The death of debate?

I’m struck by this comment that appeared at Jihad Watch following Robert Spencer’s reply yesterday to my criticism of what I saw as his “carrot and stick” approach to Islam:

Not to worry, Robert. We are with you, still.
Posted by: Havoc at March 15, 2006 05:53 PM

Now why would the commenter feel that Robert Spencer was under such a damaging attack by me that he would need to be “bucked up” in this fashion? I was simply pointing out a possible contradiction in Spencer’s argument, and calling on him for greater clarity. Isn’t that what debate and discussion are all about?

The answer is that in the contemporary West, debate and discussion are not what it’s all about. Liberals and conservatives, especially younger people, have been shaped by a culture and education that tells them to avoid debate, avoid disagreement, avoid judgment. The model of discussion transmitted in our schools today is that everyone has a point of view, and that all points of view are equally valuable and should be given equal respect. This is nothing less than socialism applied to the realm of the mind, and, as with all other types of socialism, must lead to a monstrous double standard. If all points of view are to be treated as equally valid, then correct views must be given undeserved disrespect, and the wrong views must be given undeserved respect; indeed, the more wrong-headed, false, and vicious an opinion may be, the more respect it must be accorded. Instead of the back and forth of discourse leading to greater clarity and understanding, there is the deliberate cultivation of an intellectual miasma in which the worst is given the ascendancy, or, at best, can never be confronted or refuted.

Given this educational background, many young conservatives today cannot handle real debate. If their point of view is shown to be wrong, they feel that they have been personally attacked, and they strike back with personal attacks.

I have often bewailed the death of debate since 9/11, as the Left’t vicious anti-Americanism has driven much of the establishment right to turn itself itself into a mindless phalanx the sole aim of which is to defend President Bush and his policies from the left. But the death of debate has deeper causes than leftist insanity and conservative reaction; it is driven by the mainstream liberal assumptions of our entire culture, which have shaped the minds and spirits of conservatives no less than those of liberals.

However, while the ability of Americans to think and debate has been harmed generally, that does not mean that this educational approach is neutral in its intentions. All points of view may be equal, but some are more equal than others, namely the points of view of favored “oppressed” or minority groups. This is made clear by Carol Iannone in her article, “Diversity and the Abolition of Learning,” Academic Questions, Winter 2002-03. Here Iannone is speaking about a project of the American Association of Colleges and Universities that began in the early 1990s, entitled American Commitments: Diversity, Democracy, and Liberal Learning:

To drive it all home, the authors insist “that students must learn, in every part of their educational experience, to live creatively with the multiplicity, ambiguity, and irreducible differences that are the defining conditions of the contemporary world” (emphasis added).

The old idea of liberal learning is totally upended by this new directed project of controlled thinking, which is obviously not meant to free us for vigorous intellectual discovery but to chain us to a crushing tedium of both endless ambiguities and prefabricated conclusions. Nothing makes this clearer than their own representation of their “ideal graduates” than the following description of the stifling mechanisms meant to govern the “dialogue” that is deemed so central to diversity learning. Again, we must see this at length in order fully to take it in:

Envision a group of Americans, different in background and economic resources. They are vigorously debating a contentious social issue, perhaps the justice of limiting welfare support to three years as a lifetime maximum. Each is listening carefully, without interrupting, to what the other is saying. Each is able to explain why other members of the group see the issues as they do. Each can describe how different histories and affiliations have shaped participants’ different understandings. Each spends a great deal of time considering the effects of particular policies on different cases: the hardworking legal immigrant parent whose efforts to be self-sufficient are hindered by a poor labor market and employment preference for United States citizens; the drug addict who is not really available to work; the teenage mother with a sickly child. No one attacks the motives, intelligence, or worth of anyone else in the conversation. No one applies a principle without considering its implications. Several people in the group have had family experiences or field studies that involved them in welfare issues; they bring a base of experience to the discussion.

By the time the discussion ends, every participant in the dialogue has recast at least part of his or her original position in light of insights and opposing views offered in the conversation. The group has decided on the points where agreement has to be reached and spent most of the time on those points. They have also acknowledged issues where continued disagreement must be accepted.

How specious to suggest that this exercise in programmed political correctness represents a “vigorous debate.” Any sense of true, sincere discussion, aiming for the best or at least the better understanding, any sense of the fearless and bracing pursuit of truth, any play of the intellect with unexpected ideas, is necessarily banished if no one can apply a principle without considering all its implications, and no one can exercise judgment, discrimination, or even initiative. This then is the goal of diversity education: preparation for the monotony of committee meetings, conflict resolution, and managerial bureaucratic emptiness, for a world of hollow men and women who must cluster together around contemporary clichés because they have never learned to think for themselves.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 16, 2006 12:59 PM | Send