College students seem to love any argument made passionately--and likewise to scorn any argument constructed of objective reasons. Of course this doesnt bode at all well for our ailing republic.
I realize that readers of this site enjoy an array of readings much more specific and topical than mine this week; and those few who choose to stick with me below will probably even have to return to Part One of this meander posted last Sunday to refresh their memories. Frankly though I find that I cannot withstand many more stories about presidential lying congressional betraying and media pandering--not right now. Im overloaded. As my son joins the ranks of eighteen-year-olds on this blessed day therefore I prefer a more wide-angle shot of our troubled culture. Anyone who savors this sort of thing as I do may wish to peek next month at the forthcoming edition of Praesidium at www.literatefreedom.org (sure to be up and ready by March 31) where I intend to publish both parts of my essay.
CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK...
Inasmuch as the essay above addresses the possibility (or I should say the improbability) of fortifying ordinary American citizens against the rhetoric of manipulative change agents" an experiment with our youngest voters suggested itself to me just after I finished the piece. I assigned the essay (being very careful to dissociate myself from it) to a class of college freshman in January of this year at the very beginning of the Spring semester. Students read (or were supposed to have read) the essay as homework before their third class meeting whereupon they were asked to write a brief response to it. I might observe immediately by way of warning that all responses were handwritten. The absence of an automated word-processing program trailing the students fingers and mopping up his or her sloppy orthography is painfully evident. Is this an incidental comment I wonderor does it not rather drive right to the heart of the matter: the inability of many young people even among the educated to see any kind of thoughtful endeavor through without the aid of time-and-labor saving devices?
For besides almost universal complaining about the vocabularys difficulty the most common criticism of the piece appeared to be that it didnt quickly fit itself into some well-worn templateor that it seemed to do so at first but then deceptively" doubled back on itself. These young readers for the most part did not much appreciate the descent into one genre by way of exemplification and then the clinical autopsy of that genre. The 180-degree turn disoriented them and the disorientation irritated them. They wanted the game finished according to the same rules that presided over its start. The level of abstraction that was instead demanded of them by the rhetorical masquerade struck them as cynicalor in the word of one sarcastic".
On the other hand how many students (I found myself asking from time to time) in fact understood that the courtroom defense was a mere figure and not the authors expression of his own views? The following assessment of one good-natured young man certainly doesnt seem to see a distinction:
The authors criticisms are exagerated sic a little but he agrees with them. I think he is over doing sic his point to infasize sic it better. He had the point where school is a prison but I think he meant at a certain age students should be allowed to decide if they will attend or if they will join the work force."
The school is prison" equation of course belonged to the courtroom not the autopsists lab and thus cannot be ranged among the authors criticisms" except by mistake. The student cited below obviously made the same error (or else simply never read the second half of the essay: that possibility must not be discounted).
The author had the ability to turn every accusation around into something positive. In a way his statements were true but at the same time highly exaggerated. I think he is exaggerating to show the so-called jury that his client should not be convicted but applauded for correcting society."
The next comment I offer is not so gullible. This young woman gets it"… but not fully. Indeed she names as her favorite part" the advancing of a strategy that the author not only didnt promote but roundly condemned:
At first I actually thought that the first part was real. I had no idea he was pretending to give that speech. Then all of a sudden he starts analysing sic it and breaking it apart. I think he did a good job of representing the other side. My favorite part of this piece was when he shows how to respond to accusations from his opponent. He says that if they accuse you of doing something blame them for doing something with out sic giving detail that way you dont sic have to prove it because its sic vague."
As you can imagine this sort of response depressed me more deeply in a way than the one that detects no seam in the value systems identified by the essay; for this girl having located the seam proceeded to admire the fabric on the wrong side!
Then we have the kinds of misreading that show more initiativethat distort the essay into the sort of adversary apparently at which the student-writer most likes to tilt. This sample accuses my argument of gross misanthropy:
In my opinion the author stretches the truth to prove his point. He make sic it seem that all people were bad people. When in truth they are not. Their writting sic mainly talks about how everyone has poor morals and only care about themselves sic. He not once gave an example in which a person performs a good deed to help others."
