Charlie Kirk

Another attempt to put in perspective the meaning of his death.

I hesitate to write about what has affected my friends in radically different ways. These topics are hard to talk about in the way I prefer—rational with controlled emotion. In fact, many of you may argue that they should not be addressed at all.

And some will expect, and accept, a despairing “howl” at a world that seems to have turned deeply inhuman.

To do so, however, is to turn away from our birthright as Americans, as much as it is a turning away from each other. Now, if ever, is a time for serious conversation. We must learn what we can in the aftermath of the shooting of Charlie Kirk.

Kirk stood for the discussion of disputed ideas. He entered public life and engaged in debate with others. The fairness of all such debate should be questioned. I, as a former teacher, recognize more than most, the unfair advantage that a well-informed and practiced debater has over individual students. Many Republicans have alerted us to the responsibilities that professors (they that profess from professional platforms) have when they seek to inform and train the minds of students. We must teach, foremost, how to believe, not what to believe. Or at least make very clear to our students that what is presently “common belief” should always be subject to challenge and refutation.

I am saying that I think we need to look long and hard at the ways in which all of us “indoctrinate,” in which we “influence” those whose receptivity to ideas is especially open and vulnerable.

And then there are the ideas themselves. I find collections of things that Kirk is alleged to have said. Some may be falsely listed. Some may represent positions that he changed as he matured in understanding. Some were perhaps slips of the tongue in intense dialog. (By the way, Freud aside, what comes “unfiltered” out of our mouths is not necessarily our deepest thoughts and “true” beliefs, but instead a lot of common words and phrases that have been part of our lives, said by our friends, lodged in that mysterious “museum,” the brain.) And some seem central to his overall thought and worth serious discussion.

It takes careful study, a lot of reading and knowledge of context, to understand someone’s ideas. No one I know ever fully understands their own. But we must try, because both intelligent agreement and disagreement depend upon such understanding. And when we fail to understand what another is saying, a resort to violence is all too likely.

And finally, I think we must ask about the impact or effect of all of the ideas that populate our discourse. Many will not endure. They have created momentary audiences on social media and curious crowds at colleges and universities. But they won’t necessarily influence the ever-rising generations that must for their own sake see through fearmongering and demands for change, to their own futures. Others, however, will find fertile ground. We need to consider the fruit of their planting. Do they strengthen or weaken our ability to work together? Are they wise or foolish? Whose interests do they advance?

It troubles me, as I wrote last week, whenever the powerful attempt to see men like Kirk as anything other than a messenger, human like ourselves. A crown will not fit, of thorns or gold. And like all “crowning” of a human idol, it is as dangerous to those that lift the crown as to those who seek to dethrone the martyr.

We honor free speech not by silencing those we oppose, nor by canonizing them in death, but by recognizing that ideas must stand or fall on their own merit. Kirk’s words are all still here. They can be read, quoted, challenged, or dismissed. That is his true legacy—whatever power it holds, whatever flaws it reveals. It is ours, the living, to examine and judge. We cannot allow our emotional reaction to a messenger, all, all of whom if human are flawed, give honor or dishonor to the message.

Michael Cohen on the MeidasTouch said it best. “…in the end, history is crueler than any assassin. It forgets. The trending topic disappears. The speeches fade. The statue collects dust. Only the ideas that truly speak to a generation endure.”