Freedom is the Strongest Preparation
Censorhip does not make better citizens
Much that is being said about how to conduct proper conversations about controversial topics like the war in Gaza, is simple common sense. Discuss, use logic and evidence, listen to others, no shouting slogans. Instead critical thinking and a serious attempt to learn from each other while seeking common ground.
We should know the process very well; the adults in my life have been saying it’s the right way to proceed ever since I can remember.
So why is it necessary to say it again? Well, many feel that debate on college campuses is both a problem in itself and a symptom of a larger problem. I’m uncertain about there being a college free speech crisis. Thousands of colleges, hundred thousands of students, multiple opportunities to seize a microphone, how do we tell what is a small and what is a large phenomenon and how do we judge the extent of any immediate consequence? We should try to put it in perspective, bemoan the “bath water,” and save the “babies.”
Of more interest, and possibly alarm, is what many see as a trend. They call attention to a lack of responsible dialog and effective speech within the rising generation. While this seems to some of us, a refrain we have heard before, again and again, about virtually every new generation of young men and women, today’s crisis may be more than younger people trying to find their footing in the labyrinths of thought and action.
If this is a concern, however, I would ask that we consider more than the usual suspects. These celebrated tropes include parental inflating of self-worth, social media, class privilege and radical propaganda. I suggest we lay these aside, without discounting any or all. Results, after all, have multiple causes.
I want to call attention to a long-standing problem, now too important to continue to avoid, an elephant in the room whose stamping around can’t be ignored. Our educational system does not prepare people for effective citizenship.
There are many ways in which our educational system slights citizenship preparation. I want to finish this blog with one of these—the way in which we shield children from controversial topics. Yes, there is a risk in exposing younger children to age-inappropriate material. But inappropriate in what sense? What is appropriate for citizenship preparation may be inappropriate for other purposes. Choices must be consciously made, and tradeoffs understood.
It is essential (again in respect to citizenship preparation in a democratic society) that a person learns early and deeply to understand and appreciate how people are different from each other in their personal beliefs, lifestyles, values and commitments. With such recognition comes the willingness to show both respect for those with different opinions and political views and attentive listening to their ideas.
Furthermore, the citizen in a democracy must be prepared to handle tough questions and controversial issues without flinching. Until a person develops self-confidence in their ability to understand and handle controversy (i.e. unfamiliar and apparently unsavory ideas), they are either silent or worse reduced to crowd behavior, chanting slogans rather than thinking through the issues.
As early as possible in one’s education, potential citizens should be exposed to ideas that challenge their preconceived notions of justice, faith and life choices. They should not be denied access to books and films and music and art that are out of the mainstream, or that might cause a degree of stress.
Censorship of any kind prepares a person for failure not success. Exposure to new ideas is worth the struggle, the momentary self-doubt that accompanies emotionally charged learning experiences. New ideas toughen mental agility and make it possible to handle intellectual disagreements with dispassionate objectivity and constructive critique.
Schools can either, utilizing censorship, prepare students to be aggressively blind to ideas outside of carefully orchestrated and enforced ways of thinking, or schools can prepare students to meet with open minds and a degree of excitement, the new ideas that accompany the changing landscape of global experience.
As a parent you have a choice. You can urge and support a school system that only seeks to strengthen the views of the world your children have learned from you in loving concern for their future. (Call that their foundation and be assured that it will be an anchor against excessive drift or recklessness.) Or you can support a school system that prepares them to face intellectual challenges with objectivity and dispassionate judgment, that does not in the name of “safety” deny them access to a full and challenging intellectual life.
Trust their judgements when given the intellectual tools to make their own way in a complex, dangerous, but richly rewarding world.
This post is public so feel free to share it.