"Caught in that sensual music all neglect / Monuments of unageing intellect." Thus did William Butler Yeats indict the Byzantine young. However, I prefer to think of Yeats’ comment as a warning for Wabash. In the last several weeks, the members of the community have had their aural fill of talk of conversation. New forums are springing up, among both faculty and students, to facilitate discussion, face-to-face. It is, at the very least, a start.
I suppose, by now, dear reader, you’ve gathered that I am not altogether positive about this revolution. My reservations about the new order come from my firm belief that the problems of Wabash aren’t ones of communication, but ones of thought. For, if they are matters of communication, they are mere misunderstandings. That is, to my mind, far too charitable in many cases.
Too often, slogans are shouted merely to make the rhetorical point. Vain dramas played out, if for no other reason than to shock the audience. The warden from Cool Hand Luke could intone, by way of rationalization, in that delicious southern drawl, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." But he’d be wrong.
Luke wasn’t failing to communicate his point, and neither was the warden. I am inclined to say that the same situation applies here.
In this melee, no one group is blameless. It is a profound and profoundly human failure to fall victim to rhetoric at the expense of content. That does not, however, excuse it or offer a general absolution. Rather, the potential – no, the likelihood – of it should keep all participants in the conversation on guard.
No. Often as not, the things that give offense were intended to offend. It is at this point where we reach the limits of conversation and tread, not so lightly, where angels fear: the land of the demagogue. This is my issue with the new way of Wabash.
Perhaps that’s not entirely fair. Rather, I am afraid that new emphasis on conversation will provide, especially to those with ulterior, but obvious-enough often as not, motives, an excuse to spout irrational, offensive screed. That would be a betrayal of the ideals of Wabash and the noble calling of rational discourse.
If we are to have a conversation, then we must first think long and hard about what we wish to say. The goal should not be to stick it to the other side. That sort of silly partisanship is destructive. When sloganeering becomes the order of the day, ideas suffer. Sometimes, the wounds are terminal. Real conversation, i.e., conversation worthy of the name, revolves around reason and reasoned discourse. There is no place for point-scoring or flamboyant drama. Those things ensure that the conversational gangrene progresses to outright sepsis. And anyone with a reasonable understanding of how the body works knows how that will end.
Not well.
Sound and reasonable ideas, especially at a college, are far too precious to kill.
If we intend on running headlong into conversation, then we should prepare ourselves for it. This new order requires firing certain things in the crucible of intent. Of our own volition, we must give up rhetoric, silly posturing, and vain show. These things are all intended to give offense, and they are therefore antithetical to conversation.
Perhaps you think that I am arguing that everyone should think good and non-controversial thoughts. I am, but not in the way you think I am. Think about it again and it might become clearer. I hope it does, when all is said and done.
That isn’t my point. I know that there will be controversy, just as I know that the sun will rise tomorrow. My point is this: think before you speak, and you’ll see an exponential decline in nastiness. That is the unpleasant offal from a conversation that is more of a shouting match or absurd, stylized debate-team Kabuki; that is to say, it is the waste produced from a conversation that isn’t really much of one at all.
When we accept such talk as real conversation, we make the error of Siegfried. In Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, the hero makes the grave mistake of casting his lot (albeit under the influence) with the Gibichungs, who "befriend" him. Unbeknownst to him, Hagen is the son of Alberich, Nibelung dwarf, and ultimate villain of the whole Der Ring des Nibelungen. Needless to say, it ends badly for Siegfried – he gets stabbed in the back. If we allow bad conversation to beguile us, I warrant that we’ll find ourselves with a similarly new orifice in our collective back.
To heed the call of President White and Dean Phillips, we must ensure that we are trading in real ideas and working in the framework of real conversation. To do anything else is a disservice to Wabash and to ourselves.
Back to Yeats, who is alarmingly underappreciated in modern American society (thanks, W, "no child" indeed). Let us not ignore the single greatest monument of Western culture, one forged by Plato and refined by countless minds since, the reasoned discourse. Let us not get caught up in the "sensual music" of conversation, lest we slip into dissonance and atonality.
Let’s follow the wonderful lead given to us by President White and Dean Phillips. To my way of thought, the first step on that path is thinking before we speak. It’s not hard.