Concourse Enters Second Year of Civil Discourse Project
In collaboration with partners in the Department of Philosophy, the first-year learning community Concourse is continuing its participation in the MIT Civil Discourse Project, an initiative intended to promote campus discussion of important and controversial topics through expert debates paired with student debates and roundtables. Prior events have covered topics from Covid policy to Israel-Palestine. This year’s first event – “Is Capitalism Defensible?” featuring George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen and Brown University Political Scientist Alexander Gourevitch – had over 300 attendees and was followed by a lively student debate in Concourse. Our upcoming event – “Does Citizenship Require Patriotism,” featuring philosopher Spencer Case and MIT’s own Christopher Capozzola – will be followed by both a student debate and a round table discussion.
Thus far, the response from students and community members has been overwhelmingly positive. Students report feeling a new sense of enthusiasm for conversations about difficult topics and appreciation for the opportunity to hear opinions they would not otherwise have been exposed to – both those of the expert speakers and of their fellow students.
You can read more about the series and see and register for our upcoming events at the civildiscourse.mit.edu, and you can read more about Concourse at our new website.
— Sasha Rickard, Concourse