over the last two years I’ve spent a lot
of my time vigorously defending the idea
of engaging with controversy on college
campuses and it hasn’t been easy often
times I’ve faced criticism I’ve had to
deal with that hominem attacks I’ve even
in several encounters had to deal with
death threats implicit threats letters
and things like that slipped under my
door and throughout the course of
dealing with those things I often tried
to ask myself beyond the sort of legal
definitions of free speech and beyond
understanding it as an abstract value
what does it mean to me personally and
you know my grandfather passed away a
few months ago and so he’s been on my
mind a lot recently and so I try to
think back to some of the lessons that I
learned from him when I was a little boy
I loved spending time with my
grandfather he was an excellent shape he
taught me how to rollerblade when I was
four and he was like 82 at the time and
which was you know amazing to me and so
he used to often go on jogs together and
he lived in Detroit and he lived in in a
nice co-op but in a neighborhood that
wasn’t so great and so when we would go
on these jogs we would jog through sort
of different parts of the community and
he would tell me to stay right beside
him and one day we were jogging and
there was a homeless man sort of sitting
on the side on the curb and you could
tell that he was distraught you could
tell that he was a little he had a lot
going on and perhaps you could even tell
that he was mentally unhinged but at the
time I was so young I didn’t know what
was going on and so my grandfather as
we’re jogging he kind of pauses and he
says Zach let’s go this way and sort of
out of nowhere the homeless man starts
acting very erratically and he starts
yelling screaming and he’s making loud
noises and he starts cursing he’s
talking to himself and I asked why was I
pop out what’s wrong with this guy
should we call the police what’s going
on
and he said then and there he said you
always want to be careful not to make
judgments about people before you know
them before you understand their
circumstances before you know what kind
of conversations they had at the dinner
table before you know what kind of
struggles they’ve had to deal with in
their life before you know what it is
that they need what it is that they lack
what it is that they want what it is
that they’re trying to accomplish and
the obstacles that they’ve had to
encounter along the way and so then and
there even though I was so young I
remember him trying to explain to me in
words that would make sense to a
four-year-old why it was important not
to judge this this man who clearly was
without a lot for acting very
erratically because I was very afraid
when I saw it and so I tried to sort of
hold on to that memory and to apply that
to different circumstances throughout my
life in my work with uncomfortable
learning I’ve invited two speakers who
have been disinvited one of them was
Suzanne banker she was an anti-feminist
social critic and her main argument was
that feminism in its current incarnation
is a war against men I radically
disagree with this radically to screw
that however I believe that it’s very
important to try to understand what
kinds of experiences inform that
perspective on what evidence or lack
thereof is it based and to try to get a
better sense of you know who among the
American electorate who among our
population agrees with these views and
why and so in doing my work with
uncomfortable learning I’ve tried to you
know frame the reasons why in ways that
I feel might be intelligible to people
in ways that might make sense beyond
just saying that free speech is a
fundamental value in a democratic
society particularly in our society you
know when we sort of watch the news we
tend to watch one of a few stations Fox
MSNBC CNN and what we’ll see is a
particular version of events based on
certain narratives and we’re familiar
with if you watch Fox
you know before 2016 you’d see a lot of
criticisms of Obama you’d see a lot of
criticisms of liberalism if you watch
MSNBC on the other hand you’re going to
see an endorsement of Obama you’re gonna
see stories and coverage and
commentators who support what he’s doing
who advocate for him who defend him and
protect them and so forth and sort of in
framing my work with uncomfortable
learning I’ve learned a lot as I’ve
progressed over the past two years I’ve
tried to point out that part of what
uncomfortable learning is really about
is essentially saying if MSNBC is the
station that you favor watch Fox if Fox
is the station that you favor watch
MSNBC and don’t try to counter every
point just try to relax that impulse for
a sec try to withhold and just try to
understand what is the other side saying
why are they saying it what is it that
matters to them beyond the technical
terms whether it’s taxation whether it’s
affirmative action whether it’s welfare
what is the principle behind it what’s
the reasoning behind it why does it
matter in explaining that I’ve had a
number of students who’ve said to me
well you know Zach that makes sense but
this particular speaker that you want to
bring I find very hurtful I find the
language that they use I find the
