A Note on Charlie Kirk

I don't want to nitpick when the man has just been murdered for his ideas. I just want to make it clear that my revulsion and anger at his assassination doesn't mean that I always agreed with him.

   He seemed to have basically two sets of ideas. The first had to do with fostering dialog and rational debate, both as a means of finding agreement (and, of course, the truth), and as means of staving off violence, civil war and civizational disintegration. On those scores, I couldn't have agreed with him more.

   As for his specific political positions and arguments, I often disagreed with him. I'm not sure I've ever linked to anything by him, in fact. He seemed to be significantly to my right--and, of course, he was a Christian whereas I'm not religious. (Except every third day or so when I may be some kind of attenuated pantheist or something--if that counts.) I often found his arguments to be unsound and sophistical, which I not only oppose for obvious and straightforward logical reasons, but also because I find such arguments counterproductive, especially if your goal is fostering rational debate and social harmony. I've seen videos of him making good arguments, and I've seen videos of him making bad arguments. Of course everybody makes bad arguments sometimes. But there was often at least some tension between his first-order arguments and his second-order project of fostering dialog, understanding, and political unity.

   The format of his debates--public rhetorical contests where his and his interlocutors' egos and political commitments were on the line--tends, IMO, to promote bad argument. Nobody wants to lose a rhetorical and intellectual contest in front of a crowd.

   Which is just to say that that aspect of his project was a mixed bag--some good, some bad. Like every other human thing, one might say.

   But, in response, one might say: thus is the dual nature of debate. It commonly walks a line between reason and rhetoric. Almost no one figures out how to avoid this problem.

   But he also aimed to give conservatives a voice on campuses--to show them that it is ok for them to say what they think. And to show the repressive left that rules campuses that conservatives cannot be silenced. That was and is a laudable aspect of his project. And that's basically what got him murdered.

   But that project will outlive him.

   And, even when I disagreed with his positions, I was glad to see him sticking a finger in the eye of the radical, repressive campus left--glad to see him shouting into and disrupting the cozy harmony of their echo chamber.

   At any rate, that's all JMO. I'm not sure when's a good time to say such things.

   It really doesn't matter what I thought about his views. I'm horrified at the murder per se, and especially at murder perpetrated to silence ideas--and perfectly plausible ideas at that.