WHAT IS ‘COMMON GROUND’ WHEN THE GROUND HAS SHIFTED?
Recently, the College announced a news speaker’s series underpinned by the concept of “Common Ground” featuring in this instance, a Republican (Karl Rove) and Democratic (David Axelrod) strategist. The Hamilton News site and later the Spectator prominently advertised the initiative. President David Wippman stated that the “goal for Common Ground is for the speakers, one a Democrat, the other a Republican, to model the kind of respectful dialogue across political boundaries that should occur not just on college campuses, but in the broader society as well,...With capable speakers on both sides of a given issue, each willing to acknowledge strengths in the position of the other, we aim to encourage students and other audience members to question their own assumptions and …show more content…
I have serious disagreement with the general thrust and trajectory of the principle of “common ground” or “both sides” in the current US context.
Common ground in the contemporary US political scene is manifestly false equivalency. Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie sums it up very well in referring to an incident in the 2016 campaign: “a day after the election, I heard a journalist on the radio speak of the vitriol between Obama and Trump. No, the vitriol was Trump’s. Now is the time to burn false equivalencies forever. Pretending that both sides of an issue are equal when they are not is not “balanced” journalism, it is a fairy tale – and, unlike most fairy tales, a disingenuous one.”
We had another potent example of false equivalency in Charlottesville when President Trump blamed “many sides” for the violence on the streets.
We have witnessed a sitting US President, a pathological liar, misogynist and racist both as candidate and President violate very single facet of respect and decency and
Recently, the College announced a news speaker’s series underpinned by the concept of “Common Ground” featuring in this instance, a Republican (Karl Rove) and Democratic (David Axelrod) strategist. The Hamilton News site and later the Spectator prominently advertised the initiative. President David Wippman stated that the “goal for Common Ground is for the speakers, one a Democrat, the other a Republican, to model the kind of respectful dialogue across political boundaries that should occur not just on college campuses, but in the broader society as well,...With capable speakers on both sides of a given issue, each willing to acknowledge strengths in the position of the other, we aim to encourage students and other audience members to question their own assumptions and …show more content…
I have serious disagreement with the general thrust and trajectory of the principle of “common ground” or “both sides” in the current US context.
Common ground in the contemporary US political scene is manifestly false equivalency. Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie sums it up very well in referring to an incident in the 2016 campaign: “a day after the election, I heard a journalist on the radio speak of the vitriol between Obama and Trump. No, the vitriol was Trump’s. Now is the time to burn false equivalencies forever. Pretending that both sides of an issue are equal when they are not is not “balanced” journalism, it is a fairy tale – and, unlike most fairy tales, a disingenuous one.”
We had another potent example of false equivalency in Charlottesville when President Trump blamed “many sides” for the violence on the streets.
We have witnessed a sitting US President, a pathological liar, misogynist and racist both as candidate and President violate very single facet of respect and decency and