Opinion: All parties should actively engage with dissenters

Events on campuses across the country this week have yielded a monumental reaction. Some pundits have denounced the actions of activists at the University of Missouri and Yale University as “idiotic and unfortunate,” while other writers defend activists’ mistrust of the media as a fair reaction to a history of unbalanced and racist coverage of race issues.

But whatever side you take, on this and any issue, seek opinions from a wider range of sources to better understand the opinions you don’t hold.

All too often, students at this university and members of this community fall into reckless habits of reading information from sources they agree with on every topic. The peril of doing so, as former Daily Tar Heel editorial board member and New York Times columnist Frank Bruni mentioned on campus last week, is political polarization.

We should lavish our attention and time on sources of information, and this is easy to do.

If you’re a political liberal, read the College Republican’s Facebook page and read some posts on the Carolina Review’s website. Though at this point the latter has devolved into a stream of satire (R.I.P., The Minor), it’s a step toward engaging with the diversity of opinion that doesn’t seem to mix on campus.

A litmus test of what our inability to disagree comfortably has done is evidenced by this campus’ conservative ghostwriters. The author of the Carolina Review’s “Restoring the Dream: How to Return the Grand Old Party to the Party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan” shouldn’t have to feel compelled to write with an anonymous byline.

Choosing to engage in these opposing opinions will be helpful in impassioning your arguments.

Sexual assault activists could read the Weekly Standard’s attempt to debunk the Association of American Universities survey on sexual assault. They will better understand the opinions that oppose theirs and can then better address them with direct challenges.

This is about changing your lifestyle to access ideas you don’t believe in to remind yourself that those whom you disagree with are rational human beings with different experiences from yours.

One truly frustrating result of the ideological rift is the position of strategic indifference it forces some to take. In true indecisive fashion, UNC’s administration will hold a town hall meeting next week to address race issues on campus. Rather than directly address the demands of groups such as the Real Silent Sam Coalition, the administration prefers to update us on the clandestine Task Force on UNC History.

What cannot be equated, however, is pure propaganda and dissenting opinions. A discerning thinker ought to understand that whatever TransCanada tweets about the canceled permits for its Keystone XL pipeline is merely public relations spin, not a true attempt to engage in a conversation about jobs, climate change or the possibility of an oil spill. We should hear those who disagree with us but not those who choose to obscure the truth for their own explicit benefit.

It is troubling to consider what we have to lose should we not close the gap between vitriolic dismissal of others and an appreciation for the challenge and enrichment of substantive debate.