>What many of these people—the difficult ones, the gossipy ones, the overly gregarious ones—have in common is that they make people uncomfortable. Here, too, a

>What many of these people—the difficult ones, the gossipy ones, the overly gregarious ones—have in common is that they make people uncomfortable. Here, too, a profound generational shift has transpired. “I think people’s tolerance for discomfort—people’s tolerance for dissonance, for not hearing exactly what they want to hear—has now gone down to zero,” one person told me. “Discomfort used to be a term of praise about pedagogy—I mean, the greatest discomforter of all was Socrates.” Yep. I read this article in horror, even though I've heard many of the stories before. I am someone who likes to think out loud, to play devil's advocate, and who likes to flirt. It seems I should reconsider my thoughts of going into journalism or education! Honestly, it is scary to see this country go in such a direction. I wonder if it will simmer down in 10-15 years. My theory is that a lot of the accusations flying around (especially with #metoo) relate to things that occurred before there would be proof of wrongdoing, and before people had the support structure and institutional trust to report it quickly. Now that we live in a country where people can feel more comfortable reporting their abuses more quickly, we won't have cases like Brett Kavanaugh, where it's a he-said/she-said from 30 years ago. To the other points in the article, it does seem to be coming mostly from "the youth". People who have come of age at a time when lots of social norms and forms of interaction have changed, and where Twitter and Facebook have always existed. They don't know a world where, if you don't like something, you just live with it. Now, no matter how foolish it is to expect to never be offended, people can now find thousands of supporters online for any kind of inane qualm one has with their employer, coworker or professor. And it's wrapped in moral superiority. Is there a country in Europe that is beautiful, intellectual, and doesn't yet suffer from this cultural disease?