
The New Activism of Campus Life - tosseraccount
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/the-new-activism-of-liberal-arts-colleges
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firasd
The professor who says, “But then, at some point, it became really
solipsistic” really gets to my issues with the rise of ‘Social Justice’
politics this decade. As a non-​white guy, I understand and sometimes agree
with claims like: “Your literary canon/​history/​point of view/​etc. is rooted
in Western hegemony.” That’s a claim that can be analyzed. It’s another to
just say: “You’re [Various Identifier Here]-Splaining.” What can someone
really do with that? At that point the claim becomes pure politics, you have
to just support the person making the claim or not.

(Not to get on a soapbox but the theatre prof joking “I’m thinking, Oh, God!
I’m cast in one of my least favorite plays of all time, ‘The Crucible,’ by
Arthur Miller!” gets to another issue I have. People don’t seem understand
that the tools they use to oppose others should be applied with
proportionality and good judgement, if for no other reason than that in
another circumstance those same tools can be used against them as well. In
general I think when people are ensconced in any ideology, they begin to
overlook Kant’s reminder to “treat humanity, whether in your own person or in
the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a
means.”)

~~~
adityab
Agreed. These days, Identity politics is _absolutely dominated_ by the idea
that everything is just a point-of-view and ideas/arguments are inseparable
from the identity of the person putting them forth.

I often say that a "scientific temper" is something we should all strive
towards - the scientific method is possibly the greatest achievement of
civilization - but there are an inexplicable number of people (who have never
heard of it) that simply claim that enlightenment ideals are Eurocentric and
that my subscription to those (as a non-white) would count as internalized
oppression.

By some, nuance is denounced, absolutism is glamorous. Some others cannot be
argued with; they grow an argument for every exception to their blanket
theories until the entire ideology is a tangled mess of patchwork, at which
point the application of this monster to any real-world situation becomes
intractable and the evaluation of new observations strongly correlates with
in/out-group membership.

It is incredibly sad to see this dynamic being played out by otherwise smart
people that I respect.

That you and I have to explicitly advertise our non-white status when saying
this for it to hold any water is a travesty, and demonstrates how bad the
environment has become.

~~~
tremon
_that my subscription to those (as a non-white) would count as internalized
oppression._

I always feel that such arguments are extremely offensive, as they're denying
you agency. Instead of recognizing you as an individual person, they're
painting you as a member of a victimized group.

Although I've more often seen it as feminists denouncing other women's life
choices, I think the mechanism is similar.

~~~
adityab
More and more, I find the current generation of far-left and far-right almost
indistinguishable in their methods.

IMO, claiming that someone suffers from "internalized opression" is simply
this new left's version of the "cuck" slur.

~~~
kzrdude
There is a way to be left-leaning without buying into the identity politics of
the popular left. The leftist perspective on power is as important as ever,
but there's not always a political party to go to anymore.

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Aelinsaar
It's great that people are exploring themselves and their world in college,
but to be frank, I avoided those people along with the hard partiers, and
everyone else who wasn't really at school to work and learn.

~~~
dev1n
Back in the day (I'm talking way back) college was all about exploring the
scientific method, history, literature, and economics. Today these kids aren't
doing any of that and, thus, have too much free time on their hands. So they
go out and protest about the fact that their school’s Afrikan Heritage House
lacked truly authentic food.

~~~
ryandrake
I was thinking something similar. WTF are these protestors majoring in? When I
was in undergrad, I was taking 18+ credits per semester, and my ass was in the
lab 50% of the time. And when it wasn't, it was in the library or cramming for
the next exam, or doing the piles of homework that you were never able to
finish (by design, so you learned to prioritize). Then in Junior and Senior
years it was labs, career fairs, mock interviews, internships, more labs,
resume writing, homework, more labs...

Who the hell has time to go out there protesting every little thing that
bothers them? Don't they have classwork to do?

~~~
caseysoftware
In some cases - like Mattress Girl - these are class projects so they may get
credit for going out and protesting, writing letters, etc.

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drhayes9
Remember how Occupy America didn't have an easily articulated set of politics?
It was mostly an expression of anger at the current state of things? I think
this is something similar, an acknowledgement that things are fucked up but no
knowledge of where to go from that statement.

That seems really similar to this. I sympathize with what I'm reading here.
Trigger warnings, for instance, seem like a good idea: we do the same thing
for our movies (Deadpool is rated R, maybe your kids will have a Bad Time) and
our food (has tons of carbs! lots of processed sugar!). And I think there's
value in giving people the choice in what adversity they face day-to-day if
they're already struggling (people with suicidal ideation don't need a lot of
exposure to more suicidal ideation).

OTOH, I _really_ agree with what Wendy Hyman from the article says. When you
bend that far backwards you end up on the far right, circumscribing what
people can think or say because you think you know better. For instance,
outrage/call-out culture has made it a crime to be _called_ a racist, so now
everyone doesn't want to talk about race for fear of being _called_ a racist.
But if we can't talk meaningfully about race as an issue then it won't ever be
untangled. It's okay to be angry about this stuff but using that as a
foundation to halt all discussions forever just guarantees that the problem
won't go away.

My mom is a Chicano activist and she's always warned about what she calls the
"más que tus": people who used their identities and politics as cards in a
game of one-upmanship rather than as ways of understanding and ultimately
changing the status quo. I'm worried that we're feeding that now in our search
for a progressive means forward.

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Jtsummers

      Hyman started college in the eighties. Her generation, she said,
      protested against Tipper Gore for wanting to put warning labels on
      records. "My students want warning labels on class content, and I
      feel-I don't even know how to articulate it," she said. "Part of me
      feels that my leftist students are doing the right wing's job for
      it."
    

The current generation entering college in the US has grown up in a time of
authoritarianism-as-the-norm. Parents that hover too close. Schools with zero
tolerance policies. A nation that goes to war against people who they
shouldn't, when they should be pursuing criminal investigations and charges.
Torture as the norm. Surveillance as the norm.

It's not terribly surprising, then, that the current generation of leftists
don't see liberal democracy as a solution. Rather, they expect a continuation
of what they've grown up with, but applied to their particular ideological
preferences.

