On Rational Discourse, Emotivism, College Students, and Fundamentalist Islam College students are, by nature, a very zealous and energetic lot of people. College is a rather unique time for everyone: it signals the end of childhood and the transition towards adulthood, our education has gone from broad and simplistic to deep and nuanced, the world no longer seems as black and white as it used to be. We all see in shades of gray now. It's only appropriate that during this time that college students become interested in politics, some becoming quite deeply involved. I really only began to scratch the surface of the intricate affairs of contemporary American politics when I moved to college and had the time and the resources to read large amounts of political current events every day and take classes that offered explanations as to how the American and global political system came to the point it is today.

College also should prepare people to become useful and productive citizens. In our classes and in the environment that college campuses foster students are forced to learn about all perspectives and viewpoints, the rationales and motives behind peoples actions in the world theater and we are forced not to just accept them at face value, but seriously consider an actors motives, how their arguments are constructed, and what the result of their actions will be. In short, we are given the tools to seriously critique and analyze actions in the world and use our own experience and the values that we have gained over time to decide if we agree with someone's actions or goals. One can never understand an argument fully if due respect isn't given to it.

This doesn't really seem to matter to most people, college students and those beyond equally. Americans have moved beyond rationalism into emotivism. Few elements of modern political discourse fully examine opposing ideas thoroughly which closes all opportunities to examine an idea or philosophy fully. Rather than this sort of constructive criticism, discourse in America, political or otherwise has descended into a non-cognitivism (click the link for a better explanation. in short, it means that an idea or argument has no truth value but is more an assertion of "Boo! Something" or "Yay! Something") Within this framework, deductive arguments and logic have no real place, since everyones ideas are simply just an expression of personal beliefs that have no real intrinsic meaning. Persuasion and coercion become now more useful tools for discourse, since the desired goal isn't an understanding of why an idea is correct, but rather simply to change someone's opinion.

Our fundamental switch in thinking has many causes, the traditional suspects being mass media, poor primary education, and the sixties. Whatever the root may be, we must no longer deceive ourselves into believing that we have honest rational discourse in any realm of the public sphere anymore. Though this isn't entirely bad (there is no rational reason for being an Eagles fan over a Niners fan, or preferring one type of food to another) when it comes to gravely important matters, such as the normative goals of a nation either in domestic or foreign policy, this route is not only undesirable but wholly unproductive.

This undesirable emotivist approach has become a tactic used most often by the American left. A recent example comes from the actions of a group of Columbia University students that attended a speech by Jim Gilchrist, the head of the Minutemen group, an organization that monitors the Mexican-American border. (HT: brain-terminal) Rather than listen to Mr. Gilchrist's argument, the students immediately stormed the stage and screamed and protested his right to even address the group of students who requested his presence. They inherently denied his right to hold his opinions, and failed to engage in a rational, ideological argument about his group, his beliefs, and his actions. This is not the first time that things like this have happened on campuses across America. In fact there was a similar incident involving Ann Coulter at Loyola last spring. I personally don't care for Mrs. Coulter but I have no problem with her speaking here as much as I would have a problem with Al Franken or Noam Chomsky (if he were speaking about politics rather than linguistics). There is no excuse however for people who deny the expression of other's ideas or views solely because they disagree with them. When this becomes an accepted practice, the entire concept of the free exchange of ideas (or even the First Amendment) are crushed.

This is now the norm in many places in the world, especially in American universities. Diversity is only welcome in terms of race and gender, but certainly not in thought. Should I want to support some cause that another finds appalling, that is my business to do so, and they have the right to convince me from my stance using logic, reason, and skill. Denying my right to say what I believe, however, is completely unacceptable. I have yet to come into severely oppressive political climates in my classrooms, but I know that it is inevitable. Being in college is about learning to discuss ideas openly, critique them vigorously, and allow for a better argument to almost force you to change your own ideas. But this sort of coercion and aimless protest certainly is not what collegiate level academics are about, this sort of behavior is fitting for an elementary school playground.

At this point, it is very fitting to compare this sort of violent repression of dissenting ideas or alternative viewpoints in American discourse to that of violent Islamic fundamentalists. There is a logical evolution between storming the stage at a speech to violence at a cartoon of a figurehead (Well, you could even say things like the WTO protests actually go that far). It is very frightening that 'civilized' yet extreme American liberals would act so viciously towards dissent, but that seems to be the point where they have come now.  ¶ 6:12 PM