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Fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Glad to see the article mention the more civilized cases of free speech suppression such as the Yale one, in additi

Fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Glad to see the article mention the more civilized cases of free speech suppression such as the Yale one, in addition to the really gruesome and macabre ones across the world. We should prevent a death by a thousand cuts if possible AND obviously do something about the brutality in other parts of the world.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
cm3 10y ago
From what I've seen in the videos of students complaining about missing safe spaces, I wouldn't call it civilized. For Ivy League students, I found the discourse rather uneducated, one-sided, and free of tangible arguments. That said, what wouldn't bother me seems to be a huge discomfort for the complaining students, and they surely had a different upbringing than me for them to feel that way. I mean, I grew up in Western Europe and am likely unaware of some of the finer details in their cultural background.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  They're also kids. Kids make mistakes. Kids get drunk and think posting selfies is the best thing to do at that moment. Kids grow up. They change. They look back and cringe. They think more for themselves than their standing in social circles.
  - rimantas 10y ago
    They are adults.
    - cm3 10y ago
      Or maybe kids who want to be treated as adults but not act like it? It's part of a phase in most kids.
    - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
      I don't know about you but when I turned 18 I didn't immediately set up a budget, open a retirement account, and sign up for a subscription to The Economist. Actually I kinda did but that's besides the point. Not everybody grows up at the same rate.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      That's an awkward part of our society. Yes, legally they are, but we have some social conventions saying they are not. I agree with you that they legally are, and should be treated as such, but it's not so black and white, unfortunately.
  - marcoperaza 10y ago
    In 1944, 18 year olds were storming the beaches of Normandy to liberate Europe. In 2016, 18 year olds demand that college administrators protect their fragile psyches from pro-Trump chalk on the sidewalk. The biggest problem isn't the student protesters, illiberal and hateful though they are. It's the cowardly (or the shrewd politically-motivated) college administrators who acquiesce to their demands for censorship. It's also the fault of the federal government, which has been pushing absurd readings of civil rights laws to force "hate-speech" codes on college campuses. If a society wants its values to survive, it needs to have the confidence to defend them and pass them on to the next generation.
    - TheLarch 10y ago
      I agree with the first and third paragraphs but not the second. I don't believe campus administrators are the weak link. The truism among elementary teachers is: forty years ago, when the student comes home with an F, the parents yelled at the student; today they yell at the teacher. The US has a shortage of skilled trades workers, I think because everyone "deserves" to be a white collar professional now. I am not saying university admins are commendable, but rather that they have no room to do a good job. It's becoming less and less clear what a good job would be, as the liberal arts education becomes more and more of an obvious anachronism. Rather I believe your first paragraph is the larger answer. We have tossed aside the notion for sacrifice for the greater good.
  - TheLarch 10y ago
