Donald Kimball's "Being Open-Minded & Thinking Critically" speech
In a chapel address at Northwest University, Donald Kimball urges listeners to cultivate open‑mindedness and critical thinking by avoiding straw‑man arguments. He begins with a humorous, buzzword‑filled introduction before defining a straw‑man: misrepresenting an opponent’s position and attacking that distortion. Kimball illustrates intentional straw‑man use in mass media and politics, citing a hypothetical NRA‑spokesperson scenario, and shows how such tactics bypass genuine debate. He also highlights unintentional straw‑man reasoning in the abortion controversy, where each side caricatures the other’s core belief. To counter these habits, he proposes three practical steps: (1) do not vilify the opposition, (2) understand the opponent’s worldview and epistemology, and (3) avoid echo chambers by engaging diverse perspectives. He ties these steps to Christian principles, referencing Proverbs, Peter’s call to defend the faith, and a professor’s quote on bias serving truth. Kimball concludes that honest engagement either refines one’s own views or reinforces them with clearer justification, ultimately fostering more truthful, loving discourse.
That was a beautiful meditation. Thank you.
I'd like to introduce your next speaker with a poem. Into my heart an air that kills from yon far country blows. What are those blue remembered hills? What spires? What farms are those? It is the land of lost content. I see it shining plain. The happy highways where I went and cannot come again. I think we increasingly find ourselves in Houseman's land of lost content, a land of cynical memes, YouTube humiliations, and unfettered displays of Twitter hubris. There is more hedonist than hobbit in our 21st century, and the critic George Steiner says that we are committed to the systematic suppression of silence. It is an age of miracle and wonder. It is an age of trivia and boredom. An age that cannot reconcile its quest for absolute liberty with the projection of absolute value. And yet, I bring such tidings not as the village malcontent, but to champion the man you are about to hear from. This time, this season, needs an individual who can meet these challenges with an equal measure of gravity and grace. A man well-versed in the parlance of technology and the deep heart's core of the best poetry. Our image needs a man who is passionate about the Gospel of Jesus. A man whose economic policy mirrors the economy of the Beatitudes. A man who is a truth-teller and not a sophist. A man who possesses impeccable musical and automotive taste. A man whose life motto mirrors Tennyson's: Ulysses. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Our age needs a man of stout stuff. In Kirkland, Washington, at Northwest University, there is such a man. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Donald Kimball.
Woo! You know, the only way that I can transition from such a lofty and undeserved introduction is, I think, is to say some of the necessary buzzwords to make any message successful. So here we go, ready? I'm gonna go and be intentional about bringing an organic message to the community of NU so that we can love on each other in this place. Woo! I'm extremely honored to be up here and thank you so much for having me. I'm thankful for all the friends and family and teachers here at Northwest who supported me. In particular, I just want to thank Professor Byrd, Dr. Witt, Dr. Webster, and Dr. Kaufman for their various influences they've had in the classes I've taken with them. So as a political science major, it can often be difficult for me to find something to talk about that's both interesting to me and you guys. I debated talking about the historical merits of the gubernatorial line-item veto in the state of the state of Colorado, maybe the legal inconsistencies of the dissenting opinion in NLRB v. Kanning, or maybe an intense biography of Calvin Coolidge, our 30th and greatest president. I decided that those are probably a little too common and have been hit in chapel, so I decided not to speak of them. So what I actually want to talk to you guys about though is being open-minded and thinking critically in a world of straw man arguments. So we live in an age where we have more access to a diverse spectrum of ideas and views than ever before, and this is a great, great opportunity to learn. Unfortunately, I think our culture is far too willing when there's an opposing view, whether that's religious, political, epistemological, whatever, when they see an opposing view, to mischaracterize their side of the debate, create a strawman argument, and attack it. So what's a strawman argument? Well, basically it's when I describe your side of a view, so say we don't agree on something, and I describe your side incorrectly, and then I attack what I've just mischaracterized. So, for example, if I were to hypothetically ask Dr. Wisemore, "Can we start class off with 30 minutes of hymn singing?" He responds, "No." I respond, "But hymns glorify Jesus!" He responds, "Still no." My strawman argument could then be, Dr. Wisemore won't let us start class off with 30 minutes of hymns because he hates Jesus and doesn't want to glorify him. Now obviously we know that's not the case. The point of the class would get lost 30 minutes through if we did that, and there'd be