I assume that the rebuke here is at least leveled at the essays second half rather than at the courtroom burlesque: for the defense summation" oozes with pie-in-the-sky optimism. It is the second half alone which warns of the natural limits imposed upon human nature. Still what could the specific passage have been that drew such indignant fire? Was it my claim that hard work wont always get you to the top (a concession to the imaginary progressive advocate by the way)? Was it my mention of all the rules and regulations that throttle small businesses? Or should I simply never have claimed that the American electorate is a jury that will always vote itself to ruin these days if manipulated with the right rhetoric? What relevance does a persons doing a good deed have to that sad fact of our political life? Are we bound to believe that our system will promote goodness just because good individuals exist among us?
This manner of indignation became a recurrent theme. The following respondent for instance virtually accuses the paper of enslaving him as a dictator would a helpless populace and leading him to places where he would rather not go:
The writer… establishes a dictatorship with the people leading the reader throughout the paper to think see and feel the same way he does. The extra energy displayed by the intensity of the writer could easily be seen as over the top and unorthodox. It shows how much passion he has for the subject but leads the reader to believe that he is fanatical. The mock trial is a clever way of introducing everything in detail to the reader in order for him or her to come to a conclusion but the writers exagerration sic of the magnitude of injustice imposed by those he is actually accusing is not supporting the argument like it should."
It may be that we have here another response focused exclusively on the courtroom tirade: I really dont know. If so then the student has again failed utterly to notice that the essays true intent is to reject the fanaticism" of the defenses summation. Yet this particular student must have detected that the essay breaks into two distinct pieces for he refers to the mock trial".
I think the next sample however (the last I shall adduce) has the piece as a whole in its angry crosshairs:
Throughout the whole passage I had a feeling that the author did not feel strongly about the topic. There was a sarcastic tone throughout the entire piece. It felt as if he was literally writing just to write. I can honestly say that I was annoyed with the author. It was as if he was just some guy off the street; not a credible source. Albeit some of the things he said were true. He mentioned that the wealthy steal from the poor and that happens all the time. The way he went about explaining it however was not very feasible sic. He was so sarcastic that it almost made me believe he was part of the wealthy that steals sic from the poor."
This young woman was practically unique in not ascribing the authors passion" to a wholesome motive I might remark. Many responses not cited here were partially won over by the energy of the essaythough I must presume that the courtroom defense generated most or all of this energy in the students minds. Hence once again they would be evaluating the author on the basis of an example that he creates merely to castigate. The proximity of passion" to a point of view appears to earn it special points among the young even when its logical connection to that view is antithetical. Passion trumps reason these days as rocks break scissors.
The response I have just quoted for that matter is probably denouncing my essays failure to sustain its passionmy betrayal" as one might say of the courtrooms fervor in casting the summation upon the dissection table. This student is very clear about directing her scorn at the entire piece". Im guessing that the element of sarcasm noted repeatedly then is the essays very withdrawal from the courtroom tirade to a more analytical level. I believe this young woman finds my piece repugnantly aloof precisely because it does not immerse itself in the opening scenes passion but rather warns against and even derides the exploitative strategies of that passionate outburst. I am writing just to write" like a guy off the street" (and where we may find such streets in twenty-first century America I have no idea). I am apparently coming across to her tender young mind as a bloodless condescending kingletthe dictator" of another student or the wealthy thief she mentions who shares the plunder taken by those he condemnsbecause I shift rhetorical gears: because I seize upon that fire-breathing lawyer and expose his passion as tawdry calculation. Do I not believe than that anybody ever does a good deed (in yet another students formulation)? Do I not realize that passion is the true and ultimate measure of moral value? Do I not understand that my icy analysis chills to the bone and ends my own trial before it has begun?
All I can add then by way of postscript to my essay in the light of about forty college-freshman reactions is this: Q.E.D. Were in big trouble as a nation for at least another generation. The sooner a salutary degree of hardship reintroduces our children to common sense and immunizes them to theatrical displays that amuse rather than analyze the better.