    I don't disagree in general, but today I believe there is cause to worry. Consider that there is positive correlation between campus outrage and tuition at the college. The richer the students, the more they are outraged. Consider rape in this context. Private colleges are generally relatively safe for women and girls, yet students at these universities regularly protest the "rape culture" they perceive themselves to be enduring. This reflects an embarrassing lack of self-awareness and compassion for women in rural meth centers and decaying urban areas. Anti-semitism is rising as well. Students at these elite institutions are eager to condemn Israel and her supporters, as if the struggle in the occupied territories were morally black and white. If only the Jews would quit being mean the problem would go away. What about the young woman at Yale who cursed at her dormitory head for his unwillingness to police Halloween costumes? Are you sure you're OK with this? I thought the comparison between Islamism and campus authoritarianism in the article was apt.
    - makomk 10y ago
      No-one asked the dormitory head to police Halloween costumes. What actually happened was the university sent out a letter students asking them to think about whether their Halloween costumes were mocking other people, and he insisted that this was an attack on student freedom of speech because having to think about this might make them uncomfortable wearing certain costumes - and we certainly can't have student's thinking about viewpoints outside their own in ways that make them uncomfortable. Because all the recent stuff about student freedom of speech and the importance of exposing students to viewpoints that make them uncomfortable is actually just a push by the right-wing to move universities to the right, the students who objected to this were the ones who were portrayed as being the ones who couldn't cope with views they disagreed with.
      - TheLarch 10y ago
        Erika Christakis' email https://www.thefire.org/email-from-erika-christakis-dressing-yourselves-email-to-silliman-college-yale-students-on-halloween-costumes/ https://www.thefire.org/email-from-erika-christakis-dressing... expresses an unwillingness to police costumes. I don't pretend to know much about the issue though. In my view the hostility to free speech on campus comes from the left, not from the right. Lots of people seem to think of authoritarianism as developing exclusively from the right only, but Stalin is a counterexample.
  - Lawtonfogle 10y ago
    College 'kids' are adults and if they act as children it is only because we enable such behavior by coddling them. I wonder if college would be better for most if they lived a year on their own first. I know I would have gotten more out of college if I had a more concrete view of how the world worked (namely the importance of networking and knowing people).
burkaman 10y ago
I think this article treated the campus free speech debate very fairly, but isn't there a pretty important difference between government suppression and social suppression? As an extreme example, it would be wrong for the government to prosecute the Westboro Baptist Church for their speech, but it's not wrong for the rest of the country to ostracize them. As long as students aren't advocating for actual laws curbing speech, it seems like a fundamentally different category. I'm not saying it's not a problem, I just think it's a different problem. And I think it's important to acknowledge that free speech doesn't mean all speech must be equally respected, it just has to be allowed.
- djrogers 10y ago
  > isn't there a pretty important difference between government suppression and social suppression? Yes, and when government funded public universities suppress and openly support the suppression of free speech, it's very clearly a government problem.
  - burkaman 10y ago
    Yeah that would clearly cross the line. Most of the complaints I've heard are about private universities, or just student movements that don't get much support from the institution. Edit: Actually "clearly" might be a little too strong. Public schools shouldn't be restricted to only reacting to illegal behavior. But in most realistic cases I agree with your comment.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

