Students Love Socialism… But Can’t Define What It Is
Tag: college students
SAFE SPACES
Rutgers Residence Hall Warns Students Against ‘Microassaults,’ ‘Microinsults’ & ‘Microinvalidations’
Guest Post by
Just when you thought you had a handle on the treasonous thought-police infractions known as microagressions, folks at Rutgers University had to go ahead and further muddy the waters of what is and isn’t allowed to be uttered on today’s college campuses.
Since I know you’re all dying to find out, let’s turn to Campus Reform to learn about the latest verbal (and nonverbal) transgressions: “microassaults,” “microinsults’ & “microinvalidations”:
Students in at least one Rutgers University residence hall are being encouraged to use only language that is “helpful” and “necessary” to avoid committing microaggressions.
The display, photos of which were obtained by Campus Reform, is titled “Language Matters: Think,” and was placed in the College Avenue Apartments by a resident assistant, according to a current resident of the building who does not wish to be identified.
Erected as part of the university’s “Language Matters” campaign, the bulletin board instructs students to ask themselves whether their choice of words is “true,” “helpful,” “inspiring,” “necessary,” and “kind” before speaking out, and also includes a list of potentially-offensive terms, such as “retarded” and “illegal aliens.”
These kids are going to be in for a rude awakening, as well as possible multiple nervous breakdowns, when they enter the real world (was that a microagression, micro insult, or microassault? I’m so confused).
THE REAL WORLD
University pays $175,000 to bury ‘pepper spray’ cop internet searches
Campus Lunacy, Part II
Guest Post by Walter E. Williams
Professor Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He recently wrote an article titled “The hypocrisy behind the student renaming craze.” Students, often with the blessing of faculty, have discovered that names for campus buildings and holidays do not always fit politically correct standards for race, class and sex.
Stanford students have demanded the renaming of buildings, malls and streets bearing the name of the recently canonized Junipero Serra, an 18th-century Franciscan priest who was often unkind to American Indians. Harvard Law School is getting rid of its seal because it bears the coat of arms of the Royalls, a slave-owning family. This renaming craze is widespread and includes dozens of colleges and universities, including Amherst, Georgetown, Princeton, Yale and the University of California, Berkeley. The students have decided that some politically incorrect people from centuries ago are bad. Other politically incorrect people are not quite so bad if they were at least sometimes liberal; their names can stay.
NAME A SUPREME COURT JUSTICE
These are your Bernie and Hillary voters.
Liberal Activism Is Giving Students Panic Attacks, Depression, Failing Grades
Life outside the safe space is even harder, though
Dreamstime
It’s exhausting work, being offended all the time. But is activism actually ruining college kids’ mental health? A report on the emotional state of Brown University student-protesters—who suffer from suicidal thoughts, sleeplessness, panic attacks, and failing grades as a result of their advocacy—paints a weirdly alarming picture.
Brown University’s inattentiveness to students’ demands for greater diversity is slowly killing them, according to The Brown Daily Herald:
“There are people breaking down, dropping out of classes and failing classes because of the activism work they are taking on,” said David, an undergraduate whose name has been changed to preserve anonymity. Throughout the year, he has worked to confront issues of racism and diversity on campus.
His role as a student activist has taken a toll on his mental, physical and emotional health. “My grades dropped dramatically. My health completely changed. I lost weight. I’m on antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills right now. (Counseling and Psychological Services) counselors called me. I had deans calling me to make sure I was okay,” he said.
As students rallied to protest two racist columns published by The Herald and the alleged assault of a Latinx student from Dartmouth by a Department of Public Safety officer, David spent numerous hours organizing demonstrations with fellow activists. Meanwhile, he struggled to balance his classes, job and social life with the activism to which he feels so dedicated. Stressors and triggers flooded his life constantly, he said.
I don’t begrudge students choosing activism over classes. If that’s what they want to spend their time on, fine.
But their anguish seems grossly disproportionate to their situation. The publication of two racially problematic columns does not exactly suggest that Brown is in the midst of a great civil rights crisis. In fact, if this is students’ paramount concern, then they are enormously fortunate and privileged people.
