Kathianne
07-05-2019, 09:20 AM
Came across this article this morning, really worth reading. Yeah, Harvard, but a young person with some words worth listening to:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/what-conservatives-get-wrong-about-campus-wars-woke-culture/
What Conservatives Get Wrong about the Campus WarsBy SAHIL HANDA (https://www.nationalreview.com/author/sahil-handa/)
(https://www.nationalreview.com/author/sahil-handa/)
July 4, 2019 6:30 AM
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(https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/what-conservatives-get-wrong-about-campus-wars-woke-culture/)
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A message from a young person who’s on your side
NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE
Much of the debate about campus culture would have you believe that the average college student is hellbent on tearing down the patriarchy. One wakes up in the morning, wallows in grievance, and proceeds to spend the day railing against the evils of privilege.
I attend Harvard University, one of the places most associated with such snowflakery. I also happen to be a brown British student who wears colorful Hawaiian shirts, dances to techno, acts in undergraduate theater, and listens to jazz. I say this not to brandish my victimhood credentials, nor to make any claims to artistic ability — I say it because these facts get me invited into liberal social circles that, unfortunately, most conservative commentators do not.
So, is the description accurate? In my experience, not particularly. I’d say it describes roughly 5 percent of the undergraduate population — a few hundred or so social-justice warriors who consider their mere survival on Harvard’s campus to be a form of triumphalist activism. These woke icons are overwhelmingly middle class, incredibly entitled, and extraordinarily outspoken. They respond to any virtue signal with finger snaps and use the word “problematic” in every other sentence. They see themselves as engaged in a perpetual war against a white, male, neoliberal blob — wrong opinions must be canceled, and insufficiently woke speakers ruined. Trump supporters are too far gone to bother persuading.
But most students do not subscribe to the madness. Contrarian conservatives repudiate it and find sanctuary in the Republican Club. Others are too focused on studying and partying to care. The majority stay silent and air their concerns in private, so that they won’t be forced to bear the inevitable social cost.
...
The problem on campus is not a generation of inept, incapable students, but a small number of coddled ideologues who set the limits for campus debate. One might liken this to the actual prevalence of white supremacy across the country: Snowflakery and supremacy exist, but both are pushed by a small number of fundamentalists. When Ezra Klein of Vox argues that “the panic over campus activism” is “suffused with bad-faith efforts to nationalize isolated examples of college kids behaving badly in order to discredit serious critiques of social injustice,” he has a point. But the college kids who eat up their potential allies aren’t exactly contributing to social justice, either, and Klein goes significantly wrong in claiming that the campus problem is mostly a figment of the imagination.
These campus wars are not a tyranny of the majority, but a tyranny of a troubled, misguided minority. It does not take many charges of racism to produce a climate of fear. That climate may not be equivalent to white supremacy, but its long-term negative consequences reach far beyond the university. On Monday, Antifa activists in Portland, Ore., bloodied another journalist, and numerous mainstream-media platforms refused to condemn the violence. We are beginning to see the manifestations of another generation’s being taught to view half of their country’s population as enemies. Conservatives can either make a real effort to improve the situation or choose to smack a teenage-shaped piñata with the latest campus stupidity. Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro too frequently choose the latter.
...
It's rather long, though worth the time.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/what-conservatives-get-wrong-about-campus-wars-woke-culture/
What Conservatives Get Wrong about the Campus WarsBy SAHIL HANDA (https://www.nationalreview.com/author/sahil-handa/)
(https://www.nationalreview.com/author/sahil-handa/)
July 4, 2019 6:30 AM
(https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalreview.com% 2F2019%2F07%2Fwhat-conservatives-get-wrong-about-campus-wars-woke-culture%2F)
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(?body=What%20Conservatives%20Get%20Wrong%20about% 20the%20Campus%20Wars%20https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/what-conservatives-get-wrong-about-campus-wars-woke-culture/)
(https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/what-conservatives-get-wrong-about-campus-wars-woke-culture/)
(https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/what-conservatives-get-wrong-about-campus-wars-woke-culture/#)
A message from a young person who’s on your side
NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE
Much of the debate about campus culture would have you believe that the average college student is hellbent on tearing down the patriarchy. One wakes up in the morning, wallows in grievance, and proceeds to spend the day railing against the evils of privilege.
I attend Harvard University, one of the places most associated with such snowflakery. I also happen to be a brown British student who wears colorful Hawaiian shirts, dances to techno, acts in undergraduate theater, and listens to jazz. I say this not to brandish my victimhood credentials, nor to make any claims to artistic ability — I say it because these facts get me invited into liberal social circles that, unfortunately, most conservative commentators do not.
So, is the description accurate? In my experience, not particularly. I’d say it describes roughly 5 percent of the undergraduate population — a few hundred or so social-justice warriors who consider their mere survival on Harvard’s campus to be a form of triumphalist activism. These woke icons are overwhelmingly middle class, incredibly entitled, and extraordinarily outspoken. They respond to any virtue signal with finger snaps and use the word “problematic” in every other sentence. They see themselves as engaged in a perpetual war against a white, male, neoliberal blob — wrong opinions must be canceled, and insufficiently woke speakers ruined. Trump supporters are too far gone to bother persuading.
But most students do not subscribe to the madness. Contrarian conservatives repudiate it and find sanctuary in the Republican Club. Others are too focused on studying and partying to care. The majority stay silent and air their concerns in private, so that they won’t be forced to bear the inevitable social cost.
...
The problem on campus is not a generation of inept, incapable students, but a small number of coddled ideologues who set the limits for campus debate. One might liken this to the actual prevalence of white supremacy across the country: Snowflakery and supremacy exist, but both are pushed by a small number of fundamentalists. When Ezra Klein of Vox argues that “the panic over campus activism” is “suffused with bad-faith efforts to nationalize isolated examples of college kids behaving badly in order to discredit serious critiques of social injustice,” he has a point. But the college kids who eat up their potential allies aren’t exactly contributing to social justice, either, and Klein goes significantly wrong in claiming that the campus problem is mostly a figment of the imagination.
These campus wars are not a tyranny of the majority, but a tyranny of a troubled, misguided minority. It does not take many charges of racism to produce a climate of fear. That climate may not be equivalent to white supremacy, but its long-term negative consequences reach far beyond the university. On Monday, Antifa activists in Portland, Ore., bloodied another journalist, and numerous mainstream-media platforms refused to condemn the violence. We are beginning to see the manifestations of another generation’s being taught to view half of their country’s population as enemies. Conservatives can either make a real effort to improve the situation or choose to smack a teenage-shaped piñata with the latest campus stupidity. Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro too frequently choose the latter.
...
It's rather long, though worth the time.