cm3 10y ago

From what I've seen in the videos of students complaining about missing safe spaces, I wouldn't call it civilized. For Ivy League students, I found the discourse rather uneducated, one-sided, and free of tangible arguments. That said, what wouldn't bother me seems to be a huge discomfort for the complaining students, and they surely had a different upbringing than me for them to feel that way. I mean, I grew up in Western Europe and am likely unaware of some of the finer details in their cultural background.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
They're also kids. Kids make mistakes. Kids get drunk and think posting selfies is the best thing to do at that moment. Kids grow up. They change. They look back and cringe. They think more for themselves than their standing in social circles.
- rimantas 10y ago
  They are adults.
  - cm3 10y ago
    Or maybe kids who want to be treated as adults but not act like it? It's part of a phase in most kids.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    I don't know about you but when I turned 18 I didn't immediately set up a budget, open a retirement account, and sign up for a subscription to The Economist. Actually I kinda did but that's besides the point. Not everybody grows up at the same rate.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    That's an awkward part of our society. Yes, legally they are, but we have some social conventions saying they are not. I agree with you that they legally are, and should be treated as such, but it's not so black and white, unfortunately.
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  In 1944, 18 year olds were storming the beaches of Normandy to liberate Europe. In 2016, 18 year olds demand that college administrators protect their fragile psyches from pro-Trump chalk on the sidewalk. The biggest problem isn't the student protesters, illiberal and hateful though they are. It's the cowardly (or the shrewd politically-motivated) college administrators who acquiesce to their demands for censorship. It's also the fault of the federal government, which has been pushing absurd readings of civil rights laws to force "hate-speech" codes on college campuses. If a society wants its values to survive, it needs to have the confidence to defend them and pass them on to the next generation.
  - TheLarch 10y ago
    I agree with the first and third paragraphs but not the second. I don't believe campus administrators are the weak link. The truism among elementary teachers is: forty years ago, when the student comes home with an F, the parents yelled at the student; today they yell at the teacher. The US has a shortage of skilled trades workers, I think because everyone "deserves" to be a white collar professional now. I am not saying university admins are commendable, but rather that they have no room to do a good job. It's becoming less and less clear what a good job would be, as the liberal arts education becomes more and more of an obvious anachronism. Rather I believe your first paragraph is the larger answer. We have tossed aside the notion for sacrifice for the greater good.
- TheLarch 10y ago
  I don't disagree in general, but today I believe there is cause to worry. Consider that there is positive correlation between campus outrage and tuition at the college. The richer the students, the more they are outraged. Consider rape in this context. Private colleges are generally relatively safe for women and girls, yet students at these universities regularly protest the "rape culture" they perceive themselves to be enduring. This reflects an embarrassing lack of self-awareness and compassion for women in rural meth centers and decaying urban areas. Anti-semitism is rising as well. Students at these elite institutions are eager to condemn Israel and her supporters, as if the struggle in the occupied territories were morally black and white. If only the Jews would quit being mean the problem would go away. What about the young woman at Yale who cursed at her dormitory head for his unwillingness to police Halloween costumes? Are you sure you're OK with this? I thought the comparison between Islamism and campus authoritarianism in the article was apt.
  - makomk 10y ago
    No-one asked the dormitory head to police Halloween costumes. What actually happened was the university sent out a letter students asking them to think about whether their Halloween costumes were mocking other people, and he insisted that this was an attack on student freedom of speech because having to think about this might make them uncomfortable wearing certain costumes - and we certainly can't have student's thinking about viewpoints outside their own in ways that make them uncomfortable. Because all the recent stuff about student freedom of speech and the importance of exposing students to viewpoints that make them uncomfortable is actually just a push by the right-wing to move universities to the right, the students who objected to this were the ones who were portrayed as being the ones who couldn't cope with views they disagreed with.
    - TheLarch 10y ago
      Erika Christakis' email https://www.thefire.org/email-from-erika-christakis-dressing-yourselves-email-to-silliman-college-yale-students-on-halloween-costumes/ https://www.thefire.org/email-from-erika-christakis-dressing... expresses an unwillingness to police costumes. I don't pretend to know much about the issue though. In my view the hostility to free speech on campus comes from the left, not from the right. Lots of people seem to think of authoritarianism as developing exclusively from the right only, but Stalin is a counterexample.
- Lawtonfogle 10y ago
  College 'kids' are adults and if they act as children it is only because we enable such behavior by coddling them. I wonder if college would be better for most if they lived a year on their own first. I know I would have gotten more out of college if I had a more concrete view of how the world worked (namely the importance of networking and knowing people).

burkaman 10y ago

I think this article treated the campus free speech debate very fairly, but isn't there a pretty important difference between government suppression and social suppression? As an extreme example, it would be wrong for the government to prosecute the Westboro Baptist Church for their speech, but it's not wrong for the rest of the country to ostracize them. As long as students aren't advocating for actual laws curbing speech, it seems like a fundamentally different category. I'm not saying it's not a problem, I just think it's a different problem. And I think it's important to acknowledge that free speech doesn't mean all speech must be equally respected, it just has to be allowed.

djrogers 10y ago
> isn't there a pretty important difference between government suppression and social suppression? Yes, and when government funded public universities suppress and openly support the suppression of free speech, it's very clearly a government problem.
- burkaman 10y ago
  Yeah that would clearly cross the line. Most of the complaints I've heard are about private universities, or just student movements that don't get much support from the institution. Edit: Actually "clearly" might be a little too strong. Public schools shouldn't be restricted to only reacting to illegal behavior. But in most realistic cases I agree with your comment.