The turmoil that students feel when their values are challenged is directly tied to their fear of annihilation--of death. Both are a matter of identity and the "self" for the reason that the ability to reason, invent, and separate and defend is that faculty which protects them from natural forces. So the connection between the rhetoric they construct and their essential survival in the world they build is direct in every sense of the word. The affirmation of self has been explicated in three exemplary philosophical traditions: the "nothing exists" rhetoric of Eliatic sophistry, the radical occidental metaphysics of presence in the work of Jacques Derrida, and the paradox of "emptiness" from Zen Buddhism. While the philosophy of Zen is unspeakably subtle and fleeting, the puzzles of paradox, in the form of questions ("koans"), and their responses, are quite reasonably implemented once the student is enabled by them. The point of view on which this pedagogy is carried is the idea that ancient Buddhism, classic sophistry, and the work of Derrida depend equally and everywhere on what might be the oldest trick in the book: creating arguments for the sake of argument and never, simply, to win. In the end the student learns to construct, dissect, and synthesize arguments while having no subjective and, therefore, no political stake in them whatsoever.
