Propaganda, Patriotism, and the War on Terrorism :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

Propaganda, Patriotism, and the War on Terrorism On college campuses across the nation, efforts are being made to silence professors who encourage students to probe the history of U.S. foreign policy in the effort to understand the September 11th attacks. Recent articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education report that students have complained to deans about professors critical of U.S. foreign policy, and boards of trustees, deans, and college presidents have drafted resolutions and issued public statements condemning their views. Professors have been shouted down, received volumes of hate mail and, on some campuses, death threats. In one case, a trustee publicly invited a professor "to take a hike." Historically, such attacks on free speech have risen sharply in times of national crisis -- precisely when a full range of views is sorely needed. They are particularly disturbing on campuses of higher education that should be strongholds of people who defend independent thinking. The nature of the arguments offered against these dissenting voices are very troubling; so too their political effects. The arguments fall into two groups. First, professors are charged with showing no concern for the feeling of others: they lack taste and judgment; they are insensitive, self-indulgent and offend others at a time when emotions are raw. In being so inattentive to their students' emotional sensitivities, dissenting faculty violate the trust students place in them. Now is not the time for critique, but for emotional nurturing, reassurance and national solidarity. Second, professors are charged with offering excuses for the attacks. Their examination of the role the United States may have played in creating conditions that make terrorist acts more likely amounts to a justification of the acts themselves. There is an emotional tyranny at play here, and its effect is to obstruct processes of understanding that alone will aid us in our ongoing debate over how to come to terms with terrorism. What do I mean by tyranny? In the first instance, we are being told that feelings alone are appropriate now. It is too early, indeed, it is tasteless, to begin to sort through our role in the complex factors that brought these people to their heinous acts. But understanding is crucial to wise action, and action, as we see in each morning's news, is most certainly being undertaken in our name. While we are being asked just to feel, the administration and its congressional allies hurry to pass laws that threaten our civil liberties at home, and engage in a massive war effort likely to foster greater resentment abroad.