The way the game is now played, when people encounter a view they don't like or agree with, instead of trying to defeat it with reasons, evidence, and arguments, they try to defame and stigmatize those holding the view in the hope of making them and others afraid to express it.

Defaming and stigmatizing intellectual and political opponents, instead of engaging their arguments, using the proper currency of intellectual discourse--reasons, evidence, arguments--is toxic to a culture. It poisons its politics and its institutions of education at all levels.

If the game is to be changed, it will take people of courage who are willing to defy the mob and stand up to the bullies--bold truth-seekers and truth-tellers from both the left and right who themselves eschew demagoguery and bullying and model the virtues we so desperately need.