As it enters its 250th year of existence, the United States of America is not feeling particularly united. Fewer and fewer people, it seems, are willing to engage with people on the other side of the political aisle, and those engagements that do happen tend to be tense at best and vitriolic at worst. It may come as a surprise, then, that Robert George — a professor at Princeton University, and one of the most prominent right-wing public intellectuals in the United States — and Cornel West — also a professor at Princeton, and one of the nation’s most prominent left-wing intellectuals — have not only found ways to disagree with each other respectfully, but also to remain close friends for twenty years.
On Thursday, George and West came to UVA to have a conversation on the current state of American polarization, and what they’ve done to avoid it, all the while drawing from their recently-published book: “Truth Matters: A Dialogue on Fruitful Disagreement in an Age of Division.” The conversation was moderated by Christa Acampora, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, with additional opening remarks by newly-selected University President Scott Beardsley.
The first topic that George and West addressed was the concept of “Socratic humility.” In George’s view, Socratic humility refers to the practice of understanding that one can be wrong in their convictions, whether these are minor opinions or views that are central to one’s way of looking at the world. To illustrate his point of Socratic humility being a necessary principle to apply to one’s life, he asked the audience to raise their hands if everything they knew and thought was true. No one in the audience, of course, did so. He placed the need for Socratic humility in the context of the modern university system: in his view, some professors, so convinced of the truthfulness of their ideals, can sometimes end up indoctrinating their own students. He cautioned, on a related note, against the excessive use of emotions when forming one’s views, inevitable as that may often be.
In keeping with the theme of disagreeing respectfully, West criticized the “Socratic” aspect of “Socratic humility.” In his view, while people like Socrates have certainly advocated for intellectual humility, their advocacy is still tinged with a degree of self-certainty in other ways. Opposed to Socratic humility, he instead advocated for a more Abrahamically-based view of humility, which extends it beyond intellectual pursuits and into every aspect of one’s life and interactions with other people. George agreed, also emphasizing the value of the Abrahamic tradition in promoting humility, but defended figures such as Socrates as valuable to this concept as well.
The second topic addressed by the two speakers was the place of dialogue in modern society. George emphasized the role of adequate role models in ensuring dialogue is taking place among people who disagree with each other: if, for example, our parents, teachers, and mentors aren’t able to respectfully disagree with each other, the next generation will have even more difficulty doing so. West, however, believed that treating dialogue as the first step was not necessarily the only way to go about things. Indeed, in his view, words were not always necessary for resolving disagreements and expressing strong feelings, using the Black musical tradition as an example. Beyond that criticism, however, West also strongly emphasized the value of knowing someone personally before engaging in any form of intensely intellectual dialogue with them: the first comment someone makes to another ought to be something like, “How are you?” or “Where are you from?” rather than a more controversial question.
The final topic raised by Acampora related to West’s criticism of universities as “corporatized” institutions that don’t do a good job of educating their students on a deeper level. West elaborated on the concept, explaining that universities need to teach students to “learn how to die,” i.e., that they need to teach students lessons that are profound and transcend worldly matters such as wealth and power. George concurred and noted the amusing reactions of many parents attending Princeton’s freshman convocation when West told the new students they must “learn how to die.”
The panel then moved on to questions. One asked the panelists how to resolve the problem of oligarchy within the United States. West shared the questioner’s concern, connecting it to the University by bringing up Jefferson’s critique of oligarchy. George, by contrast, stated his belief that the real issue in the contemporary United States is not the unequal concentration of wealth, but rather a lack of social mobility. Another question dealt with the Federalist Papers as an example of people who disagree with each other coming together; the panelists concurred that there was a long tradition of this taking place. The figure from the Founding Era who came up the most, however, was Thomas Jefferson, the debates over his legacy being an example of a highly contentious issue in need of nuance and respectful discourse.
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