The Age Of Meee!!gocentricism
There's never been such a sense of self-importance as there is now on college campuses.
The sense that your individual feelz matter -- to the degree that how you feel should stop other people's education and free speech -- is just shocking to any of us who grew up in a different world; one based on constitutional principles and the sense that you should pull up your pants and get on with life instead of asking the world to diaper you.
This ruins what used to be called a college education. As I've put it before, the feelz-driven protesters are trying to turn college into nursery school with beer. Consider college without the Greek and Roman classics, as Arthur Milikh writes about at City Journal:
This summer, some Columbia University students demanded a ban on Greek and Roman poetry at the Ivy League school. In November, an undercover reporter showed the willingness of Yale, Cornell, and Vassar College administrators literally to shred the U.S. Constitution if students complained that it "triggered" them. Disguising derision as idealism, the postmodern campus aggrievement industry aims to introduce a new standard of wisdom: judging the highest achievements of human knowledge by the unreasoned, spontaneous feelings of uncultivated minds.To be "triggered" means to have a feeling, an immediate sensation of repulsion culminating in aggrievement. The aggrieved seek flattery, but by making feeling the sovereign standard of judgment, the trigger doctrine actively denies the existence of wisdom higher than individual sensation. Unjustified feeling becomes the standard of rule. Such doctrines are infectious because, as the Athenian Stranger says in Plato's Laws, they make believe that "everyone is wise in everything." Everyone has feelings and therefore everyone has a claim to wisdom.
...The ancient poetry that Columbia wants to eradicate, and the modern political philosophy that Yale, Cornell, and Vassar want to shred, teach readers how civilizations are founded and preserved, and give lessons in human folly with a view to correcting the mind's errors. Insolence and impudence rules when a 20-year-old's feelings are considered superior to the wisdom of genuinely venerable sources.
I'm all for people protesting for their beliefs -- no matter how idiotic and backward I think they are. Where I draw the line is when you start shutting down other people's speech -- through laws, rules, or mere intimidation -- and putting administrators out of a job because they didn't toe the approved multi-culti, gender-fluid, "white people must be stomped down" party line.
"As I've put it before, the feelz-driven protesters are trying to turn college into nursery school with beer."
In the "elite" schools whose student body is mostly ruling-class kids, that's pretty much already happened. Two, somewhat diametrically opposite, things are going on here: (1) The kids want more candy and ice cream, and they're going to have screaming tantrums until they get it, and (2) they are exercising their power-politics chops. What we're going to wind up with is a particularly dangerous sort of idiot-savant class -- they will be extraordinarily skilled at persuading/cajoling/threatening people to do what they want, but will have no talents otherwise. They will regard both reason and morals as merely tools to control others, while they themselves need not worry about such things. They will view themselves entitled to rule by birthright, and will be prepared to commit all sorts of atrocities any time they don't get their way.
We've raised a large group of this generation to be malignant narcissists and sociopaths. Looking into the far future, I foresee the day (hopefully after I am gone from this Earth) when it becomes necessary to shoot most of them. No society can survive what's about to happen unless it's nipped in the bud early, and I fear the window has already closed.
Cousin Dave at December 30, 2015 7:23 AM
they will be extraordinarily skilled at persuading/cajoling/threatening people to do what they want, but will have no talents otherwise
I don't know that we'll have to shoot most of them, CD. Tho that is one option.
No, such people are remarkably dangerous once they grasp the levers of actual power. They'll presume that such techniques will work on others around the world.
Until the run into their version of Putin, or a Jinping, or Khomeini who actually understand that much of human history is ruled by the ability to back up those threats with actual force and the will to win.
I suspect these children to get us into a shooting war with someone who won't be satisfied with just winning the current war but with unconditional surrender as their objective.
Ideally they'll turn this future ruling class into blood pudding. Then the rest of us can mop up the rest.
I R A Darth Aggie at December 30, 2015 7:53 AM
Welcome to the self esteem movement. We can't actually do anything, but we feel great about that. And if you say mean things we'll throw a tantrum till we get our way.
Ben at December 30, 2015 8:05 AM
"...nursery school with beer."
HA!! You made coffee come out my nose, but it was totally worth it. Instant classic! Mind if I borrow that?
bkmale at December 30, 2015 8:46 AM
Triggering and tantrums are just tactics for bullies to get their way. The point is not getting rid of Greek and Roman poetry per se. The point is moving it out of the way, so that class time that used to be spent studying the Classics can be replaced with indoctrination into Social Justice orthodoxy.
