Welcome To Weenie World: The College Campus Nearest You
Psychology Today's Hara Estroff Marano interviews social scientist Jonathan Haidt about the wussification of young Americans on college campuses these days:
JH: Western society has transitioned from an honor culture to a dignity culture and now is shifting into a culture of victimhood. In the culture of honor, each person has to earn honor and, unable to tolerate a slight, takes action himself. The big advance in Western society was to let the law handle serious offenses and ignore the inevitable minor ones--what sociologists call the culture of dignity, which reigned in the 20th century. It allows diversity to flourish because different people can live near each other without killing each other. The past 20-30 years, however, has seen the rise of a victimhood culture, where you're hypersensitive to slights as in the honor culture, but you never take care of it yourself. You always appeal to a third party to punish for you. And here's the big concept--you become morally dependent. Young people are becoming morally dependent; they are also less able to solve problems on their own. An adult has always been there somewhere to protect them or punish for them. This attitude does not begin in college. Students have been raised to be morally dependent.HEM: The shocking part is that colleges are abetting the infantilization of students. For example, they sponsor "puppy days" so that students can pet dogs to relieve the--oh horrors!--stress of exams. It sounds so innocuous but providing such Pooh Bear crib comforts is flat-out capitulation to weakness.
JH: There are three reasons why colleges are doing this. One is the increasing consumer mindset that sweeps through many institutions in market-based societies. There used to be different goods and virtues in institutions outside the market, such as the academy. The academy is now a market-based institution; you have to give the customer what he wants.
HEM: Do you feel that acutely as a professor?
JH: I don't have the trust and respect of my students as much as I did 20 years ago. On first meeting me, students address me using my first name rather than Professor, a sign of familiarity. A more important change is that universities live in terror of lawsuits and losing federal aid. The Obama administration's justice department very much buys into the victimhood culture--the idea that people are fragile and discrimination is so rampant and damaging that we must have zero tolerance toward it. What counts as sexual harassment no longer reflects what a reasonable person would agree is harassment. If any speech is unwelcome, a student can file charges, and every university must investigate the charge. All of us now live in fear that a single word, a single tweet, can suck us into a vortex of investigations and social media shame. Third is the sincere belief of the academic community in the culture of victimhood. Most professors are horrified by trigger warnings and microaggressions. But these things flourish in the identity studies departments, gender studies, race studies, and among any group charged with promoting diversity. These three forces are converging so that everybody's walking on eggshells, afraid of being sued or accused.
What truly is amazing is how feminism now involves running to "Daddy" to solve things. "Women as equals" today looks a lot like women throughout history who needed a man to protect them.
Marano's book on this subject: A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting
I wonder if this type of thinking is also playing out in our political process.
Letting "someone else" take care of immediate emergencies (New Orleans Katrina, gun-free zones, allowing men to impregnate girls at will, ...) seems to be the new norm in the FB posts of my Democratic "friends".
Being prepared for emergencies (carry whether concealed or not, emergency supplies in car if in rural areas, pro-life, skeptical of #BLM stuff, ...) are the norm for my Conservative leaning "friends" (mostly female).
Might just be rural vs. urban.
Bob in Texas at October 15, 2015 6:09 AM
"allowing men to impregnate girls at will" ?????
Bob, can you tell me exactly where this is allowed so I can move there tonight?
Jay J. Hector at October 15, 2015 7:29 AM
There is a rural vs. urban political divide Bob. But that is mainly because it matches the two philosophies you mentioned. There is a huge divide among women over marriage. Unmarried women almost uniformly vote Democrat. While married women almost uniformly vote Republican. As Amy has mentioned this is the government as spouse philosophy.
The philosophy difference comes first. There is a rural vs. urban divide because the one philosophy isn't compatible with rural living. You can't be dependent on other people when there are no other people out there.
Ben at October 15, 2015 8:15 AM
It already has in California. The state uses public referenda to determine controversial issues - issues on which no state legislator wants to risk his political career by taking a stand or stating a position.
Example:
Gay marriage was too risky to take a position on, so it was dumped to a public referendum. And voted down, so it was then moved to the courts where it was upheld.
The legislators refuse to do their jobs by taking positions on controversial issues, so the courts basically govern California under the now-standard procedure for passing laws here: hold a public referendum ==> sue when the outcome is not the one desired.
Conan the Grammarian at October 15, 2015 9:04 AM
What JH says about "sexual harassment" has been true in workplaces much longer than on campus, and there's been plenty of time for groups like IJ to sue and have it overturned. So why haven't they? Is the Federal government already so controlled by "political correctness" that sanity is a lost cause?
Perhaps we need a general boycott of PC-ism and its supporters. If no one else starts one, I will.
jdgalt at October 15, 2015 11:08 AM
re Jay J.;
"Black women are more likely to have children outside of marriage than other racial or ethnic groups. In that year [2013] , about 72% of births to black women were non-marital births."
If a person is really interested in improving the next generation's ability to succeed in life then there would be more honest discussion about "choices", "lifestyles", and "personal responsibility" w/o condemnation. The facts are bad enough w/o wasting time on PC stuff.
Some things can not be fixed by a $15/hr. minimum wage. Child care workers would also want $15/hr. as well so ...
(Teacher unions might take a hit as well for passing kids for social reasons.)
https://singlemotherguide.com/single-mother-statistics/#identifier_34_13
Bob in Texas at October 15, 2015 11:13 AM
Except that the Academy is NOT market-based, but more marketing-based. If it was actually MARKET-based, there would be constant efforts to be more efficient, and drive costs lower.
I'd say they were more of a distributed monopoly, with various capture efforts from individual member institutions. Especially given the tight linkage between Federal Aid (grants and loans) and tuition rates. . .
I would also point out that tenure gets supported by the effective monopoly: in a purely market-based system, you'd have seniority, but no guarantees. . .
Keith Glass at October 15, 2015 11:51 AM
No incentive to drive costs lower. Each university can get $5,000 per student per semester - the maximum for a student loan. Just make sure the student signs the disbursement over to the school so the school gets it all. That's how the for-profit schools do it.
With supplemental loans, they can get even more.
Conan the Grammarian at October 15, 2015 1:20 PM
Apparently this type of thinking has dripped down the scholastic ladder as well.
Here we have a famously honored teacher of 30 years suing the LA school district for $1B - a class action lawsuit on behalf of himself and all other older teachers who have faced kangaroo courts aimed at stripping them of their pensions.
His crime?
Teaching Mark Twain.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at October 15, 2015 8:31 PM
I think you are overreacting on the puppy thing, although it might be kinda cruel to puppies to be manhandled by random people.
But colleges have always had silly, fun activities... , hikimg days, milk and crackers at night, etc.
You know when they really infantalized people was in the 50s and 60s when they had dorm parents and curfews and no boys allowed in the dorms.
I'm not sure college has ever been a hotbed of adulthood.
NicoleK at October 15, 2015 9:05 PM
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