
The Rise of the Comfort College - zt
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-09/free-speech-is-no-longer-safe-speech-at-today-s-elite-colleges
======
prepend
“to ask for evidence of violent practices is itself a violent practice.”

This is a scary phrase because it requires immense power be rested in an
authority that can not be questioned.

I have a friend who was a victim of domestic violence growing up, terrible
beatings. The worst part was that the cause was not always known, a few times
a week the parent would go into a rage and beat the first one or two children
they saw. The beatings were terrible- belts, shoes, hockey sticks, dowel rods,
etc - so my friend tried to avoid them. Early on he would ask “what did I do”
and that would enrage the parent more as the offense was so massive that not
knowing it was an offense that made the beatings longer.

The only thing that consistently worked was to arrange for other siblings to
be encountered first and wear out the parent’s rage. My friend discovered this
because his brother kept doing it to him.

My friend never figured out how to avoid the beatings, they just grew up and
left.

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hansvs
Reading this article gave me goosebumps and an overall melancholy feeling. I
can't quite put my finger on why though...

I think it has to do with the subtext (I might be reading into this...) that
knowledge is no longer a respected asset, but instead is viewed by some as a
symbol of the 'old' status quo (and its related issues and in particular its
failure in resolving some of those issues). The reaction to this, as I have
understood it, is to either shun those who use knowledge (in the sense of this
'old' way) or outright censor them (remove them from the knowledge-pool).

The article did help in my understanding of identity-politics and why its such
a powerful force in the USA and, for example, less so in places like Europe.

~~~
narnianal
We should never assume that the loudest voices are also representing the
majority opinion. This brought us into so many crises in the past.

Right now the world is changing as it did a few times in the past as well.
From families to tribes, from tribes to cities, from cities to countries to
nations to whatever is currently in the brewing. And always when such a big
change happens it is not possible for us humans to really understand it. There
are some who overinterpret the change and become zealous about enforcing it,
but in the wrong way. There are also those that want to stay close to the old
ways and therefore enforce these with zealous spirit.

That doesn't mean the majority will not do as it always did: try to make the
best of what happens around them while continue to live their normal lifes.
And in that regard the majority is also interested in knowledge and logic and
fairness etc.

If you feel knowledge is an important part of your path continue believing in
it and that there are enough other people around you who feel the same. Even
if they don't speak up. This crisis will pass and then we'll live in a new
world. And certainly we rather need more knowledge workers than in past
iterations.

~~~
Frqy3
I feel that what is currently brewing is a form of social cults, or if you
prefer softer phrasing, cultural tribes. With a very strong feedback control
loop deriving from social networking.

Aspects we can see emerging (and mentioned in the article) include: submission
to and no questioning of the leadership/apostles; there being only one
absolute truth; a persecution complex; control of actions through
indoctrination and isolation; group think; and cognitive dissonance.

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ak39
"The lack of cognitive significance in tribal language is a symptom of the
deeper disease: the devaluing of the pursuit of knowledge. Students are now
absolutists. Students, administrators and some faculty know what is right (and
who is wrong). Any challenge to their views cannot be in pursuit of knowledge
or even clarification. It can only come from the desire to crush and oppress."

This is a good sentence. I've watched a few videos on YouTube of the
interactions between some agitated, angry and "passionate" US campus students
directing their indignation at what is often a single lecturer or orderly.

How is the irony of these types of hostile interactions lost of the very folks
who insist on "safe spaces"?

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malloryerik
The paraphrasing of Martha Nussbaum's thoughts near the end of this article
seems to contain its essential message:

 _" The world-citizen view insists on the need for all citizens to understand
differences. … It is connected with a conception of democratic debate as
deliberation about the common good. The identity-politics view, by contrast,
depicts the citizen body as a marketplace of identity-based interest groups
jockeying for power, and views difference as something to be affirmed rather
than understood."_

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cbanek
> If you ask current students, and many administrators and faculty, what the
> goals of their colleges are, you will have to wait some time before hearing
> “knowledge.”

And yet, costing more than ever. For what? It's not like people are learning a
lot more by paying a lot more.

When I was in college I thought it was more interesting and valuable from the
conflict on campus. I'll call it conflict, too. People who were actually
having differences with each other, and saying them, many times passionately
if not angrily. Now it seems like people are so worried about offending each
other they'd rather say nothing at all, which seems to defeat the point of
having a diverse campus. If you have a diverse campus but everyone says the
same thing, is it really diverse?

I also think the skills of being able to deal with, work with, and learn from
people that are different from you (and possibly outright hate you, for
reasons that may or may not be "valid") were some of the more valuable skills
I learned in college. College was a lot more real world than say, high school.
When you get out into the real world, nobody cares about your safe spaces,
trigger warnings, and microaggressions. You have to find your own way, and
fight for your own causes.

~~~
jamesrcole
> _When you get out into the real world, nobody cares about your safe spaces,
> trigger warnings, and microaggressions._

Is this because such things will never fly there, or because they haven't yet
thoroughly propagated there? My concern is it's the latter.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
I can assure you these things are all well and truly propagating through
Silicon Valley's larger companies.

