Three Problems

The days since the September 10 murder of Charlie Kirk, an influencer and activist on the right, at a Utah college campus have brought an avalanche of reactions. Observers on both sides have tried to use the event to score political points, which is simply ghoulish. Political violence is an American reality, but it can never be an American principle — it is indefensible. Period, full-stop.

Among the reactions, a few have been standard, but there are three points that deserve special consideration as we try to find a path forward after the death of the 31-year-old father of two, who founded the organization Turning Point USA, a name that is deeply ironic at the moment.

First, if violence is becoming a trait of American politics, it is because political rhetoric has become more hostile and dehumanizing. To get attention these days on certain platforms, men and women who comment on American politics and society, on both sides, need to stand out from a very large crowd, and too often they choose to do that by using more belligerent, hostile language, characterizing political adversaries as existential threats who must be vanquished rather than fellow Americans who can be persuaded. Whether or not it’s theater, it creates a “hold my beer” atmosphere that sets the stage for escalating confrontations.

There’s no reason to think there will be a voluntary detente — there is simply too much money to be made, too many clicks to harvest, by being the most extreme. It’s up to the audience on both sides to demand something better.

Second, the suspect in this shooting resembles other recent perpetrators of high-profile violence: He was a smart young man who was “too online,” constantly marinating in the swill of dark corners of the internet and social media. His fixation with video games plays an essential role, and it’s ironic that the games themselves, while violent, probably are less responsible for his actions than the social network that grows around these games, echoing the other platforms, allowing players to share sentiments they might not be comfortable sharing with others face to face.

This is an American reality that we have been slow to acknowledge: Our phones and headsets and Xboxes aren’t just occupying our attention, they are creating isolating universes that can twist reality. At some point, society has to make it more attractive to log off, put down the controller and actually have human interaction — voluntarily. It’s a tall order in a world that’s becoming less friendly and tolerant, becoming a place to escape from.

Third, it’s been pointed out, correctly, that Kirk talked for a living: He was a willing debater who was on a college campus, standing under a canopy labeled with his challenge, “Prove Me Wrong,” and inviting those who disagreed with him to take the mic at the moment a gunman ended his life. And it’s true that healthy debate is an American principle, even as political violence is now an American reality. We need more of the former and none of the latter.

But there’s a nuanced point to make, too: We do need healthy debate — but that’s not necessarily what’s served up most often in today’s partisan climate. Instead, it’s bloodsport, figuratively but far too often literally. There is a winner and a loser. Social media shared clip after clip, after Kirk’s death, showing him besting an opponent, or an opponent besting him, as if the score mattered at that moment.

What American society really needs right now isn’t so much debate as conversation. In debate, you come girded for battle, with a torrent of facts and using derisive observations as weapons, the goal being to obliterate your opponent. Nobody ever wins a debate by agreeing to common ground, unless it’s a diversionary tactic, or it offers a better foothold for the next verbal assault.

Discussion, conversation — these are very, very different skills. In a conversation, you have to listen as much as talk. You bring a point of view to the table, but you are willing to examine it, compare and contrast it with someone else’s position. There is compassion. You defend what you believe in, but you and your conversation partner are meant to work together to find some truth that might be eluding both of you, or to chip away at biases that might be clouding judgment on either side, or both.

This — not debate — is what’s missing most in our society. Because while there are endless supplies of talking heads to offer debate, it’s dwarfed by the more commonplace interactions we have every day, both face to face and on social media. These are real opportunities for friends, family and neighbors to show that while politics divides us, it shouldn’t destroy us. But too often we debate instead of simply … talking.

And perhaps it gets back to another American ideal: Compromise is the best way forward, rather than constantly “winning” by simply amassing allies and voting down those we disagree with. Or shouting them down. Or shooting them down in cold blood.