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The University News

The Student News Site of Saint Louis University

The University News

The Student News Site of Saint Louis University

The University News

Start Talking

One of the many definitions that the Oxford English Dictionary ascribes to the term “conversation” is “occupation or engagement with things, in the way of business or study; the resulting condition of acquaintance or intimacy with a matter.”

The word is so common in everyday conversation and prevalent in academic parlance that we sometimes forget what it really means. In the formal sense, the larger conversation in a given field of study is sometimes reduced to a handful of expert articles that we are required to commit to memory. In another sense, the Socratic conversation is all too often replaced by mere talk.

But as most of us have realized, reading a few essays and sitting through a few lectures does not make you a member of the Conversation. Real conversation is characterized by interaction, by words like “engagement,” “study” and “intimacy.”

It is also characterized by an undyingly hopeful attitude-one that, at its core, encourages us to move not away from the unknown but toward it. It values empathy just as highly as skepticism and always prefers an informed failure to an ignorant success. That means really researching a topic you feel passionate about rather than just mouthing off about it, or following up outside the classroom-be it with a student or a professor-on a question that’s still burning a hole in your head.

Participating in the conversation also means interacting with people, not just ideas. And this is why Atlas Week suits Saint Louis University so perfectly: It gives students, faculty, staff and everyone else in the general public the opportunity not only to hear truly first-rate lectures on timely topics, but also to interact with others who are passionate about the exchange of ideas.

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In short, Atlas brings the spirit of conversation, as well as many actual conversations, to the fore-sustaining for a whole week the excitement of hearing new perspectives and testing old ones.

As academics and citizens in an enlightened society, we are called to engage our world with hope as well as passion, to always strive to broaden our perspectives and nurture the commonalities we share with those who are different from us.

Atlas Week’s motto is: “Political & Social Justice in a Global World.” We believe that, where caution has its place, the hope for justice in our world is rooted in the conversation, the engagement.

In a 1963 call for nuclear restraint, President Kennedy said, “In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

Anyone can recite those words, but only those who have found such a connection actually believe them-and choose to live them.

As any student of history knows, when words fail, leaders turn to guns and bombs. We believe that an act as simple as attending–and engaging-an Atlas panel, and perhaps even striking up a conversation with a panelist or another attendee, is the perfect first step along the path to peace and justice.

Students should make every effort to attend at least one or two events, especially Thursday’s keynote by Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams. Professors, likewise, should offer incentives for their students to attend Atlas.

Let’s make the best out of this special week. The world is depending upon it.

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