a lot of things. But it's a lot easier for me to attack my mischaracterization of his argument than actually talk about what he actually believes, right? So I think these arguments are very, very deceitful, but they can be made intentionally and unintentionally. As followers of Christ, I think it's fairly obvious that we shouldn't be making these intentionally. I'll talk about when that happens. But I also think that we are called to do the work of understanding the other side as to not commit these kinds of arguments unintentionally. So I'll talk about first where we see them being used intentionally. I think oftentimes they're intentionally used in mass media. I'll give an example from like a political realm, right? When a pundit comes up and speaks about his opponent in order to get voters to vote against them, it's very easy for them to mischaracterize. For instance, if a National Rifle Association spokesman comes up here and he tells a crowd, "The pro-gun control elites in Washington, D.C. are trying to destroy America by stamping on the Second Amendment and tearing out freedom from the Constitution." It's really easy to rile up a crowd to vote against those people now. If he's being honest, he would have to acknowledge that the pro-gun control crowd actually is just trying to promote safety. Now, whether or not pro-gun control measures promote more safety, or whether the value of liberty beats the value of safety in this instance, that's where the debate should be happening. But when you're able to mischaracterize their side easily, you don't have to have that discussion. You don't have to go and do the hard work of figuring those things out. You get the crowd to go the way you want them to. This is incredibly deceitful, right? I think even when we think that we're maybe putting forward like the best end result, right? The ends justify the means. I don't think that this is condoned biblically, right? Proverbs 20:17, "Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel," right? So if we can accept then that this intentional mischaracterization is bad, What about unintentionally? Where do we see this happening on an unintentional level? I think a very common example of us unintentionally using strawman arguments is in the very controversial abortion debate. Each side has very specific narratives of what the other believes. Either you want to kill babies, or you want to restrict women's rights. Now, when you look at that, each side is be— doing a disservice to the other. Because the pro— the pro-choice crowd doesn't see the fetus as a life, so of course it makes no sense for the government to be able to make medical decisions on behalf of an individual. But of course the pro-life side sees that life starts from conception, so of course it makes sense that the government should intervene to save life. Now, when you give each side their full say, instead of mischaracterizing the other position, you actually get a fuller debate: when life begins, or anything along those lines. But when you mischaracterize them, you miss that out completely, and you end up with hostility. So how do we not do this? I think it's important that we try to understand opposing sides to the most full in order to be vessels of truth and understanding. And I think there are 3 major ways I've come up with that help me, at least, and hopefully can help you avoid doing this. So the first step is don't vilify the opposition. The second: understand their worldview and epistemology. And third: don't put yourself in an echo chamber. So let's talk about the first one: not vilifying the opposition. So I'm sure that most of us have been to YouTube.com and we've seen the comment section. Oh, it's not pretty. The waters only get murkier when we're talking about— or the video rather has something to do with the news, media, religion, politics. Exclamation points abound, and something in common with lots of them is the venomous insults lashed out on other commenters. Now I learned this from YouTube, I didn't know this before, but if you're a conservative, you're actually a white supremacist misogynistic demon, and if you're a liberal, you're a moronic member of a cult who prays to Satan that all churches will burn. Now obviously, I don't expect that any of us here would probably think or say these things, but we do tend to want to villainize the opposition to a degree. Too often I hear people say that this person with whom I disagree actually wants a bad result. For instance, that politician I disagree with actually wants to run America into the ground. Now, I don't think we need to be naive and think that everyone's intentions are perfectly good and that everyone wants the best for everyone, necessarily. Necessarily, but I do think that part of being a graceful individual reflecting Christ's love is giving the benefit of the doubt. If we start off on the assumption that the other person wants what's worst for the world, how do we ever come to truth and understanding and reconciliation? I just don't think that that's possible. So second, I think it's important to find their worldview and epistemology. Now, what are these things? A worldview, of course, is how you see the world, how you interpret events, how you make your value judgments. And in epistemology it's similar, it's how we know things. Everyone, regardless of if they know