arguments that they make to be hateful
and I think that they are a detriment to
our society and I think that for you to
bring them to this campus is an
ideological endorsement of their views
in response I say I understand the
bringing the speaker is difficult it’s
not easy for me to bring the speaker I
don’t agree with probably 93% of what
they have to say however whether it was
Suzanne Bank or whether it was John
Derbyshire the speakers that I bring
that I’ve brought to campus their
opinions aren’t just isolated they’re
not the only ones who hold those
opinions
they’re social critics for a reason
there are millions of Americans out
there who agree with those views and for
me I believe that at the end of the day
what we have is communication what we
have is the ability to try to understand
where someone else is coming from to
step outside of our own subject position
and sometimes when I say this it
resonates with people they can connect
with it they can understand it but it’s
still too difficult and so then I say
something like I believe that every
student at Williams College should have
the opportunity if they so choose to
listen to this speaker to raise their
objections to make comments to ask tough
questions and that if it is very
difficult for you to do individually
perhaps consider not coming to the event
you know it’s not the case that I think
everyone is well suited or that it would
be beneficial for everyone to go to to
listen to every speaker that I bring to
campus I understand that people have had
traumatic experiences that for some
people listening to a speaker speak
about a very sensitive issue can for
them almost be like reliving a trauma I
think that for college students in
America for American citizens in general
there are a number of ways in which we
can deal with disagreement a number of
ways in which we can engage controversy
productively for those students who may
not be able to go to the talk they can
read the books they can listen to
podcasts like Nico’s you know there are
a number of ways in which we can try to
step outside of our own subject position
and try to understand what other people
are coming from and so that’s been a
part of my my own uncomfortable learning
process is trying to find ways in which
I can explain why the work I’m doing
matters to me oftentimes I often get
another criticism and this criticism is
that these ideas let’s take the idea for
one that it is a guy that I invited to
bring a campus Charles Murray
says that welfare does not necessarily
help what he doesn’t say doesn’t
necessarily help he says it doesn’t help
the poor it in fact injures them it
makes it their their circumstances are
ones in which they become comfortable
with relying on the government for
assistance and therefore it decreases
incentives and it runs counter to
capitalism if you take that kind of
argument and you think about it and you
abstract it it’s very easy to point out
every single thing you’d like to
disagree with I think that’s very
important I think that part of
uncomfortable learning is about thinking
through the logic of your opponents
there are times in which their arguments
and I want to win those arguments but
there’s other times in which I try to
kind of step away from that perspective
that says I’m right and you’re wrong my
side is good your side is evil and it’s
a battle and I have to win because when
we see it that way when that’s the way
in which we view what we’re doing it
oftentimes makes us more antagonist it
it makes us more combative and I don’t
think we’re as good of listeners as we
could be if we simply focused on trying
to understand where other people are
coming from this comes from a recent
study done by the Pew Research Center
and essentially what the study shows is
that we get most of the information that
we have about current events from social
media and from news websites so that’s
the Wall Street Journal that’s the New
York Times that’s Facebook that’s
Twitter in dealing with the controversy
surrounding uncomfortable learning a lot
of the criticism that I’ve received has
come from social media and so whenever
I’m talking about the work that I’m
doing I think it’s always important to
point out that one thing that’s very
different about engaging with
controversy in this day and age versus
twenty or thirty years ago is that when
you have social media platforms it makes
it very easy for one person to post a
comment that then galvanizes and
mobilizes a group of people or
around a particular event triggers
responses response after response after
response and so when you hear notions
such as college students are coddled and
they’re hypersensitive and they’re
intolerant I think there’s a degree to
which those characterizations hold water
yet however at the same time it’s more
complicated than that
you know these college students didn’t
all themselves design social media they
didn’t design the world in which they
live
we’re oftentimes you know dealing with
the situation’s the cards that we’ve
been dealt the situations that we find
ourselves at and so when we think about
the effect that social media has on
discourse I think it’s important for us
to resist the tendency to just click on
