The Psychology of Campus PC

[Mac1958]

Mizzou is suffering and who knows how long it will remain open. The enrollment is dangerously down and the donations have dried up. The school is so empty that they are using the dorm rooms as hotel rooms.

Colleges have certainly always leaned Left, a function of the age of the students and the ideological demographics of educators. But the Regressive Left became emboldened by the Obama victories, and decided it was time to reveal its illiberal, authoritarian impulses.

Traditional liberalism has largely been replaced by leftist authoritarianism, and the chorus against it continues to grow. Thank goodness.
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[JoeB131]

Colleges have certainly always leaned Left, a function of the age of the students and the ideological demographics of educators. But the Regressive Left became emboldened by the Obama victories, and decided it was time to reveal its illiberal, authoritarian impulses.

Traditional liberalism has largely been replaced by leftist authoritarianism, and the chorus against it continues to grow. Thank goodness.

Guy, I was in college in the 1980's. Kids were just as PC and self-important then as they are now.

They lost their shit just as much over Reagan as they are now over Trump.

 

[JoeB131]

Hey, True Story.

1985, Book of Virtues phony Bill Bennett was Secretary of Education. and he made some stupid comment about how College Students needed to divest themselves of stereos and spring breaks rather than seek Financial Aid the government wanted to cut.

Well, you know what happened when he came to UIC? A bunch of students gathered where he was speaking and shouted him down, and he gave up and went home.

And while what he said was kind of obnoxious, it isn't nearly as obnoxious as what Coulter and Milo and Mac's other heroes say on a daily basis.

 

[tycho1572]

I'm glad these people are being associated with democrats.

 

[Mac1958]

I'm glad these people are being associated with democrats.

You should be. Trump supporters should be sending them Thank You cards regularly.
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[Mac1958]

I don't know how many people here know Sam Harris, but I'm a BIG fan. He's a brilliant liberal neuroscientist/atheist who is horrified by the Regressives and puts up with a great deal of shit from the Left because he has been crusading against the Regressives for a few years now (along with his liberal associates Dave Rubin, Maajid Nawaz, Christopher Hitchens [RIP] and others)....

If you have some time, Harris interviews sociologist Nicholas Christakis, a physician who conducts research on biosocial science, about what Sam calls the "hostility to dialogue among students that one could scarcely imagine possible", and "mob behavior and moral panic".

Facing the Crowd
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[JoeB131]

I don't know how many people here know Sam Harris, but I'm a BIG fan. He's a brilliant liberal neuroscientist/atheist who is horrified by the Regressives and puts up with a great deal of shit from the Left because he has been crusading against the Regressives for a few years now (along with his liberal associates Dave Rubin, Maajid Nawaz, Christopher Hitchens [RIP] and others)....

If you have some time, Harris interviews sociologist Nicholas Christakis, a physician who conducts research on biosocial science, about what Sam calls the "hostility to dialogue among students that one could scarcely imagine possible", and "mob behavior and moral panic".

You can trot out all the little whiners you want, but we aren't at the "Civil Discussion" phase right now.

We are at the, "Let's stop the bastards before they start loading us onto cattle cars on the way to the Concentration Camp" phase.

 

[Mac1958]

I don't know how many people here know Sam Harris, but I'm a BIG fan. He's a brilliant liberal neuroscientist/atheist who is horrified by the Regressives and puts up with a great deal of shit from the Left because he has been crusading against the Regressives for a few years now (along with his liberal associates Dave Rubin, Maajid Nawaz, Christopher Hitchens [RIP] and others)....

If you have some time, Harris interviews sociologist Nicholas Christakis, a physician who conducts research on biosocial science, about what Sam calls the "hostility to dialogue among students that one could scarcely imagine possible", and "mob behavior and moral panic".

You can trot out all the little whiners you want, but we aren't at the "Civil Discussion" phase right now.

We are at the, "Let's stop the bastards before they start loading us onto cattle cars on the way to the Concentration Camp" phase.

As usual, I have posted a LONG list of liberals with whom I agree. Including Barack Obama, Van Jones, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

As usual, you have responded by diverting away from them and trying desperately to make this all about me alone.

You bitch & whine that I don't communicate with you, and this is why: You are intellectually dishonest in the extreme. Constantly.

And I have NO doubt that NONE of what I just typed will sink in, in the LEAST.


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[JoeB131]

As usual, I have posted a LONG list of liberals with whom I agree. Including Barack Obama, Van Jones, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

I don't care if you got a stone tablet inscribed by God, buddy. Your argument is still bullshit.

As usual, you have responded by diverting away from them and trying desperately to make this all about me alone.

