12 ms·

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 discours

by 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).

by cm3 10y ago

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).