Posted on 11/11/2015 6:06:59 AM PST by Kaslin
It seems like every week there's a new horror story of political correctness run amok at some college campus.
A warning not to wear culturally insensitive Halloween costumes sparked an imbroglio at Yale, which went viral over the weekend. A lecturer asked in an email, "Is there no room anymore for a child to be a little bit obnoxious ... a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive?"
Students went ballistic. When an administrator (who is the lecturer's spouse) defended free speech, some students wanted his head. One student wrote in a Yale Herald op-ed (now taken down), "He doesn't get it. And I don't want to debate. I want to talk about my pain."
Washington Post columnist (and Tufts professor) Daniel Drezner was initially horrified by the spectacle but ultimately backtracked. Invoking Friedrich Hayek's insights from "The Use of Knowledge in Society," Drezner cautions outside observers that "there is an awful lot of knowledge that is local in character, that cannot be culled from abstract principles or detached observers."
As a Hayek fanboy and champion of localism, I should be quite sympathetic. But this time, I think Drezner's initial reaction was closer to the mark. The notion that the Yale incident is an isolated one defies all of the evidence.
Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, and Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, recently wrote a sweeping survey titled "The Coddling of the American Mind" for the Atlantic, in which they cataloged how students are being swaddled in an emotional cocoon.
Taco bars at sorority fundraisers are considered offensive. A group at Duke University deemed phrases such as "man up" too horrible to tolerate. And so on.
The suggestion that the tempest at Yale is an isolated incident reminds me of my favorite line from Thoreau: "Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."
So what is going on?
Well, a lot. Many conservatives want to put all the blame on political correctness or cultural Marxism. And though I think such ideologies certainly belong in the dock, political correctness is now quite old.
Lamentations about it were commonplace when I was in college 25 years ago. Does anyone, other than a few campus hotheads, actually believe universities are more intolerant, bigoted and racist than they were a generation ago?
What has changed are the students. Yes, there has been a lot of ideological indoctrination in which kids are taught that taking offense gives them power. But, again, that idea is old. What's new is the way kids are being raised.
Consider play. Children are hardwired to play. That's how we learn. But what happens when play is micromanaged? St. Lawrence University professor Steven Horwitz argues that it undermines democracy.
Free play -- tag in the schoolyard, pickup basketball at the park, etc. -- is a very complicated thing. It requires young people to negotiate rules among themselves, without the benefit of some third-party authority figure. These skills are hugely important in life. When parents or teachers short-circuit that process by constantly intervening to stop bullying or just to make sure that everyone plays nice, Horwitz argues, "we are taking away a key piece of what makes it possible for free people to be peaceful, cooperative people by devising bottom-up solutions to a variety of conflicts."
The rise in "helicopter parenting" and the epidemic of "everyone gets a trophy" education are another facet of the same problem. We're raising millions of kids to be smart and kind, but also fragile.
And what happens when large numbers of these delicate little flowers are set free to navigate their way through life? They feel unsafe and demand "safe spaces." They feel threatened by uncomfortable ideas and demand "trigger warnings." They might even want written rules or contracts to help them negotiate sexual relations.
In other words, this is the generation the mandarins of political correctness have been waiting for.
The kids from other countries are not promoting their communist ideas here
They are joining the college communist agenda that is already here.
I used to think they were fragile or just young and gullible ... or just stupid, but I have changed my mind.
They are craven opportunists seeking power and totalitarian control over others (led by their professors and administration with the same goals). It’s a Lord of the Flies situation at universities and to an extent now in society in general.
These are not ‘fragile’ little snowflakes as often said. They are very dangerous people who would sooner have you kneeling over a pit with a gun to the back of your head than have an honest discussion about anything.
I am so very sorry that I have come to believe this. However, I feel I have to be realistic if I want me and my family to survive.
This is the “everybody gets a trophy” generation that was praised and told, “good job” every time they defecated or urinated while growing up.
In the era of Twitter, Facebook, instagram and other social media these kids are steeped in the ways of ‘offenedness’ as their moral high ground and sense of dignity. Its all from falsely derived agitations and it shows they can be very easily manipulated. Take away the Bible and the Constitution as their foundations and voila...
They think the "rules" they and their Leftist heroes make up are going to protect them from real life.
You have an interesting opinion.
If they are cultural revolutionaries, their revolution could make the one of the 60’s look like a walk in the park.
What these absolutely mindless nit wits do not do is look into the future to see what they are creating for themselves. They are rich spoiled brats that are berating the very system that made them spoiled brats, and if the system collapses so will the vast majority of them. Everything they vote for will hurt them the hardest.
At the least offense they have a total breakdown and seek the nearest Safe Zone.
Angry, violent thugs.
In the 60s, they tried to take power by being offensive. They insulted, they degraded, deliberately trying to offend someone into making them a “victim” who could take the high ground by virtue of others’ mistakes.
Today, they take power by being offended. Because their “feelings” get hurt, they claim the authority to banish or punish any contrary thought or message.
They claim the right not to be offended, but fail to recognize that this “right” is strictly limited to a person choosing to take offense.
I think somebody read my comment from yesterday and latched onto the idea.
They look much more like organized Marxists to me.
I want to scream at all of them, Grow the f*ck up!
The liberal motto now is, you are saying things that no progressive thinker would agree with so I will defend to YOUR death my right not to hear it.
There is no “Little Billy” in 2015, such a name is hopelessly passe. Now it is DeShawn or LaQuinta or some such, maybe even Plexiglas.
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