~~~
notacoward
Can confirm. A lot of it's welcome and overdue, but there is also at least the
potential for the kind of chilling effects the OP describes.

------
magnusss
It strikes me that these “woke” students and faculty who value victimization
over free speech are simply lazy. It takes far less effort to justify a
position with dogma than with an intelligent, nuanced argument.

------
AstralStorm
The replacement of truth with truthiness and platitudes and dialogue with
attacks and tribes and dehumanization is not the way to build a stable
society.

Fortunately this has not yet hit education here from what I can see.

~~~
drewcoo
Is the denial of nuance really a path to truth? Is it better to "maintain
civility" instead of actually naming and dealing with problems openly? Maybe
in American colleges, with their airing of the grievances (activism) and feats
of strength (sports), Festivus doesn't just come once a year any more. And
maybe all of that leads to better-rounded humans instead of just qualified job
applicants.

~~~
AstralStorm
Maybe it could, or maybe everything gets razed by it, getting an expensive
lesson in failure.

Civility is entirely different from dialogue. Disobedience is _sometimes_
necessary but cannot be the base of a society.

You can be non-civil and still discuss and engage with your opponent, but
shouting them down is not engagement, neither are loud protests without
constructive ideas that actually can work, or without actual pressure. Lying
and shooting down inconvenient research is not an acceptable tactic. That's
what communists did. Putting words into mouth of your opponent only escalates
stakes. What you do they can do onto you, and smaller (poorer, less in control
of media or masses) will lose.

In dialog, both sides can win. Compromises led to steady victory for many
movements. (Such as feminists.)

------
hrktb
Honest question: how should we take Bloomberg articles mainly based on opinion
or original investigations ?

I don’t study in the US so have no opinion about US college, so don’t have any
way to tell if these claims are any valid. Bloomberg has an history of making
bold and empty claims to rile up viewership, is it limited to tech or is it
the same for the other fields they cover ?

~~~
rimliu
I find it interesting that people now ask for an opinion about what opinion to
have about someone's else opinion.

I think this adds to the article.

~~~
Throw_Away_8463
Well, it can be a good idea to ask others to assess something you don't know
enough about, if you trust them. Hacker News is at least more trustworthy than
most other online platforms.

~~~
mmjaa
There's nothing more inherently 'trustworthy' in HN than there is in Fark.
What there is, is a downvote button and an understanding that, if someone says
something 'unpopular to the community', the community will deal with them.

This _definitely_ speaks to the subject of the article and is very telling in
and of itself: most online communities are comfort-communities. This seems to
be bleeding into offline life at a rather rapid clip ..

------
naringas
>one professor asked for evidence of “violent practices.” Another professor
responded that “to ask for evidence of violent practices is itself a violent
practice.”

so: to question something is an act of violence towards that something?

oops, I just questioned something ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
goatinaboat
They see your free speech as violence and their own violence as free speech.

~~~
Yoric
Nice summary.

Works both ways, too, e.g. whenever religious groups rename any kind of
disagreement with them as "Hate speech".

------
paggle
It’s not just intellectual comfort... colleges have invested in other comforts
and luxuries like extremely fancy dorms, dining halls that rival restaurants,
etc. After all, each student provides more revenue than ever before, so higher
CACs are justifiable. It’s a luxury good for a luxury market, and just like
your local Rolls Royce dealership will not provoke you into a debate about
racism your local four year private college would similarly prefer not to.

~~~
cb504
[https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/edu/168342/williams-
co...](https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/edu/168342/williams-
college/tuition/)

------
Throw_Away_8463
How common are things like that? I'm not American, but my impression is that
these stories tend to describe exceptions. Is this just a particularly radical
subset of students in a particularly radical college or is this representative
of a larger pattern?

~~~
not_a_moth
Well I've seen Silicon Valley folks in this very forum dismiss the
enlightenment era/liberal principles of free speech, so I think it's
widespread enough to feel it in regular life, especially if you're young in
America's larger urban areas.

~~~
Throw_Away_8463
From what I have seen, Hacker News tends to defend free speech very much. Are
you sure that it isn't simply the case that you remember (rare) instances that
oppose your opinion much better than those that agree with you? Everyone seems
to think that Hacker News (and other platforms) is on the other side of the
political spectrum than they themselves.

To that extent do they dismiss it? In my country, Holocaust denial is illegal,
but I think identity politics is still less widespread here.

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malloryerik
Sans paywall: [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rise-comfort-
college-14004972...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rise-comfort-
college-140049728.html)

~~~
zczc
Part 2: [https://news.yahoo.com/comfort-conquered-
college-140014048.h...](https://news.yahoo.com/comfort-conquered-
college-140014048.html)

------
username90
Far right demands purity of body and far left demands purity of mind. Everyone
who fails do adhere should be purged. If you can't get them imprisoned or
killed, at least try to ensure they can't get a job or live a life without
harassment.

The current free speech laws protects our minds from the government, but it
does nothing to protect us from private entities unlike the laws protecting
our bodies from discrimination.

