I was often told when I was in law school that I wasn’t being taught the law, but instead I was being taught how to think like a lawyer. Reaching further back, I can recall a college professor confidently asserting that she did not want to teach students what to think, but how to think. What an interesting concept, teaching someone about thinking.

Don’t we all walk around every day thinking things? No one needs to be taught how to think. Except maybe we do. At least, we night need to be reminded to engage in critical thinking now and again.

It seems that many college campuses and most of the internet have become figurative echo chambers. Ideas are treated as dangerous. Words are feared. The very language we use is censored for fear that it might offend, and I find this infuriating. I understand the argument for why people have begun to behave this way, but I fundamentally disagree with it.

The idea goes something like this: Some opinions and beliefs are so fundamentally incorrect that it is harmful to even engage with those that hold to those positions. To argue or debate with someone that puts faith in these dangerous beliefs or opinions is to give that person a platform and somehow lend credibility to their way of thinking, because you deemed it worthy of a counter argument. Some topics shouldn’t have two sides. For some matters, there is simply a right and wrong answer. If you debate with the person that believes in the wrong answer, you will be unable to change their mind, because people that think that way can’t understand logic and reason anyway. Worse yet, you run the risk of that person being able to mislead others into believing the wrong things as well.

How absurd.

I would venture to say that watching someone soundly lose a debate when confronted by a logical argument presented by a smarter and better prepared opponent is one of the most satisfying things a person can see in this life. Nevertheless, I routinely see videos of students protesting 45-minute lectures on college campuses throughout the nation. Students pull fire alarms, they bang on doors, they throw garbage cans down hallways and they do anything they can to disrupt those with ideas opposite their own beliefs. Social media companies write algorithms to hide content that runs counter to what they want their users to think. Even most news media unabashedly restrict coverage to only stories and guests that match one partisan ideology or another.

Most serious topics in life are complicated. Religion, war in the Middle East, tax policy and most everything that politicians try to boil down to individual sound bites all typically need deep dives to really understand them. It’s so much easier to just declare one side correct and all other positions as wrong, fake news and misinformation. But let me make this suggestion: Let the facts bat last. Don’t bang on the door to the lecture hall and try to drown out your opponent’s argument. Engage with those that disagree with you. Don’t be afraid to debate. Make your case, and counter their position. Whether you’re right or wrong, I think you’ll find that the truth will walk away the victor.

John Judkins is a Greenfield attorney.