I don’t get much in the way of comments or criticism on the pieces I write. So, when just this past Tuesday came around and I got a Facebook notification that someone had indeed commented on my most recent piece, I was intrigued. I’m a fair kind of guy; I listen to criticism, both good and bad, and I am never beyond having an honest, controlled conversation about something.

I had to do a double take at the content of the comment that was left there.

“White privilege.” “Ignorant.” I’m excluding an extra, more “colorful” part of the comment for the sake of tact.

For context, I wrote an article on the anti-statue movement started by the tragedy in Charlottesville and my reactions to it. Essentially, this commenter read the piece, got mad and flamed me for being bigoted and ignorant. Despite the fact that my article had nothing to do with white privilege propaganda, neo-Nazi sentiment, et cetra.

Am I mad? Not at all. In fact, as a hard-working college student with many other priorities to balance, I don’t have the energy nor the time to be mad or throw a fit. The comment is not the point. The point is the implication that the comment leaves in my mind, and the things it has helped contextualize for me.

I’m not angry or outraged. I’m disappointed because I see this very same kind of thing happen to people across the country. What I refer to is the suppression of free speech.

Our country’s First Amendment protects every American’s right to free speech, peaceful protest, the freedom to express one’s religion and so on. That’s all fine and dandy until two or more people or groups have differing opinions. Too often, opinionated people shut down their opponents because they’re “wrong.” Simply because they don’t agree, they’ll criticize each and every piece of an opposing argument--however legitimate or petty their intentions may be--and never let the other side be heard out.

And if you try to call out such people for shutting others down? They try to turn the tables on you. They’ll say you’re infringing on their right to free speech.

The First Amendment, thus, is being used in the modern day as an excuse, not a declaration of a right that all Americans have. It's used to justify hating dissenting or unpopular opinions and attacking those who share them.

Allow me to give you some perspective. We have students on high school and college campuses that are called out or ostracized for having conservative opinions in a predominantly liberal environment. Protest groups incite violence and riot instead of keeping their protest controlled, and never let their opposing groups get a word in because they’re “the enemy.”

This kind of mentality divides our communities unnecessarily. I remember a time where we were able to just talk to one another on key issues the old-fashioned way, ironing out pros and cons and reaching some sort of compromise. Just so you all know, it’s never too late to go back to those times.

I’m a film student now in my third year. As a film student, I get plenty of critique regarding my work--good and bad. It would be so easy to only listen to the good, to tell myself, “Hey, you’re gonna be the next Steven Spielberg one day, you know that?”

Not to sound like an after-school special, but just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s right.

If I never listened to the bad, I’d never improve. I’d never see my flaws; that’d be ignorant of me, because I know that I’m no Spielberg. In the worst case scenario, I’d be resistant to change, to hearing any sort of negative or downside regarding my work.

Sometimes, listening to the bad, your weaker points, or opposing arguments in general makes you stronger. Why? It helps you to make the changes in your line of thinking that will most benefit you.

In modern matters of free speech, a similar phenomenon is occurring. People need to be willing to listen to alternative opinions or we’re never going to get anywhere as a society, as a nation, as a global community or a species. If you spend your life denying the other side its say and demanding that you always have yours, you’re going to run into problems.

Simply put, the world isn’t built with your wants and specifications in mind, as great as that would be. It isn’t built for what any one group or personwants. That other side is always going to exist, whether you like it or not, and you’re going to have to deal with it--no matter how disagreeable it may seem.

It sounds so easy, letting other people have their say in an argument or discussion. But the fact of the matter is, people miss it so easily. Because like I said, it’s so easy to live life with the conviction that you are always right and that nothing else matters. It is hard at times--even for me--to have to listen to something that is debatable, disagreeable or supposedly “not right.” Nobody wants to look like they don’t know what they’re talking about or get one-upped.

But I believe human beings have the ability to express complex thoughts because we were meant to have healthy, flourishing, productive discussion. We were meant to share with one another what we love, hate, fear and hope to be. We were meant to be a people united by a drive to talk, work together and just do the right thing.

Compromise and measured debate make us stronger and get us further. Try getting that from the easy way out.