Ask many college students how one should react to someone who holds political views at odds with his and you’ll get an answer like this: “Silence him, punish him, and ruin his life if possible,” Of course, that’s a primitive reaction, but more and more college students are encouraged to see opponents as mortal enemies.
Fortunately, some educators are attempting to counter that barbaric trend. Consider, for example, professors Cornel West and Robert George. West is a radical leftist and George a conservative, yet they regard each other as friends and do their utmost to model civil discourse to students.
In today’s Martin Center article, Shannon Watkins looks at this “odd couple” and the broader issue of trying to restore a sound intellectual climate on our campuses. West and George recently spoke at an event at Duke University. She writes of that:
The two spoke about how they navigate their vastly different political views while maintaining a strong friendship, a skill seemingly rare on most college campuses. Their message and example isn’t just a much-needed antidote to an increasingly polarized culture, either. It also contains an essential ingredient for what George and West call a ‘deep education:’ the desire to be challenged in one’s most fundamental beliefs.
Why would anyone want that? The answer is because we can all learn from others, whether they agree with us or not.
For several years, West and George have co-taught a Great Books course at Princeton, which must be quite a feast for the minds of the students.
The idea of bringing together scholars who disagree but always do so in a respectful manner appears to be spreading. Watkins writes:
Students in North Carolina have ample opportunities to emulate George and West’s Aristotelian friendship. Take Duke University’s Center for Political Leadership, Innovation, and Service(POLIS). The center created an initiative called the North Carolina Leadership Forum to facilitate conversations on contentious issues. The forum co-chairs, John Hood of the John William Pope Foundation and Leslie Winner of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, conducted a “mini version” of the forum in 2017 with students and young professionals in the Research Triangle area. The primary purpose of the forum is, according to Hood, to ‘model civil dialogue.’
That’s a good step. I’d also like to see professors who egg on students to act in disrespectful and even violence ways when they confront philosophical opponents being shamed, rebuked, and sanctioned.