While the typical college was expanding its curriculum with all sorts of grievance courses meant to teach that society is riven by implacable group hostilities, it often eliminated courses on rhetoric, logic, and argumentation. American students are taught that different groups have their own truths and should express them in their own “authentic” language. That’s a recipe for conflict.

In today’s Martin Center article, Professor Gregory Roper suggests that schools ought to again teach the ancient techniques of argumentation.

He begins:

We hear all the time that America is hopelessly polarized, that the electronic landscape allows us to stay in our own hermetically-sealed communities, and that no one can speak with anyone across the aisle. For decades now, the Left has believed that those who disagree with it are not just wrong but evil; in the last three election cycles, we have seen those on the right taking on the same position.
What if the problem is not our politics but the way we are taught to argue?

What Roper teaches is “the four arguments,” showing students how discussion can proceed without rancor.

He continues:

Here at the University of Dallas, a “Great Books,” core-curriculum place where students love to argue well into the night, students began to come back to me and say, “I was an hour into this discussion the other night, and I realized we’d never really come to the proper place of stasis!” In so doing, they found clarity and led friends to think more clearly.

Something other schools should consider.