Violence and the Poverty of Dialogue

On September 10, 2025, in Utah, a public forum intended for the exchange of ideas was shattered by gunfire. What ought to have been a sanctuary for reason became instead a scene of fear and confusion. This was not simply the misfortune of one individual or one gathering. It was, more profoundly, a violation of the very condition upon which public life depends: the freedom to speak, to listen, and to deliberate without fear of annihilation.

Whatever the motive of the shooter, the fact remains that to fire upon words in the very moment of their utterance is to wound the space of dialogue itself. To strike at speech in such a place is to strike at the ground we stand on together as a society. And for this reason, I am compelled to speak.

Experience

At Utah Valley University, a single gunshot halted a live forum. The program ended and people dispersed. Within the first day, public responses divided among condemnation, approval, and calls for restraint. Some posts paired a clip of the event with older quotations attributed to the speaker, and the accuracy of those pairings was contested. Authorities have not confirmed the shooter’s intent or a full, verified timeline. I will confine my remarks to confirmed public facts and refrain from speculation.

Understanding

These facts show that public speech rests on trusted safety. In the United States, we often take that for granted, but history shows how quickly it can fail. In the immediate aftermath, a chair sat empty, a question went unasked, and a microphone fell silent. Across centuries, dialogue has carried knowledge and law, art and civic life, from one generation to the next. Our tools today, from classrooms and books to algorithms, extend that same work. When violence intrudes on speech, it harms more than one person. It injures the process by which communities learn, remember, and grow.

Judgment

The principle is clear: protect safety and speech together. Policy debates will continue, but the urgent danger is a moral one. Documented reactions include celebrations of the harm and claims that it was deserved. That logic destroys civic trust. If force is accepted as conversation, no neighbor, teacher, or family member is safe to speak. A community that confuses violence with discourse cannot sustain truth.

Decision

The responsibility before us is both institutional and personal. Institutions should continue to safeguard public forums and communicate verified updates with care and speed. The deeper challenge lies in the human condition itself, in the moments when emotions surge, when debate feels unbearable, when protests tip into confrontation. In such moments, the decision belongs to each of us.

We can surrender to anger, or we can discipline ourselves to listen. We can lash out, or we can pause to reflect. My decision is to resist rumor and blame, wait for clarity, and then give shape to my thoughts in words. That choice, to choose dialogue over violence and reflection over reaction, is an act of civic faith.

If enough of us make the same choice in homes, in schools, in assemblies, in relationships, and in the public squares of this experiment in political freedom we call the United States, then free speech will not only be protected by law but also renewed in practice. Only then can we fulfill our vocation: to be creatures of reason who keep dialogue as the ground of our common future.

Tomorrow, microphones will again be switched on. Questions will again be asked. Words will again be spoken. What remains to be decided is whether we will allow those words to live.

• Do we still trust the fragile strength of dialogue?

• Or have we quietly accepted the lie that violence speaks louder?

• If bullets replace words, what language will be left for us to inherit?