Sunday December 3, 2023 | 2 a.m
I recently read a fascinating essay by historian Adam Nicolson on the origins of Western philosophy. During a boat trip in the Mediterranean Sea, Nicolson noticed that Greek port cities provided the setting in which philosophical thought emerged and developed until it reached its sophisticated form.
From around 650 BCE, Nicolson relates, “there was an emergence and rebirth, as a constellation of independent port cities began to emerge in the eastern Aegean.” Above all, he continues, “the Greeks were not subject to vast royal and priestly bureaucracies instituted (from above). A mental freedom ran through their cities. This exchange and development of ideas was made possible by contact with other cultures through trade routes connecting port cities on the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
Life inland was dominated by
peasant-warriors. These societies mainly came into contact with rivals and enemies. With battle and domination motivating their interactions, ideas advanced little and had no lasting philosophical dimension. Without the fertility of peaceful engagement with others through trade and cultural exchange, interior communities were concerned only with power dynamics.
The problem of mental stagnation now threatens the progress of thought in the United States, as the current environment in schools and universities does not always support an investigative stance. If anything, it discourages the kind of stimulating trade that these ancient Greek port cities offered.
This year I attended a social event where I had a conversation with a self-proclaimed libertarian. He expressed concern that campuses are becoming intolerant of undesirable ideas. I agreed with his general premise, but we disagreed on who shuts down who. From his perspective, the way politically conservative speakers were jeered at by liberal students on campus was shameful.
He was particularly concerned about an event at Stanford University in which former dean Condoleezza Rice, now a political science professor, was the subject of protests. Stanford Students Against the War and others opposed her nomination to head the Hoover Institute because of her role as secretary of state during the Iraq War in the early 2000s. She had previously served the subject of protests against his planned commencement speech at Rutgers for the same reason, which led to his removal from the program.
These events were not isolated. Liberal students often protested conservative speakers who violated their sensibilities, often in hostile and doctrinaire ways.
My own examples of campus intolerance were very different. I fear that the many national bans on critical race theory have ended productive ways to talk about racism, which has plagued American society since colonial times and remains prevalent in society. Countless laws also prohibit favorable attention to the LGBTQ+ population and books that portray them in a positive light. Banning books is now a central means of suppressing advocacy for marginalized populations so that they gain no momentum in realizing their rights.
He and I had the opportunity to have a respectful conversation and open a line of inquiry. He’s still a Libertarian and I’m still a Democrat. But we managed, if not to persuade each other, to radically change our way of thinking, at least to take into account each other’s points of view.
I would distinguish this type of reasoned exchange from some of what happens in schools and on campuses. Spray painting a swastika on a campus synagogue is not about investigating the nature of things. If it’s a conversational turn, it calls for no response except more hostility. Nor is it the same for books prohibiting or shouting against speakers. Current events have highlighted anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim beliefs among students and faculty, which are a continuation of hateful fighting dating back well before the current unrest. These disputes offer no possibility of finding a way beyond current thinking. They produce stasis and withdrawal, not development.
I recently had the opportunity to reflect on the value of “civil discourse” in a way that addresses these issues. In much of the United States, as well as in schools and universities, people express their positions without listening or taking a different point of view. Instead, they try to outdo each other. In contrast, civil or civic discourse requires listening to and engaging with other points of view. It is not designed solely to express a position and argue its merits. It serves to advance one’s own thinking by addressing opposing viewpoints, often regarding emotionally tumultuous issues.
This essay is less about the right to free speech and more about the importance of listening to opposing viewpoints as a means of advancing one’s own thinking and, therefore, elevating the thinking of larger social groups. When schools and universities rely on dogma that prohibits competing opinions from clashing, inquiry is replaced by entrenchment.
Civil discourse is not always easy, especially when emotions are running high. But I think it’s the only way to move beyond the shouting and find ways to invigorate rather than thwart the inquiry that advances our thinking.
Peter Smagorinsky is Professor Emeritus in the College of Education at the University of Georgia and the 2023 recipient of the American Educational Research Association’s Lifetime Contribution to Cultural and Historical Research Award. He wrote this for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