These tactics wouldn't be working so well if so many administrators and faculty weren't such spineless sacks of shit.
Martin at December 30, 2015 9:26 AM
Because Western Civilization is inherently evil and studying it as anything but a cancer on human development must be stopped.
Conan the Grammarian at December 30, 2015 10:15 AM
My belief in college and in real life is that the "administration" (or society at large) doesn't give a flip about my feelings, that one must be on guard against indifference and injustice no matter who you are, that life isn't fair. Even being white, it is easy to get passed over for promotion, to be ignored for raises, to be the subject of gossip, because the "system" just has no feelings.
I never in school heard anyone complain that course material triggered them. It would have been a complaint that no-one would have even understood. Growing up in a sheltered world where you don't even get out of your car to pick up your frappacino and have never slept on the ground or dealt with wild animals, and being ignorant of history, these kids are imagining hardships and insults because they have no context. You don't see veterans getting into this silliness because boot camp gives you some context for what hardship is.
I had a ficus tree in my office. Brought it home in the back of my van (inside the car). It dropped all its leaves and never recovered so we later tossed it. These kids are like that, no toughness.
Craig Loehle at December 30, 2015 11:01 AM
Martin,
I disagree that administrators are spineless sacks of shit. They are collaborators. The protests are just a pretext to do what they already wanted to do. (Still sacks of shit, just not quite so spineless)
Ben at December 30, 2015 11:04 AM
Probably true, Ben. Be they cowards or collaborators, all of this reflects very badly on them.
I'm just glad I got my (engineering) degree back in the 80s and never had to put up with this #$%$ in any of my classes.
Martin at December 30, 2015 11:20 AM
A lot of the descriptions in the above comments really define many of the adults in our world already.
Asking about the data used for "climate change" (sensor locations, data manipulation, origin of 100, 200, etc. year records, and so on) = denial = unlawful speech, MSM bias against flyover country mores, pro-life objections = "war" against women's health (Planned Parenthood is the new Catholic Church - can not touch), and so on.
I think the bad news is that we are already "here" and the kids are just picking up on the obvious.
Bob in Texas at December 30, 2015 11:33 AM
Yeah, the administrators are sympatico. They are, after all, the ones who developed the tactics and set the example. They throw up their hands, say "there's nothing we can do"; they are "forced to resign" so they can deploy their golden parachutes, while letting the students feel like they won something. There's an awful lot of kabuki theater in the whole process.
Cousin Dave at December 30, 2015 11:36 AM
Earworm (not trigger) warning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQkXXBqj_U
Pirate Jo at December 30, 2015 12:32 PM
Earworm (not trigger) warning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQkXXBqj_U
Pirate Jo at December 30, 2015 12:32 PM
(Sorry for the double.)
Pirate Jo at December 30, 2015 12:33 PM
Martin,
I graduated in 2002. The engineering college is fairly separate at most colleges. You see the loonies on the way to class or around the dorms. But very very few (like two) of these people can handle engineering classes.
Something about having easily shown correct answers and mathematically rigid rules acts like kryptonite to these people.
Ben at December 30, 2015 2:27 PM
We've raised a large group of this generation to be malignant narcissists and sociopaths. Looking into the far future, I foresee the day (hopefully after I am gone from this Earth) when it becomes necessary to shoot most of them.
By "we," I assume you mean "modern parents," as they're the ones that raised the malignant narcissists and sociopaths.
Kevin at December 30, 2015 6:57 PM
I suspect these people are on the street in numbers.
This evening I was in a traffic jam - stopped on I-26. It was clear.
Apparently, panic ensued because it was dark and the road had a kink in it. A pack of about 150 cars came to a stop.
Radwaste at December 30, 2015 8:35 PM
If the world wants to go to hell, I wish it would wait until I'm dead.
Patrick at December 31, 2015 12:00 AM
My teenage/YA Pagan self would have played the minority religion card if they'd tried to ban that stuff back when I was in school. We would have had a victimization showdown!!!! It would have been epic.
I would have organized a pagan student club ritual featuring only Greek and Roman poetry.
NicoleK at December 31, 2015 6:02 AM
Probably Sappho's. And then we would have retreated to our bedrooms to further explore the Sapphic arts.
Ah, college. Good times.
NicoleK at December 31, 2015 6:02 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKcWu0tsiZM
lujlp at December 31, 2015 8:47 AM
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