High stakes, high standards

With tonight’s vice-presidential debate, America begins a five-week countdown to the general election. Some voters are already fatigued with politics. Across the board, they have lamented the tone of national political discussions. This election more than ever, it is easy for them to back away and wash their hands of political opponents. But the stakes are too high for people to plug their ears and not talk about politics. Instead, they must set ground rules for political discourse. So beyond parroting the sound bites they are given by the media and the nominees of our two major parties, how can voters, especially us at Duke, talk to each other in this critical home stretch of the election in a way that will push our country’s politics forward and not backwards?

The first step is to broaden political spaces to create vibrant forums for discussion. On campus, the conservative viewpoint is woefully underrepresented in part because it oftentimes faces disbelief and hostility from opponents who shrink discursive spaces around their views. That hostility is wrong: conservatives ought to feel free to voice their thoughts. That said, not anybody with a position deserves a seat in discussions. Inane as well as perniciously discriminatory opinions can and should be discounted as such. In general though, if we open discussion up to more diverse opinions and allow them to constructively clash, all opinions will be refined over time, leading to a more worthy discussion space.

The second step to contributing to better discussions and becoming a more virtuous political citizen is to take a bottom-up approach to assessing political identity. Just as we would all be poor voters if we took candidate speeches at face value, we become poor debaters when, after encountering somebody who identifies as liberal or conservative, we immediately hold them accountable for all of their associated party’s platform and supported candidate’s positions. Making such top-down assumptions about others only adds hurdles to political discussions. Instead of doing so, we ought to take to take a bottom-up approach to assessing political identity that asks what “being liberal” or “being conservative” means to someone in light of their own experiences.

The next step to improving discussions is to hold others accountable to facts. Every student should expect to be held to standards of research when advancing or defending policy suggestions. Claims about how the country should work have to be falsifiable. Even for those issues which are murky, taking the time to understand why answers to tough questions (e.g. what effects a minimum wage increase might have) differ so wildly from think tank to think tank will only benefit your ability to contribute to discussions on such policies.

The final component of effective political contributions is to be respectful of peers. Nothing is a greater turnoff to participants or shame to our university community than the entrance of disrespect into a forum for discussion. Ad hominem attacks against candidates, members of political parties and policies themselves add nothing to discussions. If a position does deserve vitriol, deliver your criticisms in a way that reflects superiority of information and understanding, not of personality and capacity for blustering.

In casting their votes next month, students should hold their positions not because they are doing as they have always done but because they have thought deeply about their political leanings. A good way to begin that thinking is to welcome challenges to their positions and graciously engage in meaningful political discussion.