RIGHT SIDE

Disruptive speech and polarization

Julian Rocky Capone

How can we continue to have free speech if political violence and disruptive protest are in any way permissible? As far back as the BLM protests and riots of 2020, political violence and disruptive protests in America have become commonplace. Speakers on college campuses are often disrupted by yells from the crowd, or protests are held outside lecture halls to prevent others from entering. 

The hyper-politicization of our modern world is to blame. The reasons why we share or engage with something that we have seen online are that it makes us laugh or it makes us angry. Over the last ten years, social media algorithms have created feedback loops focused on sharing, which has homogenized public thought into right and left. Both sides view the other as evil, rationalizing extreme measures like disruptive protest.

College campuses have become a sort of battleground. Public speakers have been caught in the crossfire as students seek to prevent the ideas they view as dangerous from spreading. A College’s job is to be a bastion of education and learning, which cannot happen without free speech. Allowing or justifying disruptions in academic settings endangers education. How can one learn if they do not encounter ideas that are contrary to the ones they hold? 

For this reason, I urge students, think before they call for violence or go to disrupt a speaker. See them on their terms, and try to debate them. Maybe you could both learn something and break the cycle of polarization