Less than 24 hours before the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, Kristan Hawkins was speaking on the campus of Montana State University. She noticed her phone blowing up with activity. She looked. She paused. She announced the breaking news that Charlie Kirk had been shot on another college campus. You didn't have to know anything to realize this wasn't a random news story to Hawkins -- she was in shock. Her friend had been shot. Her friend had been shot doing exactly what she was doing. And students laughed.
It's almost as if that's what social media trains us to do, when reflexively responding to news involving people in politics. Such firebrands are names that embody ideology. We don't see them as people.
Hawkins is the president of the Students for Life of America, and as part of a tour, Kristan had arrived in Montana and invited students to tell her why she is wrong on abortion.
Some students thought it was funny that Kirk was shot. I imagine because they don't think of Kirk as a human being, but as a representative of so much that they disagree with. In our hyper-politicized culture, where ideology is a religion, and dehumanization is almost necessary to make engagement satisfying, we use callousness as self-medication for all things we are unhappy about.
Charlie Kirk was on campus inviting students to debate, helping them mature -- intellectually and emotionally, even spiritually.
Kirk went beyond the empty symbols and hollow rhetoric of modern political discourse. He made a case. He was unafraid to challenge and be challenged. And he had the humility to admit that he didn't have all the answers.
Hawkins was standing by a sign that said "Abortion: Change My Mind." Her sign indicated: I respect you enough to listen to what you have to say. About 150 students gathered, but the respect wasn't quite reciprocated.
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"If you think shooting Charlie Kirk is justified because you disagree with him on politics, you need to examine your heart," Hawkins said in response to the students' laugher. "This is what abortion culture has done in our country. Our abortion culture ... has said that the most vulnerable humans in our world don't deserve the right to live and we get to choose whether or not they live or die. Abortion culture has led to a desensitizing of our nation, where we think we can shoot our political enemies -- and we think is it justified."
She asked the crowd if they thought it was funny that Trump was shot. On the video if the incident, you can hear students in the crowd yell, "Oh yeah!"
When Hawkins shared that Charlie had been shot in the neck, there was cheering. When she promised to share their callous reaction with the world on YouTube, "F---- yeah!" is the most audible reaction.
That sounds awfully a lot like pride. Pride is a deadly sin. And now we see why -- it reduces other people to mere objects and deadens empathy and sympathy.
Be free to be wrong and defend someone else's right to do the same. And may we change one another's minds on things. Or at least try. With human encounter, not intimidation and murder.
(Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan's pro-life commission in New York, and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.)
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