National Review‘s Katherine Timpf suggests that students struggling to balance their mental and emotional needs with the demands of their coursework might consider giving up on school entirely. One doesn’t need a degree to be a full-time activist, after all.
But there’s a problem with that idea: when separated from their precious campus safe spaces, ex-students might encounter some actual injustices in the real world (police brutality, the War on Drugs, warrantless government spying, unauthorized foreign interventions—you name it). And I’m just not sure people who burst into tears every time they encounter some mild pushback on a relatively trivial issue—like an offensive column—are ready to turn pro.
STOP WHITE CHRISTMAS
Hat tip Francis Marion
‘This Is Not a Daycare’
A college president in Oklahoma is defiantly standing by his controversial view that today’s students are too sensitive and too quick to play the victim card.
Dr. Everett Piper, the president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, posted a message on the school’s website last week, saying college students expect too much coddling and declaring: “This is Not a Day Care. It’s a University!”
The blog post gained attention in the wake of a growing number of students protesting racial discrimination and other issues on campuses across the country.
Piper wrote that he chose to share his frustrations publicly after a student, who has not been identified, complained about being “offended” by a sermon given at the Christian liberal arts college.
Piper said on a local radio program, “The Pat Campbell Show,” that when he heard about the incident, he asked to see a copy of the sermon, thinking he might find something sarcastic or abrasive. In his opinion, the message was innocuous, Campbell said on the radio show.
The sermon was on the Bible passage 1 Corinthians 13, which includes the verse “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” The sermon was about love, Piper said.
“It appears that this young scholar felt offended because a homily on love made him feel bad for not showing love,” Piper wrote in his post. “I’m not making this up. Our culture has actually taught our kids to be this self-absorbed and narcissistic.”
FOURTH TURNING – SOCIAL & CULTURAL DISTRESS DIVIDING THE NATION
I wrote the first three parts of this article back in September and planned to finish it in early October, but life intervened and truthfully I don’t think I was ready to confront how bad things will likely get as this Fourth Turning moves into the violent, chaotic war stage just over the horizon. The developments in the Middle East, Europe, U.S., China and across the globe in the last months have confirmed my belief war drums are beating louder, global war beckons, and much bloodshed will be the result. Fourth Turnings proceed at their own pace within the 20 to 25 year crisis framework, but there is one guarantee – they never de-intensify as they progress. Just as Winter gets colder, stormier and more bitter as you proceed from December through February, Fourth Turnings get nastier, grimmer, more perilous, with our way of life hanging in the balance.
In Part 1 of this article I discussed the catalyst spark which ignited this Fourth Turning and the seemingly delayed regeneracy. In Part 2 I pondered possible Grey Champion prophet generation leaders who could arise during the regeneracy. In Part 3 I focused on the economic channel of distress which is likely to be the primary driving force in the next phase of this Crisis. In Part 4 I will assess the social and cultural channels of distress dividing the nation, Part 5 the technological, ecological, political, military channels of distress likely to burst forth with the molten ingredients of this Fourth Turning, and finally in Part 6 our rendezvous with destiny, with potential climaxes to this Winter of our discontent.
The road ahead will be distressful for everyone living in the U.S., as we experience the horrors of war, economic collapse, civil chaos, political upheaval, and the tearing of society’s social fabric. The pain and suffering being experienced across the globe today will not bypass the people of the United States. Winter has arrived and lethal storms are gathering in the distance. Don’t think you can escape. You can prepare, but this Crisis will reshape our society for better or worse, and you cannot sidestep the consequences or cruel environment we must survive.
Continue reading “FOURTH TURNING – SOCIAL & CULTURAL DISTRESS DIVIDING THE NATION”
AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENTS
On Campus at U.PE: The University of Practically Everywhere
Guest Post
In the fall of the year, as leaves turned red and gold on the campus of U.PE, an aging professor stood on the podium to give the welcoming address to the new class of freshmen. His hair was white, his mien one of resignation and cynicism. He looked as though he would rather be almost anywhere else. He spoke as follows:
“Welcome to this…place. I trust, or fear, that you have settled in.
