Whether or not knowledge workers are safe to learn is a canary in the coal mine for innovation. Just as whether or not children are safe to learn is a canary in the coal mine for whether a society cares about advancing.
Something that made an indelible impression on me way back in college was the Sartre notion of bad faith: our ability to unmake the consequences of our choices to such an extent that we negate choice, we abdicate as agents.
