If we allow violence to replace the argument, the democratic promise begins to collapse
The assassination of Charlie Kirk is forcing us to face a painful contradiction. Kirk built his career on the belief that ideas, not violence, are the ones that constitute a free society. The mission of his life was persuasive, discussion, and discussion in the public square. However, in the end, it was not disturbed by a more clear argument, but with a pistol.
Political violence was not strange to America. The 1960s taught us the fragility of the font between the hot dispute and bloodshed. John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Junior, and Robert Kennedy, all of whom have been a victim. Then, as now, our nation was deeply divided. But the harsh paradox at this moment deepens: a man whose life was defending the strength of the words was taken as opposed to what he represented.
Kerk was famous for his work with students, and encouraged them to enter the ideas scene. I know directly. I met him several times over the years and I had the opportunity to work with him on more than one occasion. I agree with him or do not believe that the debate was the basis of democracy. I think that if you want to change the minds, you will not do it silently or violence, but with condemnation and persuasion.
This makes his death such a civil loss. Violence does not end life. The conversation ends. It takes ideas that must be tested in the open and replaced by anger and fear. Each time, political violence blows our public life, it reduces the space in which the dispute can flourish.
Unlike the 1960s, the digital environment today makes this area more dangerous. The dispute spreads online at lightning speed, but also deformation. Anger can become viral faster than the mind, and often pays better. The incentive to see those who have opposition views as enemies, not competitors in the discussion, grow stronger every day. Some have built professions on it. There is this climate exactly that Kirk’s insistence on the value of the civil argument takes a new urgency.
The danger now is that his death will be absorbed in the same course of anger that has already eroded our policy. But we can choose to remember it instead as a warning. If we allow violence to replace the argument, the democratic promise can disagree without destroying each other, starting to collapse.
The point here is not to claim agreement with Kirk’s policy. The important point is to identify the principle in the heart of his work. The debate is what keeps our democracy alive. It is the work of faith that words are still more important than weapons.
The greatest way to honor Kirk is not through revenge or victory, but by choosing the argument about anger. This does not mean softening our convictions. This means insisting that the condemnations be tested in the open, with speech and persuasion, not fear and strength.
Charlie Kerk spent his adult life in the ideas scene. The greatest way to move forward is that the inheritance is to stay there ourselves, and to prove, at this very fragile moment, that words will not be replaced by violence.
Andrew Lawrence Lawrence is a former former campus correspondent, as he reported higher education and freedom of expression from Georgia University. He lives in Savana, Georgia.