or view the articles that we like
because part of the way the algorithms
work on Facebook and even on Twitter too
is that whatever it is that you like
whatever it is that you subscribe to
whatever it is that you comment on often
you’re gonna see more of that stuff
right and so one of the premises of
uncomfortable learning is that you’re
gonna try to do something that’s going
to push your intellectual limits a
little bit if I love reading Mother
Jones or the nation then I’m going to
read the Weekly Standard and the
National Review and so when I talk about
the effects of social media I try to
point out the importance of resisting
the tendency to just take in information
that we find confirms our own beliefs
confirms the views that we hold dear a
Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis not
only a historic figure but I think has
one of the best quotations on the
importance of free speech in America
that without it sort of the discovery of
political truth the meaning of
conversation the meaning of dialogue and
the marketplace of ideas is constrained
it
we are to embrace the full meaning of
democracy the full meaning of what it
means to be a citizen then that means
that we have to work through the
tensions that come along with
disagreement that means that we have to
engage with the emotions that are
inevitable because I don’t think there
are any of us in here who can’t find
some issue that we don’t find somewhat
more difficult to discuss part of what
part of what I’ve tried to do is
encourage people to not see those issues
as something that we should shy away
from or run from or hide from but
something that we should confront
something that we should engage with
thoughtfully to rethink our own
assumptions to test our own conclusions
and to ultimately strive for empathy
what my grandfather was trying to convey
to me on that day when I was just a
little boy was that when you see
something that unsettles you when you
see something that disturbs you the best
way to respond to that the best way to
deal with that is not to simply
characterize it in a way that’s
dismissive is not to make judgments of
another person that you wouldn’t want
made of yourself if you were in that
situation but is to try to understand
what are other people dealing with what
are the experiences that have informed
their opinions what are they trying to
accomplish and fundamentally what
matters to them and why if we do that I
believe we can come together and
cooperation from you to enlightenment
and I believe that on an individual
level we can’t create positive change
thank you
you
of my time vigorously defending the idea
of engaging with controversy on college
campuses and it hasn’t been easy often
times I’ve faced criticism I’ve had to
deal with that hominem attacks I’ve even
in several encounters had to deal with
death threats implicit threats letters
and things like that slipped under my
door and throughout the course of
dealing with those things I often tried
to ask myself beyond the sort of legal
definitions of free speech and beyond
understanding it as an abstract value
what does it mean to me personally and
you know my grandfather passed away a
few months ago and so he’s been on my
mind a lot recently and so I try to
think back to some of the lessons that I
learned from him when I was a little boy
I loved spending time with my
grandfather he was an excellent shape he
taught me how to rollerblade when I was
four and he was like 82 at the time and
which was you know amazing to me and so
he used to often go on jogs together and
he lived in Detroit and he lived in in a
nice co-op but in a neighborhood that
wasn’t so great and so when we would go
on these jogs we would jog through sort
of different parts of the community and
he would tell me to stay right beside
him and one day we were jogging and
there was a homeless man sort of sitting
on the side on the curb and you could
tell that he was distraught you could
tell that he was a little he had a lot
going on and perhaps you could even tell
that he was mentally unhinged but at the
time I was so young I didn’t know what
was going on and so my grandfather as
we’re jogging he kind of pauses and he
says Zach let’s go this way and sort of
out of nowhere the homeless man starts
acting very erratically and he starts
yelling screaming and he’s making loud
noises and he starts cursing he’s
talking to himself and I asked why was I
pop out what’s wrong with this guy
should we call the police what’s going
on
and he said then and there he said you
always want to be careful not to make
judgments about people before you know
them before you understand their
circumstances before you know what kind
of conversations they had at the dinner
table before you know what kind of
struggles they’ve had to deal with in
their life before you know what it is
that they need what it is that they lack
what it is that they want what it is
that they’re trying to accomplish and
the obstacles that they’ve had to
encounter along the way and so then and
there even though I was so young I
remember him trying to explain to me in
words that would make sense to a
four-year-old why it was important not
