You’ll probably disagree with what I write in this article. You may think every point I ever make is BS, and I don’t even deserve this space in print.
But I’ll never hear about it because, like most Whitties, you’re pathologically adverse to confrontation. Apparently, exchange of ideas is not for polite company.
I recently engaged in the ultimate faux pas. While in mixed company, several friends and I loudly debated the anthropogenicity of global climate change. The content of the debate was predictable: loud voices, both sides tentatively misquoting scientific sources: but the response of non-participants was unanticipated. Physical unease seemed to spread throughout the bus we were on as students witnessed opposing viewpoints expressed.
Wannabe mediators, the apostles of political correctness, soon stepped in:
“Umm, I’m hearing a lot of raised voices here. Is anybody uncomfortable?”
“I think it may be time for a new topic of conversation.”
“I want to get off this bus.”
Such aversion to good-spirited debate is simply ridiculous. Debate among different philosophies and hypotheses is at the heart of the educational experience. Any student of dialectic will tell you that argument is essential to intellectual growth.
Whitties, however, have largely retreated into the far hinterlands of political correctness. Living in the bubble among other educated upper-class types in the age of Obama, it’s so easy to fool ourselves into thinking we all agree: on everything! It feels great, doesn’t it?
Except, of course, when we don’t agree.
The dirty secret is, there are people on this campus who don’t believe in climate change, don’t support abortion rights and don’t support Obama. Their numbers are small and their voices infrequently heard, but when they are voiced the damage to the smug liberal consensus is devastating.
After all, who wants to reexamine their own beliefs? Our generation’s new mantra is “Change,” but nobody really wants to change. We just want the world to change to suit us.
So, rather than hearing an unfamiliar argument, analyzing it and our own beliefs, and then responding, we suggest a change of topic.
It’s much easier to cover our ears than acknowledge dissent. But this is only one edge of the sword that cuts off any chance of fruitful debate on campus.
Being good liberals, we believe in the merits of ideological inclusiveness. Any and all opinions are valued and respected: this has been drilled into our heads since elementary school.
The core of this dogma is good, because it guards against the dangers of bigotry and ideological blindness. Taken to the extreme, though, it prevents the indoctrinated from taking a stand on anything. If all sides of an issue are equally valued and respected, how are we to distinguish among them? Better just to discourage debate that would force us to take a side.
When these two factors combine, we are left with a sort of intellectual nihilism. Opinions cease to matter: because we refuse to bring them before our peers: or even exist, because we have lost the ability to distinguish between them. Meanwhile, as we revel in the illusion of consensus and occupy ourselves with trivialities, the opinions we once held dear quietly atrophy into nothingness.
Aren’t we Enlightened?
