As a social journalist, I can censor the things I write and give them a liberal or conservative slant. It goes with the territory of commentary which is not news, but opinion. Over the past few days, I gave some thought to the human condition and how our belief system influences social order. As I’ve said before, I attempt to have no preconceived notions when writing commentary, letting the facts lead me to a conclusion that is entirely my own.
Universities as doctrine
At our universities, order is imposed using social doctrine. What is taught to our children comes with the preconceived bias of the professor intertwined with the philosophical, both monetarily and otherwise, of the learning institution.
Fact-based education has been replaced with emotional angst witnessed in part by the snowflake generation who must be coddled at all costs. Hurt feelings and challenging thoughts and ideas that might make one uncomfortable are not acknowledged or confronted. To do so would send everyone running for safe rooms.
Risk exists in life because that is the nature of the world. You can reduce risk by using percentages or you can negate caution by reaching out and grabbing whatever it is that happens by on any given day. You can also choose to use your brain and exercise it by thinking. Thinking is a process that allows one to come to know oneself absent another party's thoughts and opinions.
Universities used to be the grand dame of thought.
They reached into communities across our nation, drew young men and women to their shores and taught them how to think. Today young people are told what to think and are not shown how to think. Instead, young people are taught the basic precepts of engineering, science and the humanities, but many universities do not teach them to challenge how these concepts came into being.
To not challenge a human being nullifies their ability to make things/concepts better. Firstly, students must be shown how to get to an area of understanding. After that they must be lead outside the walls into an imaginary world of constructive thinking where the ideas they dream of might be brought into being. That is the place where genius is born.
The forgotten skill of debate without anger
Debate as a verb is dying. There are no more arguments based on fact and debated without anger, but with passion, with the sole purpose of coming to a conclusion that might be different than the one previously held. A debate is started with a question and ends up revealing an argument that is, hopefully, thought-provoking.
Yet, where are the debates of conservatism versus progressivism? Without this essential debate, professors do a disservice to the assemblage and the educating institution. Colleges must teach opposing sides, instead of indoctrinating students to specific ideals. An intelligent person, a passionate person, a person in love with the idea of education and thinking, must see both sides.
Not to teach them otherwise is a gross injustice to the human condition. In the middle of such a grand debate, violence is anathema. Violence feeds the animal and trumps intellectualism. No pun intended.
Conflict of free speech and hate speech
Not that many years ago a Klu Klux Klan group would put on a parade of perhaps 10 ridiculously dressed people in pointy white caps and sheets. Thinking people of all colors realized these were ridiculous people with ridiculous ideas parading down a street looking ridiculous.
Now we have an opposition groups facing down silly intolerant people dressed in white sheets and Nazi paraphernalia. The saddest part about this is that the opposition does not see silly people in silly clothes; instead they see a threat and that threat must be taken seriously and then taken down by any means necessary -- violence included.
Both sides are uneducated people needing a cause to take part in because no one else will listen to them. Human nature being what it is recognizes banding as power. To defeat them, you ignore them, thereby removing power. If they do harm they go to jail.
Not all conservatives are Nazi wannabes or Klu Klux Clan members. Not all progressives believe in collectivism. Instead, we are a mixture of human ideas and ideologies that must be faced and accepted in a non-aggressive manner and our universities are where that thought process should begin. Instead, young people are running and hiding from uncomfortable ideas and are willing to meet the uneducated with violence, dressed in dark hoodies and clothing that strikes fear into those watching.
Does anyone but me see the iconicity here?