Well, maybe those other people made a speech about this once, you are the one who gets on here and whines about it every day while displaying your Islamophobia pretty openly.

You bitch & whine that I don't communicate with you, and this is why: You are intellectually dishonest in the extreme. Constantly.

No, guy, the reason why you don't communicate is that I slap your ass down when you argue a false premise. I simply don't let you get away with any bullshit like claiming Campus PC elected Trump.

Campus PC didn't elect Trump.. Uneducated assholes in the Rust belt did.

 

[Mac1958]

As usual, I have posted a LONG list of liberals with whom I agree. Including Barack Obama, Van Jones, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

I don't care if you got a stone tablet inscribed by God, buddy. Your argument is still bullshit.

As usual, you have responded by diverting away from them and trying desperately to make this all about me alone.

Well, maybe those other people made a speech about this once, you are the one who gets on here and whines about it every day while displaying your Islamophobia pretty openly.

You bitch & whine that I don't communicate with you, and this is why: You are intellectually dishonest in the extreme. Constantly.

No, guy, the reason why you don't communicate is that I slap your ass down when you argue a false premise. I simply don't let you get away with any bullshit like claiming Campus PC elected Trump.

Campus PC didn't elect Trump.. Uneducated assholes in the Rust belt did.

Perfect, thanks.
.

 

[JoeB131]

Perfect, thanks.

Yes, Mac, it's a good thing that you need others to make your argument for you, as you are incapable of doing it yourself.

(HT to L.K Elder for pointing that out.)

 

[Mac1958]

Perfect, thanks.

Yes, Mac, it's a good thing that you need others to make your argument for you, as you are incapable of doing it yourself.

(HT to L.K Elder for pointing that out.)

Oh, it pleases me much more when you folks do it for me.

I just toss the softballs up in the air, you jump in, and WHACK! Right out of the park!


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[JoeB131]

Oh, it pleases me much more when you folks do it for me.

I just toss the softballs up in the air, you jump in, and WHACK! Right out of the park!

well, no, guy, what you do is set up a crazy premise based on false premises, and when someone challenges your defense of bigotry, you lose your shit.

 

[Correll]

Wow, if you can invest 19 minutes, here's a fascinating conversation between liberals Sam Harris (one of my 3 favorite thinkers) and Johnathon Haidt on how we came to a point at which our college students must run to "safe spaces" to avoid being injured by words.

At about 7:45, Haidt posits the theory that this especially pernicious and virulent strain of PC is the result of children who are now of college age becoming dependent, essentially from birth, on an authority figure to whom they can run when they are challenged in any way.

Interesting stuff. These two liberals are fairly horrified by what they're seeing, and they're trying to find the root causes of this madness.
.

I've read Haidt, he is one of MY favorite thinkers.

I will certainly watch this when I have some time, thanks.

 

[Mac1958]

Oh, it pleases me much more when you folks do it for me.

I just toss the softballs up in the air, you jump in, and WHACK! Right out of the park!

well, no, guy, what you do is set up a crazy premise based on false premises, and when someone challenges your defense of bigotry, you lose your shit.

And there we go: Just as I point out in Post 128, I quote a long list of liberals, and you deflect and try to make it about me.

You don't even see it. I can POINT IT OUT and you do it, right away. And you'll keep doing it, guaranteed.

The psychology of ideology continues to fascinate me. You're like a little, wet, wormy thing, wiggling around in my mental Petri dish.
.

 

[Mac1958]

Wow, if you can invest 19 minutes, here's a fascinating conversation between liberals Sam Harris (one of my 3 favorite thinkers) and Johnathon Haidt on how we came to a point at which our college students must run to "safe spaces" to avoid being injured by words.

At about 7:45, Haidt posits the theory that this especially pernicious and virulent strain of PC is the result of children who are now of college age becoming dependent, essentially from birth, on an authority figure to whom they can run when they are challenged in any way.

Interesting stuff. These two liberals are fairly horrified by what they're seeing, and they're trying to find the root causes of this madness.
.

I've read Haidt, he is one of MY favorite thinkers.

I will certainly watch this when I have some time, thanks.

Harris would really talk about other stuff, but he's horrified.
.

 

[Correll]

Wow, if you can invest 19 minutes, here's a fascinating conversation between liberals Sam Harris (one of my 3 favorite thinkers) and Johnathon Haidt on how we came to a point at which our college students must run to "safe spaces" to avoid being injured by words.

At about 7:45, Haidt posits the theory that this especially pernicious and virulent strain of PC is the result of children who are now of college age becoming dependent, essentially from birth, on an authority figure to whom they can run when they are challenged in any way.

