I used to think that these symposiums were merely a misquided inconvenience. The Professor running the program snips as the class as if we were a bunch of grade schoolers, and the topics often don’t seem particularly appropriate for audience.
After tonight’s guest, however, I have decided the symposiums are counterproductive and truly a waste of time. The speaker was a Republican operative who spoke about the perils of Campaign Finance Reform. She took a position that was different from that of a majority of the people attending, and she was obviously not used to people asking questions which countered her own views. Her arguments had a series of great sound bites, but no cohesive argument and no foundation of facts.
One of the fundamental problems with the political polarization of our society is that politicians, activists and lobbyists have gotten used to speaking towards uniformly friendly crowds. This “preaching to the choir†syndrome has reduced our ability as a whole to speak intelligently to opposing view points and inhibited our abilities to speak in front of unsympathetic audiences.
In a political setting, this is sad but expected. In an educational setting, however, it is simply unexceptable for people to take positions and then be unable (or unwilling) to put together a scholarly argument based on facts.
Here is the required 500 word assignment about the presentation:
20050330_ThePitfallsOfCampaignReform.pdf
