CEHV's Aaron Yarmel Interviewed in the Chronicle of Higher Education About Israel/Palestine Dialogue
A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education explores the challenges faced by colleges in response to violence in Israel and Palestine. The article highlights the efforts made by colleges to provide platforms for education and discussion, while also addressing the backlash stemming from perceived bias or lack of balance in these discussions.
CEHV's Aaron Yarmel is quoted in the article, and he emphasizes that information-sharing--though crucial--is insufficient on its own for the purposes of answering normative questions about how we ought to live with one another across disagreement. In addition, civil discourse is needed.
From the article:
But colleges can’t necessarily rely on sharing subject-matter expertise alone to foster healthy discussions... “Expecting information-sharing to solve the normative questions of living together in a community is like expecting an umbrella to stop bullets,” said Aaron Yarmel, the associate director of Ohio State’s Center for Ethics and Human Values. “That’s not what it was designed for.”
For example, a lot of contention on campuses has had to do with the meaning of certain phrases or words — like “intifada” or “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — to different groups. While sharing information can help provide historical context behind the phrases and survey data can illustrate how different groups view the slogans, Yarmel said information alone doesn’t tell listeners whether the meaning attributed by an individual speaker or group is what it should mean in that context, or how to communicate and live among people with different views on the meaning of contested phrases.
