Understanding Opposing Sides

Posted by Suzanne Hill Jun 12, 2008

Recently I read with great interest an article by James Bowman in “The American” about the flagrant spreading of misinformation. He notices how people used to assume that a writer wanted to uncover truth; today they expect him to create a constituency to back his ideas no matter whether they are truthful or not.

I teach composition to first-year college students whose final project is to write a persuasive research paper in which they prove a controversial statement. The first few semesters I noticed they had trouble composing a one-sentence statement of their controversial stance so I added lessons on thesis statement. They must consider their opposition and refute those stances. Then I added lessons on logic.

They tend to focus on a few commonly-held yet often-disputed sentiments: the traditional family is not necessary to a child's well-being; global warming is ruining our planet and must be stopped; professional athletes are ruining their health using steroids; our drinking age should be lowered to resemble the European model; illegal immigrants should be given amnesty.

I used to think that, sadly, the occasional student has been firmly indoctrinated. Nothing I could say would encourage him to consider the opposing points of view. If I insist that Al Gore is not a valid research source because he is an activist not an expert, still the movie "Inconvenient Truth" shows up on the bibliography. Then I began to see that with this research project I am only helping in further spreading misinformation.

Now I wonder if the bigger problem is that the truth doesn’t matter. A firmly-held belief is retained even in the face of information to prove it doubtful or even wrong.

Must I now help them with acclimation to a time-honored yet perhaps unfamiliar thought process: the quaint idea of "truth"?