When Words Became Weapons

"This isn't about politics, it's about what happens when dialogue dies. I've spent my life in locker rooms, weight rooms, and training rooms where you could speak your mind, argue hard, and still shake hands after. That's how men sharpened one another - through honesty, not hostility. The old adage says, "Iron sharpens iron, as one man sharpens another." But somewhere along the way, that disappeared."

"I haven't commented on the CK assassination because I'm still struggling with what I've seen, thousands celebrating the death of a man for daring to speak, for daring to engage college students in open discussion. In the true spirit of Socrates, condemned for "corrupting the youth" by teaching them to think, he engaged the young in spirited discourse. His death marks how far we've fallen."

Dialogue has been replaced by a culture where disagreement is treated as heresy and words are equated with violence. Many social spaces that once fostered honest argument and mutual sharpening have been abandoned for emotional conformity. The celebration of a violent act against someone who engaged in open discussion exposes how far civility has eroded. Outrage culture rewards clicks and clout, incentivizing louder, emptier voices over truth and leadership. Empathy is buried beneath rigid ideology, and honest conversation is framed as aggression. The erosion of open discourse undermines the foundations of a free society and enables moral destruction and paralysis.

Read at It's A Long Road