to judge this this man who clearly was
without a lot for acting very
erratically because I was very afraid
when I saw it and so I tried to sort of
hold on to that memory and to apply that
to different circumstances throughout my
life in my work with uncomfortable
learning I’ve invited two speakers who
have been disinvited one of them was
Suzanne banker she was an anti-feminist
social critic and her main argument was
that feminism in its current incarnation
is a war against men I radically
disagree with this radically to screw
that however I believe that it’s very
important to try to understand what
kinds of experiences inform that
perspective on what evidence or lack
thereof is it based and to try to get a
better sense of you know who among the
American electorate who among our
population agrees with these views and
why and so in doing my work with
uncomfortable learning I’ve tried to you
know frame the reasons why in ways that
I feel might be intelligible to people
in ways that might make sense beyond
just saying that free speech is a
fundamental value in a democratic
society particularly in our society you
know when we sort of watch the news we
tend to watch one of a few stations Fox
MSNBC CNN and what we’ll see is a
particular version of events based on
certain narratives and we’re familiar
with if you watch Fox
you know before 2016 you’d see a lot of
criticisms of Obama you’d see a lot of
criticisms of liberalism if you watch
MSNBC on the other hand you’re going to
see an endorsement of Obama you’re gonna
see stories and coverage and
commentators who support what he’s doing
who advocate for him who defend him and
protect them and so forth and sort of in
framing my work with uncomfortable
learning I’ve learned a lot as I’ve
progressed over the past two years I’ve
tried to point out that part of what
uncomfortable learning is really about
is essentially saying if MSNBC is the
station that you favor watch Fox if Fox
is the station that you favor watch
MSNBC and don’t try to counter every
point just try to relax that impulse for
a sec try to withhold and just try to
understand what is the other side saying
why are they saying it what is it that
matters to them beyond the technical
terms whether it’s taxation whether it’s
affirmative action whether it’s welfare
what is the principle behind it what’s
the reasoning behind it why does it
matter in explaining that I’ve had a
number of students who’ve said to me
well you know Zach that makes sense but
this particular speaker that you want to
bring I find very hurtful I find the
language that they use I find the
arguments that they make to be hateful
and I think that they are a detriment to
our society and I think that for you to
bring them to this campus is an
ideological endorsement of their views
in response I say I understand the
bringing the speaker is difficult it’s
not easy for me to bring the speaker I
don’t agree with probably 93% of what
they have to say however whether it was
Suzanne Bank or whether it was John
Derbyshire the speakers that I bring
that I’ve brought to campus their
opinions aren’t just isolated they’re
not the only ones who hold those
opinions
they’re social critics for a reason
there are millions of Americans out
there who agree with those views and for
me I believe that at the end of the day
what we have is communication what we
have is the ability to try to understand
where someone else is coming from to
step outside of our own subject position
and sometimes when I say this it
resonates with people they can connect
with it they can understand it but it’s
still too difficult and so then I say
something like I believe that every
student at Williams College should have
the opportunity if they so choose to
listen to this speaker to raise their
objections to make comments to ask tough
questions and that if it is very
difficult for you to do individually
perhaps consider not coming to the event
you know it’s not the case that I think
everyone is well suited or that it would
be beneficial for everyone to go to to
listen to every speaker that I bring to
campus I understand that people have had
traumatic experiences that for some
people listening to a speaker speak
about a very sensitive issue can for
them almost be like reliving a trauma I
think that for college students in
America for American citizens in general
there are a number of ways in which we
can deal with disagreement a number of
ways in which we can engage controversy
productively for those students who may
not be able to go to the talk they can
read the books they can listen to
podcasts like Nico’s you know there are
a number of ways in which we can try to
step outside of our own subject position
and try to understand what other people
are coming from and so that’s been a
part of my my own uncomfortable learning
process is trying to find ways in which
I can explain why the work I’m doing
matters to me oftentimes I often get
another criticism and this criticism is
that these ideas let’s take the idea for
one that it is a guy that I invited to
bring a campus Charles Murray
says that welfare does not necessarily
help what he doesn’t say doesn’t
necessarily help he says it doesn’t help
the poor it in fact injures them it
