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Comment by Daishiman | Hacker News Reader

Yes, and it's an idea that has no basis on the actual, not theoretical, experience of most of us here.

My experience has been that I never learned much negative about my city/state/country in grade/high school. I had to learn all those things elsewhere.

Yeah I suppose to detect a situation like this you'd need to do some sort of meta analysis on changes in how historical narratives are framed versus government policy. Like, maybe some country goes from ally to non ally and then historical narratives around that country shift to a slightly more negative tone. I dunno.

My opinion was more shaped by accounts of education when state power waned - By the accounts I've heard Rome, the USSR, the Ottomans etc all tried to retain power by tightening control over institutions of education. It's a natural lever to grab for when things get worse, and it's also when these institutions most need to be independent.

All institutions, public, private, and communities, have a narrative that favors them. That's not particular to universities.

However out of all the institutions I have personally and anecdotally interacted with, universities have by the far the most openness to dissenting ideas, by a very substantial margin.

A lot of people revel at the amount of internal gossip and conflict within universities, but the fact that it exists, rather than there being people kicked out without question, is a testament to its flexibility.

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