THE DEMISE OF NUANCED DISCUSSION

Let’s say that I am in favor of police reform: transparency on disciplinary situations over a certain threshold, increased training, and more diversity. But I am against defunding the police department. To many, my fractional disagreement with the list of demands put forth by those wanting change makes me not a nuanced supporter, but an enemy and I am so labeled.

Let’s assume I am a professor with an exemplary record of interaction with my students and I am teaching American literature. It is a vibrant class and my reviews are excellent, which means lots of agreement with my style. One day, employing nothing but quotations, I initiate a discussion of how the word “n…..r” is used in widely read books, both older and contemporary, and in certain popular music. Instantly I am labeled a racist.

I fully endorse, more importantly, I have directly underwritten a sharp increase in the inclusion of African-American authors in school curricula, regardless of the ethnic composition of the class. For sure, many would label Ta-Nehisi Coates book, Between the World and Me, an anti-white diatribe, even as it won plaudits and monetary prizes. Nonetheless, it is must reading. If unfairness in one direction does not bring unfairness in another direction, you must be a Mandela or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At the same time, to drop Shakespeare from the required reading list is incomprehensible. Am I now anti-black because I want the inclusion of a great author regardless of skin color?

Presume — correctly — that I am in favor of Universal Basic Income (UBI) and strongly advocate its adoption as a means of somewhat addressing income inequality. I am in favor of taxing previously untaxed wealth at a person’s demise. I would like to see higher income tax rates above the $100,000 level. At the same time, I see no purpose, moral or otherwise, in simply attacking a person for having accumulated wealth. For that fractional sin, regardless of my other opinions, I am labeled a capitalist pig.

For many years, I have directly supported undocumented young people seeking higher education and all that goes with the American Dream. I have believed it foolish to spend money on more and bigger walls, as physical barriers are not relevant to the root causes of border crossers. I have discussed and supported the unrolling impact of demographic change (with special attention to the Hispanic population) and what that means to changes in the structure of power. If I simultaneously refuse to endorse a ‘no borders at all’ policy and on occasion have to remind advocates that an illegal act is still illegal, regardless of its motivation or those root causes, then I am out of step. My fractional opinion brings banishment from the roster of contributors to intelligent discussion.

No funder of higher education aspirations has been more critical than I of the obscene cost of college. Nobody has been more aware of the impact on students from the decline in state aid and the lack of inflation-indexed federal grant money.  The resultant student loan situation is a disaster of epic proportions. And these descriptors are before COVID-19.  If simultaneously I believe that glib statements such as “let’s cancel all student debt; let’s make all college free,” are distractions from rational dialogue, can that possibly mean I am ‘anti-student?’

I have had gay friends for literally decades. I believe a LGBTQ person should have equal access to all matters pertinent to being a resident of this country. And there should be no government imposed or endorsed discrimination when it comes to hiring practices at publicly-funded institutions. However, when a person starts a business with his own money, he should be able to determine his own policies with respect to accepting customers. For this, I am to be perceived as anti-gay rights?

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In each case, my fractional viewpoint – at least in the context described – means I am labeled as if I was fully against the suggestions put forth, even though I am in favor of the vast percentage of them — a total distortion which virtually turns dialogue upside-down.

When that fractional characteristic becomes the 100% identification, there is no chance for people to meet and arrive at mutually acceptable policy initiatives. Our two-party political system will splinter into as many groups as there are single issue viewpoints. Elections will become increasingly chaotic and losers will not be graceful (which is happening already with a two-party line-up).

P.S.

During the lockdown, many people, young and not-so-young, found that they have had more time to do things, but less motivation to do them.

One response to this dilemma is to get interested in something new and perhaps unexpected. Person A takes up knitting; Person B does crossword puzzles; Person C reads books that have not been assigned by a professor; Person D gets hooked on video games; Person E begins communicating with long-lost relatives he previously could have cared less about; and on and on it goes.

For myself, a non-television viewer excepting “Law & Order” and sports, that extra time has found me watching the original “Perry Mason,” available only in black-and-white. (Details available on request).

In turning on the television a few minutes before Mason comes onto the screen, I have noticed a show which will go nameless because it obviously would not fit in today’s world. It has an intact family—mother and father and two kids, they eat together, they are curious, they read, they express love, they dress as if they cared how they looked. And the producers slip in a life lesson with every episode.

If a student on a college campus were to praise such a combination of – dare I say – positives, he or she would be showered with boos (probably sprinkled with obscenities) and ostracized as having endorsed middle-class values, a no-no in today’s polarized society. Not even an opportunity to see whether this is another instance of fractionalization.