Is Debate Good for the Nation?

How should political and religious conservatives deal with conflict? Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said that they should not become hostile to or stifle public debate.

According to Lucy Gilbert, Roberts said on Jordan B. Peterson Podcast: “I don’t mean this to be offensive, but I care a lot less about your feelings than I do about your pursuit of truth.” Peterson is a Canadian psychologist, author, and conservative political commentator. Gilbert continued: 

Roberts and Peterson agreed that faith becomes dogma without debate. Roberts explained that the same goes for The Heritage Foundation’s policies and his belief that there should be debate, while also not compromising on core principles.

“As long as the debate doesn’t become personal, everything is fair game,” he said.

“I mean, if you have to hide away, and never be, you know, called to account for what you presume, there’s no faith there,” Peterson said.

“American institutions, especially since the 1940s and accelerating in the ‘70s, there’s basically the absence of that [truth]. In fact, the opposite of that. So that if you go in, and you say that I want to do intellectual combat, you know, somehow, you’re committing some grave sin inside the American academy. But it’s essential, because that’s where we refine our own positions,” Roberts said.

The Heritage president explained that back when he was an untenured professor, there were some what he called “big lib” professors planning a symposium about Ronald Reagan’s presidential legacy. So, he talked to a conservative friend, and they tried to join the panel to have a “fair, objective assessment of his legacy … but because of the scheduled appearance of the two of us as conservatives, they canceled it. And they canceled it because, as you know well from your own experience, they can’t stand the disagreement,” said Roberts.

Peterson is one of those people who were “canceled” for expressing his conservative opinions. In addition, the Ontario College of Psychologists wants him to be “retrained.” Maybe we should use the word reprogrammed.

Peterson is not reticent in sharing his opinions. He told Roberts that by shielding students from proper debate “all we’re doing is removing the possibility from our students of exposing themselves to the sort of challenges that would actually make the strong … making them weaker, more hopeless, and more anxious, by protecting them in that manner.”

It just so happens that some of the students in the classes of Roberts and Peterson are now members of the United States Senate where they “lead with their feelings.”

Roberts explained that The Heritage Foundation “exists to devolve power from Washington back to the states and ultimately back to the people themselves.” He concluded by saying, “Ultimately, the most radical part of leftism is one that undermines truth very actively… And if you look at what’s going on in the political right … there’s a very healthy, sometimes kind of fractious debate that’s going on.”

You may not like the debates going on in Congress by conservatives, but we all should be grateful that the Republicans in the House are willing to debate and argue about the best way to lead the nation.