It’s powerful to watch sixteen and seventeen year olds contending with abortion: They’re relatively new to the topic, they rarely get the chance to discuss it, and they’re only beginning to understand the consequences of their votes and their beliefs. And when talking to each other, unlike politicians and pundits, they can’t dodge questions, repeat talking points, or preach to the choir. They have to engage and understand their peers--those who will be their lab partner in science, their peer editor in english, and their teammate in debate club. In other words, they have to thoughtfully engage with one another. And that engagement is productive--until someone mentions a taboo created by conservative media--like Planned Parenthood or Medicare for All--that shuts down discussion and prevents my students from seeing the common ground that they share.
This spring, at the private high school where I teach, two junior girls planned an optional student-led forum for those who wanted to talk about the wave of heartbeat bills being passed at the state level. While the students who attended were overwhelmingly sympathetic to the right to choose, I was glad that a couple of pro-life students showed up, too. One student in particular, Joe, argued vigorously that life begins at conception. When someone followed up by asking him about women who were medically or financially not in a position to have a child, Joe suggested that federal grant programs could help with that. But that productive dialogue dissolved when someone pointed out that Joe had just described Planned Parenthood.
“No. Not like Planned Parenthood,” Joe reacted.
Planned Parenthood was a non-starter — his favorite media personality, Ben Shapiro, had made that very clear.
The students continued their discussion, talking about financial support and healthcare for infants. Another pro-life participant said that in order to enact pro-life laws, she felt we must have Medicare for All. This compromise helped pro-choice participants understand another point of view that starts with the same assumption about supporting infants.
Once again, this conservative flashpoint shut the discussion down.
“No. Not medicare for all. That doesn’t work.” Joe said.
Before Planned Parenthood or medicare for all were mentioned, Joe seriously considered the equities of restricting the right to choose and what support society must provide should it force women to carry to term and give birth to children. But once the labels Planned Parenthood and Medicare for All were used, Joe’s independent judgment was overtaken by his devotion to Ben Shapiro. Joe’s knee-jerk reactions, the result of so many hours of listening to the 9th most-downloaded podcast on iOS, impeded the communication and understanding that otherwise characterized the conversation.
After the forum, Joe recommended I listen to Shapiro’s podcast, emailing it to me the next day and assuring me that Shapiro explained Joe’s views much better than Joe ever could. I disagreed. It was powerful to hear Joe voice his own opinions and respond to the arguments of his peers in-person (not to mention, seeing both sides find some common ground). Joe disagreed, noting that he felt “Shapiro [responds to counter arguments] better than anyone”
After the forum officially ended, most of the participants stayed to keep talking. This conversation represented good progress for our students. Often when we discuss social issues, there’s faux agreement in the room because our conservative students remain silent until after the forum, when they can express their ideas in their own echo chamber. For example, a couple of years ago, we had a forum about the Pride Flag because the flag hanging in our student lounge kept getting torn down. Clearly there was a faction at the school that opposed the flag, but no one spoke up at the forum, meaning it failed to achieve any understanding, compromise, or cathartic effect.
I assume liberal students could also stymie compromise, or wait until after the meeting to express their true opinions together, but I’ve never seen it. That could be because of the topics or the format. But one thing is for sure, there is no voice like Shapiro for teenagers on the left.
Empathetic face-to-face conversations are a powerful tool for progress in our current politically polarized era. There’s a lot to be optimistic about with Gen Z. They care about others, they listen, and they engage with each other. They’re still at a stage where they’re open-minded to each others’ views and to their own intuitions--Joe’s intuition, for instance, was that society has an obligation to support mothers and infants. But understanding others and solving nuanced political problems will continue to elude us until we get Ben Shapiro--and the knee-jerk conservatism that he advocates--out of the room.
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If you enjoyed this article, also check out my blog posts from two years ago called, "Private Twitter and Snapchat: the New Facilitator for Controversial Conversations in High School" and "Controversial Conversations Belong in the Classroom, Not Online."