You are now officially in college. You need to know several things about this condition. You will not like knowing them, which is part of why they are important. I will elucidate.
To begin, you do not belong here. You are spoiled, self-important, narcissistic, infantile brats, unprepared for college work, in which you likely have little interest. In the past, students of your age were almost adult and trying to learn how to be adults. You are different, alas. Your chief interest for four years will be in avoiding adulthood. This will be easy because you are less mature than earlier students, less prepared academically, and less ready for university.
In all likelihood you will waste these four years of your time and mine in this institution, which once was a university—during which you will take absurd courses of your own devising, courses having nothing to do with the purposes of education, of which you know nothing. You may already have discovered English 205, Batman and the Legacy of Patriarchy, and Sociology 202, Subliminal Oppression and the Frontiers of Resistance. You will study such nonsense in a spirit of tiresome self-adulation. I will have to babysit you during this sorry process. I do not know who is getting the worse of the deal.
Continue reading “On Campus at U.PE: The University of Practically Everywhere”
ATTACK OF THE CRY BULLIES
Get Out of My Class and Leave America
Hat tip Francis Marion
Guest Post by Mike Adams
Author’s Note: The following column is comprised of excerpts taken from my first lectures on the first day of classes this semester at UNC-Wilmington. I reproduced these remarks with the hope that they would be useful to other professors teaching at public universities all across America. Feel free to use this material if you already have tenure.
Welcome back to class, students! I am Mike Adams your criminology professor here at UNC-Wilmington. Before we get started with the course I need to address an issue that is causing problems here at UNCW and in higher education all across the country. I am talking about the growing minority of students who believe they have a right to be free from being offended. If we don’t reverse this dangerous trend in our society there will soon be a majority of young people who will need to walk around in plastic bubble suits to protect them in the event that they come into contact with a dissenting viewpoint. That mentality is unworthy of an American. It’s hardly worthy of a Frenchman.
Let’s get something straight right now. You have no right to be unoffended. You have a right to be offended with regularity. It is the price you pay for living in a free society. If you don’t understand that you are confused and dangerously so. In part, I blame your high school teachers for failing to teach you basic civics before you got your diploma. Most of you went to the public high schools, which are a disaster. Don’t tell me that offended you. I went to a public high school.
Speechless – UCLA Engages in Absurd, Anti-Intellectual and Dangerous Attack on Campus Free Speech
Guest Post by
One of the most dangerous trends in America today is occurring on college campuses. These are the places I grew up viewing as laboratories for free speech, youthful energy and resistance to the status quo.
Unfortunately, what they’re turning into are anti-intellectual wastelands in which America’s supposedly “best and brightest” are being transformed into unthinking, mentally shackled, emotionally stunted automatons. The only thing being produced on college campuses these days seem to be frightened, thoughtless worker-bees, conditioned to shut-up and instinctively worship authority. Rather than teaching kids to think critically, administrators have created an environment where kids aren’t encouraged to think at all.
For those of you who may have missed it, I’ve covered this topic before. See:
Rutgers University Warns Students – “There is No Such Thing as Free Speech”
A Professor Speaks Out – How Coddled, Hyper Sensitive Undergrads are Ruining College Learning
Moving along, today’s piece relates to a recent incident on the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) campus. A fraternity-sorority party was held under the theme “Kanye Western,” in which partygoers wore costumes parodying Kanye West and his wife Kim Kardashian. Naturally, this was simply too much to handle for a vocal group of censorship-inclined students. As such, the accusations began to fly that the greek students wore blackface, and school administrators immediately moved to suspend the social activities of the fraternity and sorority before completing an investigation.
Interestingly enough, in the days that followed, it became clear that the students weren’t actually wearing blackface at all (not that it would have mattered from a free speech perspective). Conor Friedersdorf did an incredible job for making the case for free speech in his excellent Atlantic article. Here are a few excerpts: