Charlie Kirk assassination underscores rejection of civil debate

“The lack of best conviction is full of passionate intensity.”

William Butler Yeats wrote these words about Europe after the great war, but this week they were playing with a terrible clarity, while burizing Charlie Kirk, he was killed for a public debate at the age of 31. The young man, who built a discourse empire from a suburban garage, was apparently silenced by someone who found bullets more convincing than words.

But when I think about this tragedy, the thing that strikes me: Charlie Kirk can be the last American who really believes that you can change the mind of someone with a good argument. Think about it. When was the last time you saw someone really changed position during a discussion? When was the last time you witnessed the three most valuable words in English: “Was I wrong?”

‘Fearless’ tour, Charlie Kirk’s mission of free speaking to colleges throughout the country

My little son understood this belief. He called me after Kirk’s death, and he probably shared something that caught our national landing. “Dad,” he said, “I used to be like Charlie Kirk – I thought people could be convinced by mind.”

My son learned otherwise when he was in graduate school in the 2016 elections. He began to receive several calls from his classmates a day and wanted to understand how Hitler could really support someone he believed in a modern equivalent. These graduate students – educated, intelligent people who follow the MBAs – literally Trump was equal to Hitler, and they were looking for my son because they could not reconcile how someone like him could support such evil.

So, in good faith, he joined everyone who contacted him. From his own account: “To learn things like accounting, I came to practice myself to defend myself from being called Nazi. In this period, I lost his friends and this became one of the most difficult times of my life.”

Let me advance an unusual thesis: Charlie Kirk is dead because we forgot how to hate it properly. Gk Chesterton, “The real soldier is fighting not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. [or next to] O. “We are fighting against the love of our other soldiers and our country, not to hate our enemies. We reversed this wisdom. Instead of loving our own principles, we teach our young people to hate their rivals.

As my son lost his friends, he did something quite understandable. Shortly after Trump’s selection, he stopped actively participating in politics – watching the news, talking to friends and reading the articles he read every day. “When the news came, I found myself physically uncomfortable,” he said. “To defend yourself against relatively discreet ideas as a Nazi, a Nazi, racist, sexist, is going to the bathroom of boys forever, or to throw Molotov cocktails into police cars (actually a classmate during the George Floyd protests).”

My son learned a difficult, unfortunate lesson during the graduate school, and in recent years, numerous students have learned. The modern university, where Kirk ended, was the opposite of what John Henry Newman predicted when he wrote “a university idea”. Newman dreamed of institutions where “qualities occurred throughout the life of freedom, equality, calm, moderate and wisdom”. Instead, we created fragile factories where students pay $ 70,000 a year to approve students’ prejudices and avoid triggers.

The founders would immediately recognize Charlie. Franklin, Cunto, Hamilton with newspapers, Jefferson with their correspondence, all of them realized that democracy was an argument, not an answer. In the federalist 10, Madison wrote about the dangers of the fraction, but never imagined that we would solve the fraction problem with the assassination.

Here is another unusual thought: the problem is not our universities very political. They are not political in terms of the classical “political” in which Aristotle calls man a political animal. The problem of university is vaccination factories, especially in liberal arts. Real politics requires participation with difference, the ability to live with people you do not agree with, and the ability to persuade rather than coercion. Our campuses changed politics with theology and especially an intolerance.

We have made the cost of conviction so high that we have completely withdrawn from the participation of talented and principled people.

My son concluded his reflection with words that bother me: “In those moments, after making the wrong choice many times before, I have faith and courage to live like Charlie and live like Bill.” Of course, Charlie meant Kirk. His other invoice father – Bendi. I stumbled with a comparison, but I was uncomfortable with his confession. Undoubtedly, he threw his hat out of the ring and found his comfort and happiness as he entered the non -political financial world. But at what cost of our society?

That was what we did for our young people. We have made the cost of conviction so high that we have completely withdrawn from the participation of talented and principled people. We have created a safer, safer than questioning, safer than hiding. There is a definite relief in this. But it doesn’t come without the price.

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The next question is not more of whether we have Charlie Kirks – people who are willing to be brave for hostility for their beliefs. We will do. The question has increased a lot whether we have more of my son – withdrawn from the participation of the people. Few of the most brilliant people I know dreams of entering politics – where vegetable capital, private capital, abilities can still develop without ideological questioning. Routly logical: Make enough money and perhaps the change you want to see in the society, you can affect it safely from the mafia.

If we cannot make America safe to discuss again – not only civil argument, but a strong, passionate, even angry argument – we must stop acting as if he were living in a democracy at that time. In the true etymological sense, democracy means “the power of people” – similar to the power of those who are even more constantly victims. If you are not consumed with Rage, you grow your family at home and go to work. Therefore, radical political movements naturally draw the most anger between us, not wise.

Charlie Kirk died at the age of 31, but the idea it represents – that the Americans can discuss their ways towards the truth instead of going to silence – that they don’t die. My son’s generation deserves better than the election between silence and death. Charlie Kirk deserves that they are trying to give them: a place on the table, a voice in the conversation, and the right to talk without being killed for it. Our children and grandchildren deserve this.

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