Fox News Doesn't Like Yoga

Every time Fox News says anything, I am reminded of a conversation I had with one of my favorite colleagues at Wake Forest.  She would give some small extra credit to any student who went to an on-campus political event and wrote a page about it.  Our conversation revolved around a student who had attended, and written a piece about, a talk by David Horowitz, a semi-famous right wing bomb thrower who has written some pretty abhorrent screeds about Muslims, African Americans, and other groups.

Our disagreement centered around whether the student should get the extra credit.  My colleague did not give the student extra credit and explained to him that Horowitz was closer to hate speech than legitimate political dialogue.  She reasoned that our job was to broaden students minds and make them more tolerant of difference, and that Horowitz's message was fundamentally opposed to that goal.  Clearly, she would not give extra credit for someone who attended a Klan rally, and she saw this as closer to that than to legitimate political dialogue.

I agreed with her that Horowitz often trafficked in racism and other unacceptable isms but that the solution was to engage his ideas, not to shut them out.  In my opinion, the modern conservative bluster industry has made far too much hay through claiming to be shut out of certain institutions like academia.  Better to welcome Horowitz's ideas into civilized debate, because they can't survive it.  A good teacher should be able to engage Horowitz's arguments and show, without malice and bias, that they are ridiculous and reprehensible and point students towards more thoughtful arguments that square with a person's conservative leanings (or liberal, or libertarian, or whatever).

My bias is to include.  It's not a fool-proof policy.  Certainly, hatemongers throughout history have preyed on people's inclination to give them space to express views that led to devastating consequences.  But I have faith that people will see the light and gravitate towards good arguments.  Moreover, I think when you don't let trolls get under your skin, their arguments will implode due to sheer ludicrousness, and everyone can have a little chuckle at the implosion.

And that is why I can't get too excited by anything Fox News says, especially not when they blame yoga for making Americans into wusses.