In late September, Princeton Politics Professor Robert George published a column in the New York Times, in which he urged young conservatives to “exercise and … defend your right to think for yourself” in the face of a “hostile” campus community.
Days before, my colleague, Head Opinion Editor Eleanor Clemans-Cope, published a column arguing that “to insist on the importance of liberals engaging with these debates is insisting on an ideological project that launders harmful, fringe opinions back into mainstream society.”
Yet both of these columns’ bellicose calls to opposite sides of the political spectrum neglect fundamental truths. Our pluralistic society only works if we are willing to engage with all sorts of opinions, no matter how repulsive. But we must also debate with intellectual responsibility: We need to scrutinize our own opinions as rigorously as possible in light of new information.
If we are to affect change, we have a duty to engage with every genuine belief, no matter how repugnant. Yet Clemans-Cope raises valid concerns about many conservative talking points. She argues that the conservative push for “viewpoint diversity” is really a push “for more debates that engage with regressive, generally discredited, and often dehumanizing perspectives.” These debates, she warns, threaten to “turn back the clock” on the progress made in LGBTQ+ rights, abortion, and other progressive triumphs of the past century by legitimizing these perspectives.
Though I agree that regressive arguments can be dangerous, that danger does not excuse us from engaging with those arguments. There is tremendous value in engaging opponents who hold beliefs that we find regressive. The most prominent reason: A large plurality of Americans may hold views that liberals find dehumanizing, a reality that liberals can’t shy away from.
Let’s take transgender acceptance as an example. In recent years, the religious right has “harness[ed] the emotion around gender politics” to restrict transgender rights. As a result, Americans have become increasingly hostile toward transgender people. In 2015, a YouGov poll found that roughly 31 percent of Americans viewed identifying with another gender “morally wrong.” In 2024, a Gallup poll found that the number had jumped to 51 percent.
On the one hand, Clemans-Cope argues that liberals are justified in their refusal to engage in such debates. These viewpoints threaten transgender people’s right to exist. It would be dangerous, therefore, to give them a platform on our campus.
But she also writes that liberals should engage in debates to “make a change in peoples’ thoughts and actions.” Transgender rights seems like an issue on which liberal values compel us to change people’s minds, which requires engagement. And yet engaging with the opposition means entertaining — and tacitly legitimizing – a “dehumanizing perspective.” So should we engage or disengage?
This contradiction leads me to reject the implication that liberals can afford to disengage from regressive arguments. In the face of a protracted and aggressive campaign against transgender rights, it seems counterproductive to disengage from the conversation while the opposition makes significant inroads with the public.
The reality is, to many Americans outside of the liberal-dominated university campus, these ideas are attractive, not demeaning. These perspectives are, to them, already legitimate. Treating them in any other way would leave us out of touch with national debate.
The University and its communities don’t exist in a bubble. We live in a world home to a vast array of ideas that we, on a majority-liberal campus, may well find deplorable. These ideas occupy the minds of millions of Americans who are far removed from Princeton’s environs. To us, they look like the fringe. But to many others, they are convictions.
To accomplish the goal of transgender acceptance, we need to convince people with our own arguments. Engaging with dehumanizing perspectives is therefore necessary, not dangerous.
Yet the responsibility to engage requires good faith on both sides. Conservatives, too, must exercise intellectual responsibility by constantly reconsidering the merits of their own beliefs in light of new arguments.
Professor Robert George emphasizes liberal values of critical inquiry, but lacks a sufficient call for intellectual responsibility. Yes, conservatives should feel free to express their opinions, but they must also be responsive to the sociopolitical impact that their unfiltered speech can hold.
Many of today’s liberals view modern conservatism as a vitriolic force. Maybe that’s because conservative politicians have used their power to restrict individual liberties, remove protections for minority voting power and ban efforts promoting inclusiveness, with serious consequences for marginalized groups.
Democracy requires us to convince the other side that we have the better answer. But that means the other side needs to be willing to listen, too. It’s impossible to have productive conversations if conservatives perceive liberals in the way George portrays them: as an indoctrinating force persecuting conservatives.
Instead of a partisan battleground, we must view campus discourse as a chance to open our minds and listen to opposing viewpoints, whether liberal or conservative. That is a requirement in democratic life. But doing so requires the acceptance of fundamental rules that safeguard the marketplace of ideas.
First, both sides need to enter discourse responsibly and in good faith. That construct requires trust. Each person must believe that everyone else comes into the room with genuine disagreements — not ones contrived for personal gain — and that they will be receptive to intellectual challenge. That requires us to be willing to listen to the other side, and change our minds in response to compelling arguments. But it also requires serious consideration of the consequences of one’s position on others — speech isn’t made in a vacuum, and can have tangible, and sometimes devastating, consequences on different members of society.
Even more fundamentally, we need to accept as inviolable the principle that people are entitled to their opinions, so long as they are committed to rigorously scrutinizing them. Absent that commitment, discourse can never fulfill its potential to bring vastly different people closer together.
Princetonians can’t decide to leave the rest of the country behind by refusing to engage with debates we find repulsive. We should lead by example, and seek to lead the country into a new age of consensus building, instead of falling into the ever-growing chasm that divides our politics.
Kenneth Chan is a first-year Opinion writer from East Brunswick, N.J. planning to major in ORFE. He can be reached at kchan2[at]princeton.edu
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