Global Courant 2023-04-28 16:00:00
Florida saw a wave of student protests over a change in curriculum – Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg
The year 1968 is considered by many to be the worst in modern American history: assassinations of political leaders, race riots in our urban areas, student protests and crackdowns on college campuses, an intractable and increasingly prohibitive war thousands of miles away.
But what is happening right now, particularly in schools and universities on both sides of the Atlantic, is equally disturbing — and may pose an even greater threat to our well-being in years to come.
According to a 45,000-participant College Plus survey of respect, tolerance and open-mindedness on US campuses — the largest ever conducted — an astonishing 62 percent of college students said it’s “acceptable at least sometimes” to put a speaker down. yelling, and one in five students said using force to stop a speech on campus is “sometimes acceptable.”
Real?
One-fifth of all American college students now think it’s okay to use force to keep someone they disagree with from speaking?
Academia is the one place in the world where intellectual freedom should be welcomed and celebrated, but it isn’t.
Generation Z may claim to be the most tolerant, enlightened generation ever, but that’s not the reality. So many students are so angry about so many things.
It pains me to write these words, but I do believe that American democracy is in danger.
The radiant city on the hill, which has illuminated so many dreams and aspirations in the western world, begins to flicker. And what happens in America, politically and socially, inevitably finds its way across the Atlantic to Britain.
If you want to know what the next 50 years will bring, look no further than what students and their teachers are saying and learning today. If you thought today’s politics were broken, you haven’t seen anything yet. That is why I fear for our democracy.
I have been a visiting professor or lecturer at more than a dozen colleges around the world for the past two years and have taught off and on for three decades. My travels have taken me to universities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel, from Italy to Ireland, from China to Africa, and to numerous higher education institutions in my own country and the UK.
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The experience has opened my eyes to the progress being made globally to teach critical thinking and problem solving, tolerance and understanding in places beyond the West… and how dangerously intolerant and awake our schools have become much closer to home.
The loudest voices are those who sling ad hominems – playing man rather than ball, as they say in British football – trolling or slandering people they disagree with, making it seem like there is no common cause, no common ground, nothing in common except an endless quest to destroy professional careers and personal lives. Its sole purpose is to force one’s opponents to involuntarily atone for their sins.
This is the stark reality of cancellation culture, and it will only get worse as the embittered and angry younger generations rise to power and prominence.
If you believe your opponents are stupid or evil, you don’t believe in democracy
The politics of hate and resentment divides us. There are two separate Americas on college campuses with two different experiences – and it’s happening in the UK now too.
This conclusion is not only based on the news that I consume every day. It’s not just because of Brexit or the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. It’s based on what I’ve learned from listening to voters across the political, geographic, and financial spectrum in polls and focus groups as they tear and shred each other each other’s perspectives.
The prognosis for 2024 and beyond is even worse.
Too many candidates and political operatives have come to the conclusion – often for good short-term practical reasons – that the only way to unite the grassroots voters in any party is to feed them a constant diet of vitriol, by ruthlessly reminding them of what they hate on the other side. They can’t agree on their own priorities or solutions, and they think their fellow party members are mediocre, but they know the other side is worse.
The goal – political power – justifies these unpleasant means, for far too many. It’s no surprise that more than a third of the American electorate now votes against the candidates they don’t like, rather than supporting candidates they want to win. These aggressive, brazen attempts at dehumanization, delegitimization and destruction of the ‘other’ group – this phenomenon is what is breaking down our democracy.
After all, the whole idea of democracy is that one person is just as good as another: that’s why almost anyone gets to vote. But the theme of modern politics is that the people on the other side are idiots at best and evil at worst. If you really believe that, you don’t believe in democracy, because you clearly don’t accept that your opponents are worthy of voting.
This has happened to far too many people on both sides of the Atlantic. And yet a clear majority of voters in the US and UK do not want their elected officials to be partisan. They want to be ruled by people who put the needs of the nation above traditional politics. It is, in fact, what this newspaper demanded of Parliament in 2016 after the historic Brexit vote.
As for the UK, many of my students no longer see the value of voting there: that’s a strong sign that they don’t believe in democracy either. Those who do vote unthinkingly dismiss the Conservatives as representatives and embodiments of privilege rather than compassion. It should come as no surprise that the average age of a Conservative voter is higher than the average life expectancy once was.
But what is the compassion that the youth respect? Too many people in the US and UK measure compassion by words and visibility rather than action and results. For the awakened student, the more outrage you express, the better off you are. Justified indignation is the currency of our times. People love to make a statement rather than make a difference.
But there is hope and optimism and respect for the other person’s point of view in the world – just not in the US or the UK.
Last year I hosted a Masterclass at African Leadership University in Kigali, Rwanda, home to over 1,400 students from over 40 African countries. Almost every student had a story of real hardship: poverty, hunger, chronic illness and worse. Every day it is a struggle for them to pay for their education. Every night is a challenge to find food and a place to sleep.
You might think that these students would hate the wealth of the US, or the UK, the other European countries that colonized them, or white people in general. Yet there is no resentment. No jealousy. Every person has merit. Every point of view has legitimacy.
At that university, there is only respect for others and a passionate, sincere desire on the part of the students to achieve their dreams.
Do you find that tolerance and mutual respect for dissent and unpopular opinion in Oxford or Cambridge? Is that a good description of everyday life inside and outside the classrooms at Harvard, Yale, or Princeton? Is it acceptable to be a Trump supporter at most US liberal arts colleges even though he received nearly half of the popular vote in the US?
It was fascinating to me to see the dramatic differences between students of the same age, the most striking differences in the degree of entitlement and gratitude – or lack thereof. In countries where a lot is given, they think that so much more is owed.
The future is ours to write
If the past is a prologue, as Shakespeare once wrote, the future is ours to write, depending on the choices we make.
If we open selection and election processes to allow those in the middle of the political spectrum to participate in nominating candidates from the political parties, we will have leaders who better reflect the constituencies they represent, rather than ideological extremism.
If we better account for all the money that is now flooding the electoral process, we can shift the focus of politics to solving problems rather than fundraising.
Most importantly, if we insist that diversity of ideas is just as important as ethnic, racial or gender diversity, our universities will again be the place for lively discussion and real learning, so necessary for a better future.
America has failed to deliver on its promise in the last decade because of the choices we make. Let’s hope we can choose wisely now. And let’s hope the UK emerges from its current funk to assert its own prominent role in achieving a brighter future.
If my African students are allowed to hope after all they have sacrificed and suffered, shouldn’t we in the West be able to do the same?
Frank Luntz is an American communications analyst, pollster and academic
