On the occasion of the 2025 graduation ceremonies, the current Harvard pastor said the following: "My hope for you is that you continue to be comfortable with being uncomfortable [stay comfortable being uncomfortable]". What does this phrase mean in the context of the cultural battle between Harvard and the Donald Trump administration, and what lessons can we draw for our region?stay": to remain in discomfort, that is, in the debate of ideas, doubt, and speaking. This tendency of university culture, so difficult to carry out when society experiences a radical polarization that sometimes makes any possibility impossible, not to say of dialogue, but of listening to what we would not like to feel, but today clashes with the positions of democratic societies through the agencies designated for this purpose. On the one hand, extreme right-wing positions, both in Europe and the United States, defend the purity of a supposed truth that must be established with other points of view. Students take note of everything the professor says, even if it fools them; they become cannon fodder for any slogan posed as a guarantee of security. Trump hates Harvard because it represents the best thinking leaders, not precisely the richest but the smartest, in the sense, in this case, of someone who wants to talk to those who think differently, to compare perspectives even if it hurts. of that world, but of what must come and that depends on our responsibility.
Now, sometimes criticizing the purisms of the far right is a way of avoiding seeing our own. They compose. This is another form of purity of thought that stops at ideas, the uncomfortable truth of a university space and time where freedom of conscience is sacred. We are the good ones. We try to be clear-sighted about our own contradictions and, of course, we fight against the hegemony of ignorance driven by the far right.
