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.
Kids grow up. They change. They look back and cringe. They think more for themselves than their standing in social circles.
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.
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.
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.
There's a strong need for students to be able to experiment and express themselves and say what they feel and think without being abused and crucified. Similarly with professors. There's a certain respect for thought that is inherent to a healthy academic culture. The left (of which I am very much a part) used to defend it vigorously, now I find we are the ones trying to destroy it.
Actually I kinda did but that's besides the point. Not everybody grows up at the same rate.
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.
Rather I believe your first paragraph is the larger answer. We have tossed aside the notion for sacrifice for the greater good.