~~~
caseysoftware
The problem with this reasoning is that Tipper Gore is _not_ right wing.

~~~
Jtsummers
I take the professor's viewpoint on right and left wing to be (a product of
its times) more a contrast between paternalistic authoritarianism under
claimed democratic ideals, and liberal (as in freedom, particular personal
liberties) democracy.

Beyond that, right and left have no meaning anymore so it's best to read
statements regarding them in the context they were made. Thus why I switched
the language to refer to authoritarianism and liberal democracy in my comment.

Right and left, if they have any meaning, represent only a single dimension of
a very complex space. Right can mean: fascism, anarcho-capitalism,
libertarian, Republican (confused mix of various ideologies), religious
authoritarianism (under an ostensible democracy or not), generally
conservatism. Left can mean: libertarian, anarchist, socialist (various forms,
including anarchism), communism, Democrat (confused mix of various
ideologies), various green movements, etc.

It's far better to break out what we're actually wanting to discuss. Tipper
Gore's motion, from the professor's perspective, was a _right wing_ motion.
Even if she is not right wing in general. Warning labels on records was seen
as part of a paternalistic authoritarian attitude, that it happened to be
coming from a left wing person did not make it a left wing idea. It really
appealed to more conservative individuals.

It is bizarre, I agree with the professor, that modern college students might
actually be in _favor_ of such governmental mandates. It's not the warning
label on records, or trigger warnings before a class, that are a problem. It's
the _mandate from on high_. It's authoritarianism, it removes agency from
individuals (producers and consumers), it's potentially anti-free speech
(certain labels will, while being on good products or good lectures, turn many
people away, so the material itself is avoided because the market is left
barren of consumers).

Whether intended or not, that last part is the really frightening part, to me.
Once we mandate ratings and warnings, it becomes difficult, if not impossible,
for people to even _discuss_ difficult or challenging topics. It breaks the
first amendment without actually having to do anything, society will censor
itself. Individual speech, the press, etc.

~~~
caseysoftware
Yes and that's the best way to censor someone... _let them do it themselves_.

There's no one to blame. There's no law to repeal. There's no argument to
have. In fact, if you can make the punishment big enough, people won't even
try to argue it. So there's no way to correct the situation.

It's brilliant. And scary.

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djschnei
SJWs have done more to set the race discussion back in this country than
anything else in recent history. Identity politics is ruining this country.

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vilda
David Sacks and Peter Thiel wrote an excellent book "The Diversity Myth". They
report on how corrosive impact have certain ideologies on higher education and
academic freedom. I recommend to read it just to get a boarder view into the
problem no matter on what side you are now.

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rhapsodic
Note to self: Avoid contact with Oberlin grads at all costs.

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mikerichards
So called "progressive" campuses have become mini Orwellian dystopias because
of demented leftist ideology run amok.

~~~
VeejayRampay
North-American campuses. And maybe in some places of Northern Europe as well.
This is not a worldwide thing.

~~~
sampo
As far as I know, the new concepts like trigger warnings and safe spaces have
so far only spread to UK universities, not other European countries.

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cLeEOGPw
> “You include Black and other students of color in the institution and mark
> them with the words ‘equity, inclusion and diversity,’ ” it said, “when in
> fact this institution functions on the premises of imperialism, white
> supremacy, capitalism, ableism, and a cissexist heteropatriarchy.”

Black is written with capital b in the middle of sentence like some title,
while white is not. Nice to see that one race is finally being recognized as
superior over the other. New "Aryan" race. Can't see anything wrong neither
with it, nor all the other very meaningful and truthful terms told by this
intelligent man.

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6stringmerc
New activisim? Last time I checked, Socrates was accused of corrupting the
youth with his activism against the prevailing politics, was tried and
sentenced to death. So, um, new?

Granted I don't think this particular strain of activism has such high stakes,
but come on, impressionable youth-becoming-adults is a really lucrative
demographic for "buy in" to lots of different ideologies (see also:
"extremism" in the name of one cause or another). Those flames tend to burn
out rather on the quick side, personal experience as my reference point.

~~~
bobcostas55
In the Socrates analogy, the "new activists" are playing the part of Meletus,
not Socrates.

