by David D. Horowitz.
“Don’t worry about making subtle distinctions in your dissertation. You want to make a big splash to get your work published as a book that gets you an academic job.” Thus, a professor decades ago advised me and the six other students in our graduate seminar. I greatly respected this professor—but this comment felt wrong then, and it feels wrong now.
I understood our professor hoped each of us would use a dissertation to establish a distinctive identity that would increase our professional attractiveness. I understood our professor hoped we would feel emboldened, unafraid of controversy, willing to publicly defend unpopular positions: all admirable traits in budding scholars.
Yet, once you begin ignoring subtlety to “make a splash,” you not only begin fearing the complexity of life, truth, and your own character: you begin indulging in stereotypes. And once you begin indulging stereotypes to justify strident positions, you risk needlessly offending those who are stereotyped. And they will likely become enemies, not friends with whom you can exchange and discover.
Of course, these days there is no shortage of demagogues hawking stereotypes. Blog comment sections richly illustrate the problem: “libtard,” “Dumb-ocrat,” “feminazi,” “conservatroll,” “Republitard,” “right-wing a******,” and on and on with insult, not persuasion. No subtlety here. And no respect except for those in one’s tiny enclave of lockstep dogma. No challenge, no exploration, no tolerant curiosity: just circle-the-wagons rhetorical shooting matches combined with implicit litmus-testing to make sure someone still agrees with 99.9 percent of the enclave’s dogmas and thus merits continued acknowledgement as a human being.
Push, bump, conflict, argue, push back harder, defame, denigrate, declaim: everything but learn. Everything but acknowledge error or change of position, the need to research, and the complexity of impure motivation. Just bump and bump back, because… well, because those people over there are your enemies, and we’re your friends because… we agree, and they’re wrong! And they’re evil, too!
I focus on this tonight, for someone I knew fifty years ago, during my eight-year childhood stint in a midwestern suburb, is making national news. What a bump in the night this is! He was the baby brother of a good friend of mine. Well, I just learned baby brother is a famous right-wing radio and television talk show host. Apparently, he was pressured to resign tonight for tweeting threats about a Parkland shooting survivor, and this is a major national news story. I was a good friend of the host’s older brother, and I remember many times seeing baby brother when visiting my friend’s house. I am not here to pass judgment on him, except to say this: he can bump and shock and attack his way to all the fame in the world, and I would not want to be like him. If others want to consider me a courteous failure—as in Nice guys finish last—they’re welcome to do so. This “bump and push to stake out a public identity and more likely succeed” mentality profoundly damaged my family and various friendships of past years. It is toxic. It is ruinous. I have lived through this.
So, I will always be concerned for subtlety, the complexity of truth, and rigorously honest inquiry. And above all, I aim to eschew the cheap stereotypes that poison current political discourse. I know kind people who identify as capitalists and who work for corporations. I know kind people who identify as liberals and Greens. I see discipline and innovation in the business world, and I see desensitizing hyper-competitiveness. I see compassion and innovation in social services, and I hear my share of moral snobbery and dismissive judgement there, as well. I do not see anyone who is purely good or totally right, and I see everyone as able to learn from everyone.
And, in the midst of the froth and fury, I’d like to imagine myself someone who can always learn, who can always acknowledge error, who can always evolve and revise and consider. I do not want to be a gavel banging out sanctimony. I aim to stay a handshake encouraging exchange. I daresay many share this view of themselves—and long for encouragement to explore and respect subtlety, nuance, and complexity. I’m fine with making a splash—but not if others get needlessly wet and angry in the process.