it or not, or even acknowledge it, has these two things. They're innate to the human experience. I think a very good example of these being articulated well comes in the first lecture of every class from Professor Burks. Now I think I have a slide up here, yeah, so this is an example. So he has his basic anthropology up there, that man's created in God's image, fallen and needs to be redeemed. So therefore, that's how he teaches history. And this is a great example of acknowledging your own worldview, because everything that he says and teaches comes in light of that. Now, not only do I think we need to acknowledge our own worldviews to understand how to approach different topics and discussions, but I think we need to realize and understand the opposition's worldview. If I'm talking to someone and they think, for instance, that man is innately good and they're only bad when society corrupts them. I am much better equipped now knowing that to have a discussion with them on the merits of anarchy. Obviously I don't think that he's going in because he wants chaos and destruction. We're actually both after the best society, albeit in very different fashions. When we, when we understand the opponent's, well, our opposing view rather, their worldview and epistemology can help us have a more informed, intelligent discussion. And this slide can be done now. Lastly, don't put yourself in an echo chamber. This is very easy to do at a small Christian college, but I think it can be extremely harmful. One of the most problematic things is when we insulate ourselves with people who only have similar or the same views as us without engaging the other side. The best way to hear and understand other worldviews is to talk to people directly about them. This helps us not only understand their worldview, but even it can help clarify our own. Because a lot of times people end up closing themselves off to other points of view, and then they forget why they believe what they believe. This can be one of the biggest harms of putting yourself in an echo chamber. Remember, Peter tells us that we should be ready to answer anyone who has questions of why we have hope in Christ, right? We should be ready to defend our faith at all times. I think this is a great model to follow for all important beliefs. When we're able to have discussions with opposing worldviews and points, we better understand why we believe what we do. So once we employ these three tactics: not vilifying the opposition, understanding their worldview and epistemology, and not leaving ourselves in an echo chamber, I think what we get are better discussions. We can get to the core of the issue without mischaracterizations, without insults. [Speaker:DAVID] But just because we're being open-minded in this way and hearing a diversity of opinions, it doesn't mean that we have to give up conviction for our views or certain points. But I do think it's important that we know our views after seeing the whole perspective and therefore justifying them that way. When we hear all sides of perspective, I think we can get one of two results. One, we hear a new perspective or a new argument for a perspective that we hadn't heard before, and we change our own views in light of it. This helps us grow and mature our views and helps us develop what we're going to believe in the future. I think that we need to realize and not be so arrogant as to think that everything we believe right now is the exact same thing we're going to believe 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 15. I doubt very many of us believe exactly what we did 5 years ago. And so I think that being mature and being an understanding individual includes recognizing that we're going to have to change and adapt our views as we experience the world and as we learn. But I think the second outcome that you can have is if you hear a new perspective or a different argument and you aren't convinced, it actually does help you reinforce your own views because you know why you believe what you do. If I talk to a professor here and he and I have a different understanding of faith, and I'm not necessarily convinced by what they've said, but I've had a good discussion, I now know why I believe what I do. I know what my points are, what they— how to rebut what they say. And I think we become more informed and become more intelligent in how we go about believing, which I think is an important role for us as Christians. So when we treat opposing sides of the debate with fairness and we understand their ideas, I think we better the discussion. We either shape our own worldview and adapt it, or we reinforce our own views. And in this way, I think we better our commitment to hearing out other sides of people and loving people in that way. I think we better our biases in that way. And though biases generally have a negative connotation, I want to end with a quote from Dr. Webster, actually, in the class. He got to bring up quotes in his introduction, I get to quote him. He said, bias, To be human is to be biased. What matters is what your bias is in service of— truth or a call to arms? And I think that it's important that we keep our biases informed with truth by hearing the whole perspective in order not to mischaracterize the other side and set up straw man arguments. Thanks so much. Wow. Woo!
I love these chapels.