Interesting stuff. These two liberals are fairly horrified by what they're seeing, and they're trying to find the root causes of this madness.
.

I've read Haidt, he is one of MY favorite thinkers.

I will certainly watch this when I have some time, thanks.

Harris would really talk about other stuff, but he's horrified.
.

As well he should be.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Haidt also points out the role college Presidents are playing to exacerbate this:

"The university Presidents, faced with demands from students, cannot say no. So the students give them an ultimatum, demanding that they (capitulate). So all over the country, these Presidents are giving in, they're caving in, they're validating this victim narrative, and they're promising to do things - like more micro-aggression training, more diversity training -which are going to make things worse."
.

Well, now there's the thing. University presidents can say "no." They, as Haidt points out regarding professors, just don't want the hassle. Well, excuse me, but dealing with that "hassle" is part of the job of educating young people.

Young adults are in college as much to learn about physics, math, history and so on as to learn how to be a mature adult. It's why kids leave home and live as part of a campus community -- to learn how to handle themselves as adults in a multifarious community. [1] One aspect of that lesson involves learning how not to be a victim, and the other part entails learning how not to be brute. It's about learning how to be a well balanced, I suppose some might call it "well adjusted," member of society.

When a university president and his staff acquiesce to the demands borne of a student's bruised feelings, they deny the kid part of their education. They also tacitly cede part of their job as the educator, the one with the knowledge and experience students are there to obtain and vicariously learn from, that the student is better suited to teach himself. Well, if that be so, why does the institution, its administration and instructors exist?

Colleges and universities, as successful corporations and individuals generally do , need to say: "This" is the kind of place this institution is, and you can come here to learn or you can choose a different school, but if you come here "such and such" is what you'll experience, "thus and such" are among the challenges you'll have to learn to overcome, and you can come here and do so, or you can go elsewhere, but this institution isn't changing merely to assuage your tender feelings and desire not to be put on the spot.

One doesn't matriculate to a school to change the school, one goes there to be changed, to be developed by the school. That only happens when the school doesn't mollycoddle its students. I happen to construe doing that as a dereliction of their duty as presidents, deans, chancellors, etc. The core reason those people have those roles is to guide young people and strengthen them, and part of that of that requires saying -- at the right times, but not all the time -- "get over it; deal with it in a rational and civilized manner."

I've said this several times on USMB and I practice it all the time in my life. One simply does not need to react to every damn slight that others may direct one's way. Yet reacting to everything seems to be the norm, and I really don't know why. Among the lessons of my youth was learning what to dignify with a response and what to dismiss, to consign to ignominy by simply ignoring it. Well, if one didn't learn how to do that before graduating from high school, college is about the last good place to do so.

Am I suggesting that one should ignore every slight? No, of course not. Instances of personal effrontery are best and most often rightly ignored because all of it is just words, and most of it comes from sources that, if one ignores them and their speaker, have no real impact on one's life. Moreover much of it is intended to make one descend to the speaker's level. And what good comes of that? None. On the other hand, slights that are symptomatic of a actual ill in society, one that is larger than just one's own hurt feelings, a slight that is a manifestation of something that needs correcting in order to improve the community/culture/society itself, well, that should not be ignored.

For example, when on USMB someone takes to attacking another member personally, the point of objection to the attack should not be that an individual was berated, but rather that by forbearing the slight, we permit a boor to distract and divert the conversation from its purpose and contributes to there being chaos in the community. And, if I'm honest, though I don't care much for being insulted, I care even less for general chaos and incoherent or uncompelling discourse.

It comes down to there being a time and place for everything. One's singularly hurt feelings rarely if ever alone make for the right time, place or reason to get in an uproar over slights real or imagined.



Note:

1. Who the hell ever condoned the notion of allowing college undergraduates to attend and not live on campus is beyond me. That strikes me as among the worst ideas any college ever implemented. Even for myself, the experience of living and interacting closely with peers who had very different backgrounds than I proved as informative as anything I learned in the classroom. I say that as someone who went to boarding school for junior high and high school where I learned how to live in "household" and as part of a close community of people who were not related to me. What made living on the college campus different was that most people weren't just like me -- smart, industrious, well traveled, broadly exposed to what life offers, curious, sporting, good humored, etc. -- which they all were in junior and senior high. Even the handful of black kids were; they just happened to be black.

 

[G.T.]

Perfect, thanks.

Yes, Mac, it's a good thing that you need others to make your argument for you, as you are incapable of doing it yourself.

(HT to L.K Elder for pointing that out.)