makes it their their circumstances are
ones in which they become comfortable
with relying on the government for
assistance and therefore it decreases
incentives and it runs counter to
capitalism if you take that kind of
argument and you think about it and you
abstract it it’s very easy to point out
every single thing you’d like to
disagree with I think that’s very
important I think that part of
uncomfortable learning is about thinking
through the logic of your opponents
there are times in which their arguments
and I want to win those arguments but
there’s other times in which I try to
kind of step away from that perspective
that says I’m right and you’re wrong my
side is good your side is evil and it’s
a battle and I have to win because when
we see it that way when that’s the way
in which we view what we’re doing it
oftentimes makes us more antagonist it
it makes us more combative and I don’t
think we’re as good of listeners as we
could be if we simply focused on trying
to understand where other people are
coming from this comes from a recent
study done by the Pew Research Center
and essentially what the study shows is
that we get most of the information that
we have about current events from social
media and from news websites so that’s
the Wall Street Journal that’s the New
York Times that’s Facebook that’s
Twitter in dealing with the controversy
surrounding uncomfortable learning a lot
of the criticism that I’ve received has
come from social media and so whenever
I’m talking about the work that I’m
doing I think it’s always important to
point out that one thing that’s very
different about engaging with
controversy in this day and age versus
twenty or thirty years ago is that when
you have social media platforms it makes
it very easy for one person to post a
comment that then galvanizes and
mobilizes a group of people or
around a particular event triggers
responses response after response after
response and so when you hear notions
such as college students are coddled and
they’re hypersensitive and they’re
intolerant I think there’s a degree to
which those characterizations hold water
yet however at the same time it’s more
complicated than that
you know these college students didn’t
all themselves design social media they
didn’t design the world in which they
live
we’re oftentimes you know dealing with
the situation’s the cards that we’ve
been dealt the situations that we find
ourselves at and so when we think about
the effect that social media has on
discourse I think it’s important for us
to resist the tendency to just click on
or view the articles that we like
because part of the way the algorithms
work on Facebook and even on Twitter too
is that whatever it is that you like
whatever it is that you subscribe to
whatever it is that you comment on often
you’re gonna see more of that stuff
right and so one of the premises of
uncomfortable learning is that you’re
gonna try to do something that’s going
to push your intellectual limits a
little bit if I love reading Mother
Jones or the nation then I’m going to
read the Weekly Standard and the
National Review and so when I talk about
the effects of social media I try to
point out the importance of resisting
the tendency to just take in information
that we find confirms our own beliefs
confirms the views that we hold dear a
Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis not
only a historic figure but I think has
one of the best quotations on the
importance of free speech in America
that without it sort of the discovery of
political truth the meaning of
conversation the meaning of dialogue and
the marketplace of ideas is constrained
it
we are to embrace the full meaning of
democracy the full meaning of what it
means to be a citizen then that means
that we have to work through the
tensions that come along with
disagreement that means that we have to
engage with the emotions that are
inevitable because I don’t think there
are any of us in here who can’t find
some issue that we don’t find somewhat
more difficult to discuss part of what
part of what I’ve tried to do is
encourage people to not see those issues
as something that we should shy away
from or run from or hide from but
something that we should confront
something that we should engage with
thoughtfully to rethink our own
assumptions to test our own conclusions
and to ultimately strive for empathy
what my grandfather was trying to convey
to me on that day when I was just a
little boy was that when you see
something that unsettles you when you
see something that disturbs you the best
way to respond to that the best way to
deal with that is not to simply
characterize it in a way that’s
dismissive is not to make judgments of
another person that you wouldn’t want
made of yourself if you were in that
situation but is to try to understand
what are other people dealing with what
are the experiences that have informed
their opinions what are they trying to
accomplish and fundamentally what
matters to them and why if we do that I
believe we can come together and
cooperation from you to enlightenment
and I believe that on an individual
level we can’t create positive change
thank you
you
Please follow and like us: