During the college years, most students make significant progress …, but large majorities remain in a naïve relativist state, persuaded that many problems have no single correct answer and that none of the possible answers is necessarily better than the others. Only a small minority of seniors emerge convinced that ill-structured problems are susceptible to reasoned arguments based on evidence and that some answers are sounder than others.
(Derek Bok, Our underachieving colleges, 114)
Bok's referring to developmental theories that see college students as intolerant of complexity when they arrive (they think there's a right answer for every question, and seek an authority to deliver it to them) and, if all goes well, moving through a stage of bewildered defensive relativism (there are only opinions and every opinion is equally 'valid') to a comfort with complexity (or "commitment within relativism," as it is sometimes called). Too many get stuck in the relativist rut.
I wonder if our college does better than the average here - or worse...!
