Making room for reasoned argument

Too often when controversial issues come up, or even not so controversial issues, I hear my peers resorting to arguments of, "Well I just believe what I believe, and I think everyone else should do the same. If I don't force my beliefs on other people, they shouldn't do it to me." I've heard that argument applied to complaints about antiabortion activists, people trying to raise money for AIDS medication in developing countries, and ornery professors who expect a certain amount of propriety in their students like remaining hatless inside classrooms and quiet during lecture. Our generation seems to believe only in the pathetic cry of, "Why do you care anyway," as a blanket justification for ignorance, disagreement without reason, and plain old apathy.

Bowing out with such a line is the most bogus stance anyone can take. It's a phenomenon I think all too common not just at Princeton but throughout, "educated" society. Though Robert Frost once said that education is the ability to listen to anything, education is arrived at only through mutual discourse — not one-sided apathy. We forget that we are in the process of being educated. Above all other times of life, now is when we should value honesty over politeness, and certainly above indifference. Moreover, could there be anything more inconsiderate and, what's more, intellectually irrelevant, than responding to another's opinion by pronouncing his opinion worthless (that is, not even worth discussing or hearing out)? What's the point of learning anything if that's the case?

Behind such an argument is the pathetic charge that the truth of the topic doesn't matter at all, that exchanging thoughts is a pointless exercise — an untenable position on any issue as far as a student at Princeton University, paying about as much as average per capita income in the United States, should be concerned. Yet, absurdly, the people who invoke this position are also the ones most likely to complain that their opinions are not respective. These passive-aggressive-would-not-be-debaters are much more offensive than those they would silence because they do not grant any importance or credibility to what others care about. How can this be considered anything but a lack of respect for intellectual peers?

It is one thing to decline speaking on a topic if you don't have enough information for a well-formed opinion, but even then you should not refuse to hear a fellow student out. Weigh his arguments carefully, especially if you don't have any independent information, but don't refuse to listen altogether. Such a plan is much more sensible than asserting that you don't care (and what's more, shouldn't have to) about something important enough for him to want to explain.

In short, stop pulling the B.S. line of, "Don't force your beliefs on me." That extends to pretending that certain articles shouldn't be written, certain posters shouldn't be tolerated, or certain people should be silenced. Everyone has an opinion on something, and what's more, at least in a place supposedly dedicated to intellectual pursuits, everyone has a duty to listen fairly to everyone else.

Aileen Nielsen is a sophomore from Brooklyn, N.Y.