All of us, from students to faculty, are highly opinionated at Olin. We have sets of beliefs we hold onto dearly, and as we like to claim, we are open to changing our opinions as long as we are presented with facts. I say “claim” because I’ve never seen a public discussion in Olin about any political issue. I know all of us are having these conversations in our friend groups, but why not in public? Because we are afraid to offend people.

Just this Sunday, I hosted a deliberative discussion on immigration for my Local Democracy class, and surprisingly, the most common reason people gave for not attending was not “I have finals,” but “I don’t want to get canceled.” During the discussion, I also realized that people I knew who had different opinions didn’t take the chance to share their viewpoints. It was the same reason: they didn’t want to offend anyone. 

How did we end up in this situation?

I truly believe that the blame is on all of us. Including me! We are all so politicized that whenever someone presents an opinion that conflicts with our belief system, we give a slight disgusted look to that person. I don’t mean this metaphorically. We are literally making a disgusted face, and I mean nearly all of us. And then comes the slow ritual of not talking to them, and not even saying hello when you pass by them. I saw this happen to myself, other people, and I’m 100% sure I gave this face to other people. We are acting like the idea they presented makes them, as a whole, rotten. Well, how do we stop this?

First of all, we’ve got to change our approach. We should stop respecting ideas and start respecting people. If we give this respect to ideas, then a “wrong” idea can lower the respect you give to the person. However, if everyone accepts that even the smartest or the most informed person can have stupid ideas (and we all have stupid ideas that don’t represent us as a person), then we can listen to that person with respect, regardless of the idea. The idea might not be “right,” but the respect we have for the person gives us the ability to discuss it. Otherwise, we will just ignore this person until the rest of our Olin lives, as we currently do.

Secondly, we need a structured environment where everyone can present ideas and represent them without the fear of “offending” or getting “canceled”. This transformation can’t happen in a single night, but this environment can help us train our acceptance muscle. Hopefully, one day, leading to an Olin where everyone can present their ideas without fear in a normal day-to-day discussion. 

There are definitely more ways we can improve the current environment, and I definitely believe the issue is much more complicated than I explained above. Maybe some of you think my rambling about this issue is offensive, or you might say that public discussions actually happen, but I don’t just see them. Regardless, please do not get offended by my ideas and reach out so we can discuss more. Until someone offers a better approach, I want to drop a survey link where you can show your interest in a possible club where we discuss political issues in regular intervals. I don’t know if  I can make this happen, as I’m planning to take 24 credits next semester, but I definitely can’t do this alone, and I’d appreciate it if people who are as passionate as I am would reach out: https://tinyurl.com/OlinDeserveBetter