“Be willing to argue with those who hold ideals you do not agree with. Engage one another with honesty and openness — the truth of the matter will lie somewhere in the middle.”
I have always been very passionate about my beliefs. If you were to ask my wife about this, she would likely replace the word ‘very’ with ‘too’. In fact, after a debate with my father last night, he exclaimed that he couldn’t argue with me any longer because I had too much anger. The issue at hand was his frustration with the Tea Party several years ago — they had threatened to campaign against sitting Republicans if those Republicans refused to concede to their political platform. In his mind, this proved how evil and wrong conservatives are (understand that he is a closet liberal).
I asked if this was any different from what any political party, or even individual, does on a regular basis? I also pressed him to explain how this was not the entire basis of our system of government. His arguments were accusatory against the Tea Party, he refused to answer my questions directly. Instead, he repeated how wrong the conservatives are. Due to my refusal to allow him to circumnavigate my question, he declared me angry and irrational.
I admitted that I was very vehement in my opinions, but there is a difference between passion and anger. Anger is refusing to see other points of view. Anger is trying to spin an answer because it seemingly obliterates our own outlook.
“Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless, by human interposition, disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them” — Thomas Jefferson
I remember this same phenomenon when I was in college. I had just left the Army for a ROTC scholarship (literally within a week of leaving the Army, I was sitting in a classroom) and needed to take a liberal art class. The teacher was a poster child for the militant feminist, anti-military/testosterone group. I was warned during the first days of my college career that I needed to drop her class immediately — she loved to fail ROTC students. However, I could not bring myself to do so.
So, on a daily basis I went into her class and performed mental warfare. I remember the biggest argument was over the movie The Panama Deception. The movie was your typical one-sided fiction-based documentary that Michael Moore became famous and rich for producing. It highlighted how evil America was for building the canal, how it was our fault Noriega had turned evil, and how we went into the country just to kill and maim civilians.
Lastly, if you really believe that racism no longer exists as an institution, don’t cry and whine about your feelings being hurt. Instead, enroll in the course and defend your opinion.
It probably helped my position that my last tour happened to be in Panama and I was semi-fluent in Spanish. I ended that semester with a B+. My classmate could not fathom how I was able to pass her course given I disagreed (publicly) with every point she tried to make. I believe it was because I was not a zealot. I would concede to intelligent points that she brought up. This class forced me to think hard and truly consider my own opinions.
But it appears people can no longer enter contentious discussions. Case and point: Florida Gulf Coast University had to hire security due to anger over a course on White Racism. According to the online description of the course, “…we will interrogate the concept of race; examine the racist ideologies, laws, policies, and practices that have operated for hundreds of years to maintain white racial domination over those racialized as non-white; and discuss ways to challenge white racism and white supremacy toward promoting an anti-racist society where whiteness is not tied to greater life chances.”
The reaction has been immense.
According to a local paper, News-Press, the professor turned over forty-six pages of emails to the campus police, who felt that it was prudent to have a presence in the class out of a concern for everyone’s safety. One of the messages that was left stated, “’I can call a black man a (n-word) when it’s appropriate, and I do.’ One of the callers said, ‘I am not ashamed of it. It doesn’t make me a racist. If Jay-Z can say it and a black man can say it, I can say it.’”
When one cannot articulate one’s view, one resorts to attacks.
I cannot understand what the outrage is for? It seems overblown to me. First off, there is white racism. Secondly, in our history as a nation, white racism has made much more of an impact than racism from any other group. Lastly, if you really believe that racism no longer exists as an institution, don’t cry and whine about your feelings being hurt. Instead, enroll in the course and defend your opinion.
Seriously, how do I sign up to take this course. Sun Tzu was an ancient Chinese general who wrote THE BOOK on warfare eloquently titled, The Art of War. In it, he states, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Here is a great opportunity to actually fight against an ideology that I completely disagree with. Do I know myself and my opinions? Are they defendable? Do I understand those who have opposing viewpoints? Are there areas of agreement between us, or can we at least create those areas?
Why is it that people are so afraid to engage in dialog? This stinks to me of the liberal anti-fascists who go around shutting down dissenting opinions (which is the true definition of fascism), often violently. When one cannot articulate one’s view, one resorts to attacks. Those attacks can be verbal (such as calling someone a racist) or physical (such as the Democrat-endorsed Antifa).
I would beseech those who are conservative-minded to embrace this attitude. I am all for aggressive engagement of liberal ideology, with the objective of completely and irrevocably destroying the platform. But it’s important to do so in a way that does not violate the principles this nation was founded upon. Thomas Jefferson once stated, “Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless, by human interposition, disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”
These words hold particularly true today. Be willing to argue with those who hold ideals you do not agree with. Engage one another with honesty and openness — the truth of the matter will lie somewhere in the middle.
