Yesterday, I was a little shocked when a student asked me a question about the feasibility of secession... as in from the United States. Then it happened again...and again. I told them that they hadn't thought this through. "How so?" they asked. "If there isn't a federal government," I responded, "how will you receive federal financial aid?"

I'm not a political science professor. My domain is language and it has been my observation that we've been far too flippant lately about how we're using it. These comments, expressed during the first few moments of class that I reserve for general discussion and warm-up, amused, shocked, and saddened me. But they also told me something very important about how our young people are entering the world of mature and reasoned discourse. In short, few are.

We've just emerged from an election season that seems to have begun the day President Obama won the office in 2008. In that time, we have seen an unprecedented level of partisan and, to put it another way, loose language about our government and governing in general. Why?

Let me tell you something you already know. Our hyper-partisan rhetoric is the result of a new media landscape in which internet media (some traditional, some new) exists alongside multiple, 24-hour news networks that constantly churn out content to the public. Many people would agree that not all of them are acting in good faith, either. It is also the result of a highly ideological pundit class (some on TV, some on radio) that have never been elected to any office and have never shouldered the burden of governing. They hurl invectives across our electronic ether and all the while, our students listen.

It's been my experience that young people are voracious consumers of information. You may not believe it, but they actually do pick up quite a lot from what they see on TV, read online, hear people say, and, yes, what they read in class. However, to be a teacher at any level is to be painfully aware of the dissonance between what you think they have heard, what they have actually heard, and what they ultimately learn in a real and lasting way. So this, then, leads us to wonder what they are picking up and/or learning during our current era of hyper-partisanship.

Let's assume for a moment that our young people are not passive consumers of information. Anyone who interacts with them can tell you as much. Young people, in my experience, have a healthy skepticism about their world. During our short discussion about secession, for example, most laughed it off as ridiculous. However, I wonder if such a topic is emphasizing another kind of knowledge. I wonder if something so far fetched as secession is made possible in our culture because our students are having modeled for them an entirely different style of discourse than we learned. It is a childish, combative, limited discourse in which the ultimate goal is not consensus and communication, but rather some ill-defined notion of rhetorical victory or defeat.

This is a tremendous disservice: one that my colleagues and I have tried to remedy. Language matters. Words matter. How you argue matters. We do this because the world doesn't operate like a cable news political panel and our students need to know that. We do this because we want our students to be competitive in an increasingly complex global economy. Finally, we do it because when people (possibly future employers) outside of Tifton, Georgia hear a half-baked argument over secession, they don't think "principled" or "intriguing," but "ignorant" and "backwards."

But if we have our role to play, so do you. Here is my simple proposal. Let's be mindful of our language and our passions. Let's remember that to be an adult is to shoulder a great burden of responsibility to moderation (which, I will remind advocates for a sovereign Georgia, is featured in our state motto).

My ancestor, Andrew Coleman Sanders (of Edison, Georgia,) fought for the Confederacy before he was even eighteen years old. He was one of the few fortunate ones who survived the war and returned home to rebuild a poor and ravaged South. His sacrifice and the sacrifice of others who fought with him and after him should remind us that words can lead to wars and that the price of freedom is responsible stewardship in our thoughts, words and deeds.



Joseph F. Brown, PhD

Assistant Professor

of English and Rural

Studies