College Now Indistinguishable From Nursery School
The part where the nursery school aides tell all the little children what they can and cannot say.
Brendan O'Neill writes at Spiked about the "moral McCarthyism of the war on lads":
The refusal to tolerate jokey, blokey, laddish speech on campus has reached epic proportions. This week something truly shocking happened at the London School of Economics, that supposedly liberal school that allows all sorts of ideas to be aired and discussed: a student rugby club was banned, physically disbanded, after distributing what some considered to be an offensive leaflet at the freshers' fair.The leaflet, highlighting the rugby club's social events for the forthcoming year, referred to the 'beast-like' nature of female rugby players and advised social-event attendees to avoid women who are 'mingers'. It also made a joke about gays. Silly, juvenile stuff. But ban-worthy? Seriously? For the rugby club to have been disciplined, broken up, hurled into disgrace and banned from representing the LSE for a whole year simply for handing out a leaflet with some offensive terms on it is outrageous. No matter how the LSE tries to spin this - it is describing its disbanding of the rugby club as an attempt to 'safeguard and enhance inclusivity' - this is a pretty clear-cut case of students being silenced simply for holding views that offend against mainstream sentiment. The exact same thing that was done to Communist and other radical students at Berkeley 50 years ago: they, too, were silenced for holding what were decreed to be foul and dangerous views.
...Earlier this year the National Union of Students held a Lad Culture Summit - seriously - to devise a 'national strategy' for tackling 'lad culture' on campus. Its targets include 'banter' and 'misogynistic jokes' among young male students, which are apparently especially prominent in 'the social side of university life'.
Banter, jokes - this is speech. Just words. Commentary and discussion among students. What earthly right do student-union officials or university authorities have to devise strategies to eradicate certain forms of speech among students or to ban things that certain students like reading or listening to? No matter how many PC words get attached to these lad-cleansing initiatives - with phrases like 'improving inclusivity' and 'fostering diversity' being bandied about - there is no escaping the fact that this is intolerance. Intolerance of the speech, and fundamentally the thoughts, of a particular section of the student body.
The comparisons with what happened in early 1960s America are striking. Yes, back then it was radical hotheads who were targeted with censure, whereas now it is blokeish hotheads, but in both cases the speech of certain students is depicted as so depraved, so potentially polluting, so likely to inflame instability and violent behaviour, that it must be squished out of existence.
We must challenge this cultural cleansing of lad culture on campus, this all-out moral assault on the speech and ideas of certain young men. No, not because their ideas are particularly enlightened or interesting - many of them are in fact daft - but for the simple reason that individuals' speech should never be the business of officialdom, whether government officialdom or university officialdom.
via @adamkissel
Watch your language, guys. Women and children present.
Ken R at October 10, 2014 4:09 AM
"...referred to the 'beast-like' nature of female rugby players and advised social-event attendees to avoid women who are 'mingers'. It also made a joke about gays."
"... this is a pretty clear-cut case of students being silenced simply for holding views that offend against mainstream sentiment."
Beast-like mingers? This is not an expression of someone's view or sentiment. This is an example of how the girls can't take a little teasing. And what evidence do they have that it's contrary to the prevailing sentiment?
This whole scenario is nothing new. One thing I learned at a very early age is that most girls have very weak, fragile egos and you can't tease them like you do boys. If you do and make them cry the authorities will punish you. In the third grade (1962) I told Dena she looked like a green buzzard (because of the sweater she was wearing). She literally limped up to a teacher and cried, and I had to spend the rest of the recess sitting on the yellow line.
I now work in a profession that is more than 90% female, and what I learned as a child still applies. Say whatever you want to another man and he'll flip you off or laugh you off or go you one better; but watch what you say around the girls or they'll go limping and crying hurt up the chain of command.
A better response for the female rugby players would have been flyers and posters of their own referring to the male rugby club members as prancing pansies or some such, and challenging them to the rugby equivalent of a flag football game, prior to which lots of beer would be consumed and then the day spent playing rugby, having fun and getting to know each other. It would have been even funnier if the gay club challenged the rugby club to a full contact version of some sport.
Years ago I got into a pseudo-heated argument with an elderly male patient over which one of us was ugliest. He actually had the audacity to say right there in front of other patients and my coworkers that he was uglier than me! Well, I could not let that go. I called him a liar, a trouble maker and damn near pretty and we got into it. All the girls stood there with their mouths open looking shocked; except for two women, one a nurse and one a patient, who jumped in on my side and called the old guy handsome. Somebody tattled and later an administrator went to apologize to the patient. He facetiously demanded that she force me and the two women to apologize for saying I was uglier and he was handsome; and he wanted it in writing on the blackboard in the day room. She didn't know how to react so she came and talked to me about upsetting the other staff members. If that had been a female patient I'd have been fired on the spot and possibly had my license suspended for being abusive.
Ken R at October 10, 2014 6:17 AM
My general response. Not for the faint of heart, apparently including 18-50 year old women.
Whatta maroon. The people who banned the rugby lads? they're the same people who where silenced 50 years ago, or supported them. Communists are totalitarians. Free speech for me, but not for thee, you dirty prole.
I R A Darth Aggie at October 10, 2014 6:44 AM
watch what you say around the girls or they'll go limping and crying hurt up the chain of command
I've had the good fortune to know many women who gave back as good as they got, if not better. Sometimes it left a mark, but I got over myself. Wounds to the ego are not life-threatening.
But I got to know them first, and they're definitely outside my chain of command. And I usually allow them to fire the first barbs. After that? game on.
I R A Darth Aggie at October 10, 2014 6:48 AM
I wonder if Michael Philip Jagger could even get into the London School of Economics today with his record of misogyny.
Conan the Grammarian at October 10, 2014 6:52 AM
"The people who banned the rugby lads? they're the same people who where silenced 50 years ago, or supported them. "
That of course is the irony; those campus Communists' views were foul and dangerous. Yet they demanded, and got, the right to speak their minds. Let's see, harm done to humanity by Commmunism vs. harm done to humanity by uncouth rugby players... one of these things is not like the other.
Cousin Dave at October 10, 2014 7:07 AM
Leave a comment