Do you want to know why my son chose the University of Chicago? He wasn't even considering it, but he needed another place to apply to and came to me for suggestions. Reading through the lists of colleges, I proposed University of Chicago as a good match for him. He reacted strongly: "Nobody wants to go there!" (this was in the very early 2000s). Then, a few days later, he came into my room at night and woke me up: "I have to apply to U of C!" "Why?" I responded, groggy and mystified, because of his previous reaction. " Because of their essay question!" he answered.
All the other schools he had applied to had an essay question that was some variation on the theme of "What accomplishment of yours are you most proud of?" or "What obstacles have you had to overcome in your life?" He dreaded them, and frankly didn't write that great of essays. But the U of C asked this: "What are your thoughts about Wednesday?" He was delighted, and wrote a truly witty, creative, and ultimately thoughtful response that revealed both his knowledge base, his quirky thinking, and his delight in seeing the world differently. He ended up choosing to go there. And he was exposed to a great range of people, ideas, and challenges. "Truth" was never an issue. And although as a mathematician he was required to take courses in history, literature, sociology, etc., the established "classics" (and often not-at-all classics) he was exposed to were springboards for discussion and sometimes even opposition, not at all held out as bastions of "truth."
On the other hand, recent generations seem to have gone overboard on "thinking for themselves," refusing to listen to ideas or texts or images that offend them or make them "uncomfortable." My husband is a professor, and not only at his school but at a lot of others, there have been rashes of Title IX complaints regarding perceived micro-aggressions or content that makes a student uncomfortable. My husband has never had an official complaint, but he has had unofficial ones after presenting something controversial or difficult (and these are art students!). There seems to be little tolerance for encountering challenging material, and little taste for discussion: it's straight to the complaint board. Although it should always be open to discussion and opposition, education shouldn't be "comfortable." Indeed, finding something uncomfortable may be precisely the path to thinking for yourself. But your own thoughts are worthless if not put to measure against the thoughts of others. Einstein could not have developed his Theory of Relativity if he had not been presented with the ideas of previous, established physicists that made him think about their deficits. To think for yourself, you have to think about what others have thought. Man (or woman) is not an island, and nothing written can harm you. No one really "thinks for themself": we all react to the stimuli around us, whether good or bad ... and the more stimuli, good and bad, you are exposed to, the better you are able to think.
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