepts of Liberty and Freedom and how this translates to scholarship in schools, or indeed any academic institution. It seemed apposite to revisit the topic following the shooting of Charlie Kirk earlier this week. The assassin is still at large and a motive has not been clearly established although it’s a fair bet that Kirk met his end because his views on a range of social, political and religious matters were considered beyond the pale. It is akin to Crossing the Styx on a journey from tolerance to disagreement to elimination. This is ‘cancellation’ taken to its absolute extreme. There does seem to be a new intolerance that is solidifying against people with different or opposing points of view. I shared with the boys some of Kirk’s most controversial standpoints including, with tragic irony, defending the second amendment’s right to bear arms, as well as comments on the traditional family unit and the role of women.

I was clear that my role was neither to endorse nor condemn opinions of Charlie Kirk. As the discussion opened up, it was obvious that the boys understood the importance of listening to the substance of an argument, intuiting the context, before either agreeing or offering a critique. One boy said that a fruitful debate is best approached by maintaining an open mind where initial positions can be nuanced. One was left with the impression that the truth can be reached through intellectual discourse and a culture that respects the inalienable dignity of people to hold views that are inimical to one’s own. I thought it interesting that the boys still believe that a key purpose of academic study is the search for truth, especially as many university faculties (notably social science departments) have embraced post-modern approaches to the study of texts. If man was not capable of truth then, as Pope Benedict wrote, ‘man would not be capable of ethical values, either’. We would all operate instead in a world envisaged by Aldous Huxley in his futuristic novel, Brave New World.

Today’s assembly urged boys to express their beliefs non-dogmatically, relying on evidence, not rigid belief systems, and to recognise that whenever someone has recourse to violence then the argument has been lost.