Why Can’t We Just Get Along?

Over at his blog, Brazen Maverick, one of our students, Sam Sarver, echoes a conversation that has been happening here about the difficulty of communication across the ideological divide. He was singularly unimpressed with Sarah Palin’s performance in Thursday’s debate but recognizes that others (I would be among them) thought that she did quite well, albeit with neither syntax or word choice calculated to appeal to academic types.

Mr. Sarver wonders whether people holding what seem to be radically differing perceptions of reality can ever talk to one another. I think that they can, but mostly they don’t.

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Of Speeches and Sermons

Last week saw another round in the ongoing legal battle between the University of Wisconsin and the Madison campus’ Roman Catholic Foundation. In Roman Catholic Foundation v. Regents, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72980 (W.D. Wis., September 24, 2008), the court addressed the University’s refusal to allow segregated fees (that portion of a student’s tuition reserved for the funding of student organizations) to be used for certain RCF activities that the University regarded as worship, proselytizing, or sectarian instruction. These activities involved programs such as spiritual counseling, training RCF student leaders, the purchase of a drum shield to be used by the RCF’s praise band, and the printing of instructional pamphlets on praying the Rosary.

District Judge Lynn Adelman of the Eastern District of Wisconsin, sitting by designation, entered a declaratory judgment “stating that the University may not categorically exclude worship, proselytizing or sectarian instruction from segregated fee funding unless it does so pursuant to a rationale that is reasonable in light of the purposes of the forum and viewpoint neutral.”

As far as this goes, it seems to me to be consistent with recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court holding that even highly sectarian religious speech may not be excluded from a public forum if is otherwise within the forum’s purpose.

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What We Need Is Red and Blue Face Paint

Andrea’s post on sports and Michael’s on the impact of the election on students’ preparation for class brought to mind this thread over at the Volokh Conspiracy. Ilya Somin links to articles in the Washington Post and Slate arguing that political partisans behave like sports fans They are less interested in a careful consideration of the issues than in identifying with one side or the other. Ilya maintains that this is a manifestation of rational ignorance, i.e., the idea that voters rationally invest little effort in obtaining political information because their vote is unlikely to be important. When some voters, e.g., political junkies, do obtain such information, the purpose is not to help in making a decision, but to enhance the enjoyment of being on, for example, the Republican or Democratic teams.

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