“Insert obligatory theological debate here,” read the follow-up comment on a funny quote posted on Overheard at Hillsdale, garnering almost as many “likes” as the actual quote. Hillsdale students are obviously aware of our penchant for turning anything into a heated debate upon which the truth of the universe hinges. Someone brings up Luther, and the dormant Catholic versus Protestant feud erupts. Mention Lincoln, and the Civil War refights itself. Write a tongue-in-cheek editorial about the A.J.’s piano, wake up with a severed horse head in your bed (slightly exaggerated). Even Starbucks has recently been a source of controversy.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? After all, as Hillsdale students, we’re supposed to seek the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, and everyone has different opinions on what those really are. Arguments and debates are expected, and discourse is a necessary part of unraveling intellectual mysteries.
And yet, we walk a very fine line between arguing for truth’s sake and arguing for its own sake.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m anything but a relativist. I believe in objective truth, and I believe we can understand at least part of it. We should seek those higher things that Plato and Dr. Arnn love. But we should also be careful not to get in our own way.
Debate certainly has its place. Socratic dialogues, presidential debates, and point-counterpoint articles can all be extremely useful in illuminating various ideas and principles. But, as someone who reads YouTube comments far too often, I can say from experience that arguments can be extraordinarily counterproductive.
There comes a point in most debates, while you’re screaming about papal infallibility or the merits of One Direction, that you realize you might as well be talking to a brick wall. If someone disagrees with you for any reason, then no matter the impenetrable logic and moral rectitude of your assured position, you’re most likely not going to convert him or her to your side.
That’s just how people are: we’re stubborn. We have our reasons for thinking what we do, and we won’t give them up, because they’re ours, dang it. We invoke the natural law of self-defense whenever we feel a threat to the property of our opinions.
Hillsdale students have a very keen sense of this. And well they should, as the truth is both incredibly powerful and desperately vulnerable. With so many differing opinions in the world, the truth gets lost in the fray, and when we think we’ve finally gotten some hold on it, we cling to it for dear life.
The thing we have to realize is that everyone else does the same thing.
Before I completely turn this into a thesis on epistemology, allow me, as a wise old college senior, to offer some advice to you whippersnappers out there. I can’t recall learning much of anything by arguing about it. I do remember learning just about everything by asking about it.
We Hillsdale students have an obsession with being right. That is, right about divisive issues, where one side is pitted against another. No matter the source of contention, we want to be the most adamant Directioner or the most effusive Belieber, the most rational anarcho-capitalist or the most Aristotelian monarchist, the most scriptural Protestant or the most faithful Catholic.
That, I think, is where we too easily let our ethos be just our ego. We want to win, to feel more correct than everyone else. But we shouldn’t compare ourselves to other people and their opinions, we should only measure ourselves against the truth we claim to seek. Yes, we should defend truth with all of our ability, but we should also not be so proud as to think we, individually, have each cornered the market on it.
You don’t have to agree with me, though.
