“The Sacred Rite of Trump will commence tonight’s meeting at 11:59 sharp,” an ironic and anonymous yakker announced. “Please remember handbooks, new members.”
Another yak: “There is a special circle of hell set aside just for Trump.”
A brief and obnoxious theological tit-for-tat followed. The mockery and vilification coming from both sides is causing problems on campus, and it’s made easier — and more ubiquitous — by social media. Yik Yak makes the ridicule anonymous as well as instantaneous, but Facebook and Twitter also foster frequent spats.
Politics is sorely straining the relationships between departments and between professors and students. Disagreements over policy or moral premise rapidly escalate into shrill, reciprocal indictment, permeating every imaginable social outlet. One yak said, “You know you are at Hillsdale when you post a dank meme and a political flame war starts up in the comments.” Indeed.
We have lost discourse. This is as evident in our culture at large as it is here among the students. Politics, like discourse, assume a common culture, language, and place. It assumes a shared value of these enduring things and a similar commitment to their preservation — if not on the means, then at least on the end itself. Disagreement is a matter of working out what is best for the thing both parties seek to articulate and preserve.
If Hillsdale is “collegial,” then we have this common culture, language, and place; and we have it to an extent the rest of our culture does not. We share the task of liberal education, and affirm the dignity of the person. We have common ground. Most Americans do not.
Telling everyone who thinks differently from you that they’re evil makes it difficult to address someone who is indeed morally contemptible when they arrive. Loyal opposition allows that the other party is still working from some shared premises, and can be integrated into the political order by means short of warfare or exile.
We on campus have the opportunity to model discourse, so stop the trash talk.
