Just back from my extended holiday (hence the lack of posts this week!) to pick up my eldest son’s GCSE results. The new new GCSE system (I was O levels!). I’m really chuffed with how he’s done. But it prompted me to look at some of my old school and uni notes, and I was surprised at what turned up.
Philosophy was part of my degree, and keeps bringing up surprises at work where I least expect them to be.
I wrote recently about my strong belief in fostering ideas in teams (https://btq.wpengine.com/blogs/blog/bsbt/your-team-must-be-able-to-disagree-with-you/), and debate in board rooms (https://btq.wpengine.com/blogs/blog/bsbt/dissent-in-the-board-leadership-room/).
Lo and behold – looking through my old books by John Stuart Mill (sorry – quotes from 2 centuries ago, hardly blockchain), and I see this.
“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
He should have had my job!