 

[Mac1958]

Haidt also points out the role college Presidents are playing to exacerbate this:

"The university Presidents, faced with demands from students, cannot say no. So the students give them an ultimatum, demanding that they (capitulate). So all over the country, these Presidents are giving in, they're caving in, they're validating this victim narrative, and they're promising to do things - like more micro-aggression training, more diversity training -which are going to make things worse."
.

Well, now there's the thing. University presidents can say "no." They, as Haidt points out regarding professors, just don't want the hassle. Well, excuse me, but dealing with that "hassle" is part of the job of educating young people.

Young adults are in college as much to learn about physics, math, history and so on as to learn how to be a mature adult. It's why kids leave home and live as part of a campus community -- to learn how to handle themselves as adults in a multifarious community. [1] One aspect of that lesson involves learning how not to be a victim, and the other part entails learning how not to be brute. It's about learning how to be a well balanced, I suppose some might call it "well adjusted," member of society.

When a university president and his staff acquiesce to the demands borne of a student's bruised feelings, they deny the kid part of their education. They also tacitly cede part of their job as the educator, the one with the knowledge and experience students are there to obtain and vicariously learn from, that the student is better suited to teach himself. Well, if that be so, why does the institution, its administration and instructors exist?

Colleges and universities, as successful corporations and individuals generally do , need to say: "This" is the kind of place this institution is, and you can come here to learn or you can choose a different school, but if you come here "such and such" is what you'll experience, "thus and such" are among the challenges you'll have to learn to overcome, and you can come here and do so, or you can go elsewhere, but this institution isn't changing merely to assuage your tender feelings and desire not to be put on the spot.

One doesn't matriculate to a school to change the school, one goes there to be changed, to be developed by the school. That only happens when the school doesn't mollycoddle its students. I happen to construe doing that as a dereliction of their duty as presidents, deans, chancellors, etc. The core reason those people have those roles is to guide young people and strengthen them, and part of that of that requires saying -- at the right times, but not all the time -- "get over it; deal with it in a rational and civilized manner."

I've said this several times on USMB and I practice it all the time in my life. One simply does not need to react to every damn slight that others may direct one's way. Yet reacting to everything seems to be the norm, and I really don't know why. Among the lessons of my youth was learning what to dignify with a response and what to dismiss, to consign to ignominy by simply ignoring it. Well, if one didn't learn how to do that before graduating from high school, college is about the last good place to do so.

Am I suggesting that one should ignore every slight? No, of course not. Instances of personal effrontery are best and most often rightly ignored because all of it is just words, and most of it comes from sources that, if one ignores them and their speaker, have no real impact on one's life. Moreover much of it is intended to make one descend to the speaker's level. And what good comes of that? None. On the other hand, slights that are symptomatic of a actual ill in society, one that is larger than just one's own hurt feelings, a slight that is a manifestation of something that needs correcting in order to improve the community/culture/society itself, well, that should not be ignored.

For example, when on USMB someone takes to attacking another member personally, the point of objection to the attack should not be that an individual was berated, but rather that by forbearing the slight, we permit a boor to distract and divert the conversation from its purpose and contributes to there being chaos in the community. And, if I'm honest, though I don't care much for being insulted, I care even less for general chaos and incoherent or uncompelling discourse.

It comes down to there being a time and place for everything. One's singularly hurt feelings rarely if ever alone make for the right time, place or reason to get in an uproar over slights real or imagined.



Note:

1. Who the hell ever condoned the notion of allowing college undergraduates to attend and not live on campus is beyond me. That strikes me as among the worst ideas any college ever implemented. Even for myself, the experience of living and interacting closely with peers who had very different backgrounds than I proved as informative as anything I learned in the classroom. I say that as someone who went to boarding school for junior high and high school where I learned how to live in "household" and as part of a close community of people who were not related to me. What made living on the college campus different was that most people weren't just like me -- smart, industrious, well traveled, broadly exposed to what life offers, curious, sporting, good humored, etc. -- which they all were in junior and senior high. Even the handful of black kids were; they just happened to be black.

Well, this has developed over time, and we've become a terribly narcissistic, hypersensitive society, the "selfie" generation. So now, instead of communicating and resolving problems together, we simply claim a grievance and attack.

The problem in this particular issue is that we're teaching our KIDS, our FUTURE, that when they perceive any possible contrary opinion, the response is to shut it down. If that doesn't work, shout it down. If that doesn't work, run to your Safe Space. This is madness, and it's a terrible thing to do to our kids.

Of course, the Regressives see no problem here, because they have ideological control over college campuses, and they're more than willing to sacrifice the intellectual maturity and critical thinking skills of our kids to turn them into ideological warriors for their agenda.

Look at how they've reacted on this thread. They know it. Terrible.
.