“Crybullies are everything they claim to abhor. They are narcissists who complain about selfishness. They are completely incapable of human impathy. They whine that no one cares….They are bullies who say they’re bullied. They are oppressors, self-righteous hypocrites, loud mouth censors and civil rights activists who want to take everyone’s rights away.” Daniel Greenfield
Americans have become paralyzed by political correctness to the point we can’t see the danger in front of our faces. Political Correctness is nothing but censorship in its purest form that tries to shame and silence those with traditional beliefs. Or as former president Harry Truman so aptly described it, “Political Correctness is a doctrine, recently fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and promoted by a sick mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of poop by the clean end!”
Unfortunately, for decades, the PC culture has dominated many of America’s college campuses, a fact highlighted in Allan Bloom’s 1987 book “The Closing of the American Mind,” and the recent student unrest at Yale and Missouri State. Yale’s major crisis was set about by an email suggesting if students found a Halloween costume offensive they should either avert their eyes or explain to the wearer why they found it offensive. Apparently some of the black students, faculty and staff felt that since Yale “oppresses and excludes students of color,” students of color were not under any obligation to tolerate any costume they found offensive. Someone pass the barf bag.
The Missouri manufactured crisis came about because, as the Student Association claimed, there wasn’t enough hand-holding after Michael Brown attacked a police office in Ferguson and was shot. They were left “stranded” and “forced to face an increase in tension and inequality” without support from their college mommies and that “space of healing” the college had ignored. Now I need a bigger barf bag.
Amherst College in Massachusettes decided to get in on the gig by threatening civil disobedience if the College doesn’t eliminate free speech. “President Martin must issue a statement to the Amherst College community at large that states we do not tolerate the actions of student(s) who posted the “All Lives Matter” posters, and the “Free Speech” posters that stated that “in memoriam of the true victim of the Missouri Protests: Free Speech.” Translation: Any speech that counters the lies expressed by the students at Amherst, Yale or Missouri will not be tolerated. Of course, what these idiots haven’t figured out – if free speech on campus is eliminated, that means they have no right to speak out either.
Not content merely to purge the school of free speech, these idiots also demanded that they be given time off from class. Apparently they have been too busy to study for exams or do their homework. In addition, they are demanding that the school mascot, “Lord Jeff” be expunged because he was a symbol of how smallpox-infected blankets were given to Native Americans during the Siege of Fort Pitt. Unfortunately, the fact that there is no evidence to backup this claim, doesn’t phase them a bit.
Then, of course as anarchist without a leg to stand on normally do, they demand that the President of the College issue an official apology to any perceived injustices committed due to white supremacy, colonialism, racism, heterosexism, cis-sexism, xenphobia, anit-Semitism, ableism, mental health stigma and classism. Their parents must be so proud!
What happened to the idea that the purpose of college was to create an intellectual environment where students could sharpen their minds through study and broaden their horizons through intellectual sparring. What happened to free speech, free press, respect for opposing opinions, stringent academic standards, straight forward language and the primacy of truth? What happened to education?
During the time when students are supposed to be learning to face an often hard world as adults, and going through the often uncomfortable process of building their intellectual foundations, they are demanding to be sheltered from anything that might challenge their beliefs or recall unpleasant facts to their mind. And increasingly, colleges are accommodating them. Everything at colleges is now supposed to be thoroughly sanitized to the point of inoffensiveness — not only the coursework, but even the comedians who are invited to entertain the students.
By the time you’re done excising the Victorian literature that offends feminists, the biology texts that offend young-earth creationists, and the history lessons that offend whichever group was on the losing side, there’s not much left of the curriculum.
I have to agree with Andrew McCarthy, at National Review. Let them have that “safe space of healing” and figure out a way to keep it without our money. Universities are no longer a center of learning and the promotion of reason. They have become nothing more than a cauldron of hard left indoctrination and victim narratives where reason no longer has a home.
As Glenn Harlan Reynolds has been pointing out for years in his book, The Education Apocalypse, there are viable, economical alternatives to the nigh-obsolete four-year campus model of higher education. Whatever worthwhile remains at today’s colleges, there are alternatives, especially online education that can provide it better and much cheaper.
Dumping the campus for the internet can eliminate the universities’ administrative bloat, the billions of public dollars progressive politicians sluice through the system to underwrite hard left thought police in sinecures ostensible devoted to diversity, speech regulation, campus community responders, etc. It would give parents and children more choice and more excellence since online education would weed out lots of the mediocrity and worse, that dominate the campus.
For decades the U.S. invested ever-growing fortunes into its antiquated K-12 educational indoctrination system in exchange for steadily worse outcomes. At the same time, American families spent more than they could afford on higher education, driven by the kind of cheap credit that fueled the housing crisis. The graduates of these systems were left unprepared for a global economy, unable to find jobs, and on the hook for student loans they could never repay. Economist Herb Stein famously said that something that can’t go on forever, won’t. In the case of American education, it couldn’t – and it didn’t.
“In a Republic, civility is not an option, it’s a precondition that makes our system possible…Without civility, political discourse becomes hostile and polarized. In the resulting chaos we become vulnerable to tyranny.” Chuck Colson
