Two College Presidents Advocate For The Coddle Experience
I know Barry Glassner and like him as a human, but I'm dismayed by the LA Times op-ed he co-authored with Morton Schapiro. Both are college presidents. Barry was a former USC sociology prof who wrote The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things.
Well, now the wrong thing we're afraid of is ever offending anyone. And anyone and everyone on college campuses is ready to step up and claim to be offended -- by just about anything and everything. It seems to me to have become a means of having status -- victim status -- and being "special" because of it.
The first problem with their op-ed is that they mush in examples of racist scrawlings on posters and cocktail party flubs -- "You don't look Jewish" (which I've gotten a lot) -- with the "trigger warnings" and "micro-agressions" now rolling back campus thought and speech.One of us watched a brilliant young African American woman who had been highly engaged on campus and in her course work, an "A" student, recoil from her classes and her classmates after returning to her dormitory one afternoon. There, in the place she had come to consider her home halfway across the country from where she grew up, she was confronted with racist slurs scrawled on posters she had put up as part of a job she held on campus to help cover expenses.
Less traumatic but nonetheless deeply upsetting are those little comments that haunt us all -- when someone compliments an Asian American from Ohio on his "good English" or orders drinks from an African American guest at a cocktail party. Both of us, when we were younger, were told that we didn't "look Jewish." If such remarks don't wound us to the core, why is it that we remember them for a lifetime?
I dealt with a lot of Jew hatred growing up. I remember the lady, Mrs. M., who, uh, complimented my mother, "You're not like other Jews..."
But this sort of remark has nothing to do with a professor putting out a trigger warning syllabus every time they want to assign "The Great Gatsby."
And that practice -- and the culture behind it -- is killing free speech and free inquiry on campus, and, as Greg Lukianoff points out, hurting people's ability to debate in general in this country.
Key line from Glassner and Schapiro's piece:
And we've both heard from counseling staff about students who were victims of sexual and other abuse who experienced setbacks after being exposed to course materials without having been given an opportunity to prepare themselves psychologically.
As I've said here before: If you are this fragile, the institution you belong in is not one of higher learning but the sort of place where the kind nursie will bring you another tray of blocks.
(This sort of thinking -- that students must be coddled -- leads to this sort of idiocy.)
Related: Schapiro should spend less time writing op-eds about how students should be coddled and more time advocating for free speech and free inquiry (over "branding!") at Northwestern.
I get "You don't look Swiss!" and "So do you speak Swedish?" a lot.
It feels less like aggression and more a comment on the state of American geographical knowledge.
NicoleK at September 1, 2015 5:58 AM
Right, NicoleK.
Amy Alkon at September 1, 2015 6:00 AM
"There, in the place she had come to consider her home halfway across the country from where she grew up, she was confronted with racist slurs scrawled on posters she had put up as part of a job she held on campus to help cover expenses."
Since the vast majority of these incidents turn out to be hoaxes perputrated by the "victim", let's just say I'll believe it when they can show me the surveillance video.
Cousin Dave at September 1, 2015 6:28 AM
Why not tell us what these "slurs" are?
lujlp at September 1, 2015 9:23 AM
Also, just from personal experience, the only racial slurs I ever heard growing up were from racist CHARTERERS in media, and from the minority group that the slurs were supposed to opress.
lujlp at September 1, 2015 9:25 AM
"Both of us, when we were younger, were told that we didn't "look Jewish." If such remarks don't wound us to our core, why is it that we remember them for a lifetime?"
There are Jews out there who are so immediately, obviously Jewish that you can tell they're Jews from a mile away. Like these guys for instance:
http://www.pbase.com/image/37024583
There are other Jews out there who you'd never know were Jewish if they didn't tell you. If someone casually pointing this out causes you lifelong trauma, then you belong in bed with a blankie and a pacifier, and not in front of a university classroom teaching young adults about the facts of life.
Martin at September 1, 2015 10:20 AM
"And we've both heard from counseling staff about students who were victims of sexual and other abuse who experienced setbacks after being exposed to course materials without having been given an opportunity to prepare themselves psychologically."
This is the nutshell of this whole sad issue.
This line of thought imagines that people who have been abused are not a small group, but are common. Therefore the idea is that it is entirely reasonable to make everyone else change to cater to them...
Rather than help them to heal and become as whole as possible.
I've noticed a lot of progressive ideas take this same course, of essentially making every one equally miserable rather than have equal opportunity. Harrison Bergeron, as they say.
A certain unfortunate group of humans will always have PTSD of some form or other, and we should try to help them recover, or at least learn to understand their issue.
So the neighbor who has all the lights on and plays loud music on July 4th... is actually trying to drown out the explosions of fireworks, that put him back in a dark jungle in 'Nam.
Eventually the nice caretaker buys him some very nice shooting headphones, that automatically mute explosive sounds, while letting him listen to his TV show... and he doesn't have to go back to hell anymore.
But these characters don't care about that kind of PTSD, the actually dangerous kind, do they?
If the people who are actually triggered by something in their past were helped out by the mental health caretakers of their respective colleges, boy howdy, wouldn't we get a handle on how big this problem ACTUALLY is...
So we could come to some ACTUAL conclusions about ACTUALLY preventing some of this?
Then you might be able to design a plan that would help the person who needs help, and not encumber everyone else, to change what books they read.
Oh, I know that stupidtalk, right... I mean aren't we trying to convince everyone that the wrong word from the wrong guy to a girl who has never been out of the safe embrace of her parents and cliques, is identical to the smells and feels of a bar scene that might make a woman who was assaulted relive the night she was molested?
Imagine how easy it would be to control everyone by convincing them that they will be triggered by something, and that you can control that.
You only look like a cynic or paranoid until it's proven true...
SwissArmyD at September 1, 2015 10:56 AM
Wait?! NicoleK, you mean you don't go around wearing lederhosen and yodeling all day?
charles at September 1, 2015 7:12 PM
wow what a body
george at September 1, 2015 8:33 PM
" I remember the lady, Mrs. M., who, uh, complimented my mother, "You're not like other Jews..."'
My white BIL made that comment to my parents "You're not like other Hispanics..you have money.." Ooh ouch my step-father was gonna reach over and choke him
Anyways marriage didn't last a year. Who would have thought someone that hates black people wouldn't make a suitable partner?
Ppen at September 1, 2015 9:20 PM
Leave a comment