Bedlam by Design

Linked in the comments earlier but worth wider attention, here’s Heather Mac Donald’s latest essay on the academic cultivation of pretentious victimhood: 

The pattern would repeat itself twice more at the UCLA that fall: students would allege that they were victimised by racism, and the administration, rather than correcting the students’ misapprehension, penitently acceded to it. Colleges across the country behave no differently. As student claims of racial and gender mistreatment grow ever more unmoored from reality, campus grown-ups have abdicated their responsibility to cultivate an adult sense of perspective and common sense in their students. Instead, they are creating what tort law calls “eggshell plaintiffs” — preternaturally fragile individuals injured by the slightest collisions with life. The consequences will affect us for years to come.

One of the incidents mentioned, in which students claimed to be oppressed by corrected grammar and any public questioning of their far-left politics, will be familiar to regular readers.

Other debates centred on the political implications of punctuation. [Professor] Rust had changed a student’s capitalisation of the word “indigenous” in her dissertation proposal to the lowercase, thus allegedly showing disrespect for the student’s ideological point of view… During one of these heated discussions, Rust reached over and patted the arm of the class’s most vociferous critical race–theory advocate to try to calm him down — a gesture typical of the physically demonstrative Rust, who is prone to hugs. The student, Kenjus Watson, dramatically jerked his arm away, as a burst of nervous energy coursed through the room. [...] The student, a large and robust young man... eventually filed a criminal charge of battery against the 79-year-old professor.

Mr Watson has subsequently been awarded academic credit for instructing other “Students of Colour” – a tribe that excludes students from East Asia – in the subtleties of “constructive intergroup relations” at Penn State, St. Louis University, and the University of Michigan. Mr Watson describes his fellow grievance-seekers – and of course himself - as “courageous.”

Ms Mac Donald discusses the vanities and dysfunction of modern academia in this 90-minute video. 

Comments

[Dr Cromarty]

Not just academe. My wife was told her behaviour was "offensive" because she shook her head while an NHS manager was speaking.

[Sam]

in which students claimed to be oppressed by corrected grammar and any public questioning of their far-left politics,

Fainting couches are a basic human right.

[SimonF]

And smelling salts.

[David]

Fainting couches are a basic human right.

It’s worth noting that the students in question weren’t first-year ingénues; they were at graduate school, a place of “advanced learning,” studying for master’s degrees and doctorates in – wait for it - education. It may also be worth noting that schools of education, from which people like Mr Watson hope to shape the classrooms of tomorrow, can boast average SAT scores that are much lower than those of students at any comparable institution.

[JuliaM]

Dr Cromarty: "My wife was told her behaviour was "offensive" because she shook her head while an NHS manager was speaking."

Well, yes. I find that offensive.

It should have been her fist.

[Joan]

studying for master’s degrees and doctorates in – wait for it - education.

They'll fit right in unfortunately.

[David]

They’ll fit right in unfortunately.

Which I suppose is good news for our professional grievance-seekers, though possibly worrying for anyone over whom they’ll soon have influence. I mean, it’s hard to imagine that obnoxiously chippy attitude being welcomed and indulged outside of academia. Who in their right mind would want to employ someone who parades their deranged politics at every opportunity and finds disagreement not only intolerable but also a basis for disruption and legal harassment?

[splotchy]

......or just being part of such a person's social circle or family. No wonder they end up isolated, paranoid and embittered.

[David]

or just being part of such a person’s social circle or family.

Well, if someone cultivates this kind of passive-aggressive obnoxiousness, will they regard the consequences of that attitude – being avoided and rejected by other people - as proof that they’re being terribly oppressed? Rather than, say, recognising those consequences as a practical rebuttal of their own nasty pretensions.

[R. Sherman]

Note, Mr. Watson and his minions assume the mantle "Scholars of color." That is, they self-define without having accomplished any of those things necessary, i.e. writing and defending a dissertation, to be labeled as such.

[RY]

Re: 'Asians are not considered "people of color" on college campuses, presumably because they are academically successful.'

And, presumably, because critical race theory doesn't quite stand up.
If the evidence contradicts the theory - then the evidence gets discarded. The goalposts are moved, and Asians are reclassified as white.

It's an endlessly dishonest game .

[RY]

Edit, sorry.

'persons of color'

[Jeff Wood]

If I were younger and familiar with the academic scene, I would see all this nonsense as a business opportunity.

I would start a university offering solid courses taught by sane and sound academic staff. All fluff, and all fluffies, would be excluded from the courses and the lecturing staff.

Potential students would have to sign a contract accepting that the curricula would be rigorously taught and rigorously tested. They would accept freedom of speech, freedom of argument, and that the aim of the university would be to foster freedom of thought and independence and robustness of mind.

Race-baiters and grievance mongers would be subject to expulsion without appeal on the grounds that they hinder the work of the faculty and fellow students. It would all be in the contract.

I am sure more could be done, but suspect that the walls of such an institution would be stormed by honest lecturers, professors and students, and the money would roll in.

[Jeff Wood]

Having started a glass of something warming, I am inspired to add that the admissions process would involve, for the lads, an element of Trial by Combat.

The Prospectus would warn in advance that, qualifications having been sorted out, the young men would be required to prove they were not precious flowers by going three one-minute rounds in the boxing ring against an opponent of the same weight. The object would not be to win, but to demonstrate courage and willingness to take punishment.

I seem to recall that the Parachute Regiment has a more gruelling equivalent. Looking back, I recall I was a poor boxer at school, but the experience was useful.

That takes care of the lads. I am sure that the best of lasses would be keen applicants, knowing they would be studying alongside real men, so would need no similar trial by Ordeal.

[Darleen]

Show UC Berkeley students the ISIS flag while shouting anti-American sentiments?

YAWN

Barely start waving the Israel flag, get ready to be abused.

[Jimmy]

What the hell is wrong with people?. ISIS are barbarians. Perhaps worse.

I wouldn't think twice about approaching an ISIS supporter in my city and giving them a piece of my mind. These people are our enemies. It's common sense.

[RY]

'What the hell is wrong with these people?..'

It beggars belief doesn't it that people can support them?

ISIS are off the scale barbarians - and the enemies of all that is civilized.

It's so depressing, it makes you want to just give up.

[Quint&Jessel, Sea of Azof, Bly, UK]

Mr. Watson will probably go far, sadly. No doubt he'll join some aggrieving group and get paid for being horribly upset all the time.

That ISIS/Israel video is infuriating. Beheaders and enslavers vs. Nobel winners and the only democratic state in the ME. Wonderful, Berkeley students, go shoot yourselves.

[JL]

Ir appears that at Berkeley, ISIS have found their own generation of "useful idiots".

[David]

Somewhat related, this.

[David]

Further to the above, here’s another illustration of the mindset, approvingly retweeted by our dear friend Laurie Penny. You see, we mustn’t “wait for the facts” before jumping to conclusions that are fashionable and make us look concerned and therefore virtuous. Facts and details don’t matter – like who did what to whom, for example. Context doesn’t matter. Due process doesn’t matter. The fact that the jury will hear and learn much more about what happened, and who did what, and why, than some dogmatic woman on Twitter – well, that doesn’t matter either.

Because… well, “social justice.”

[Tim Newman]

>a gesture typical of the physically demonstrative Rust, who is prone to hugs.

I'm reminded here of the Aesop fable about a man who nurtures deadly snakes from the egg and gets bitten. Professor Rust is "prone to hugs" is he? Let me guess: he was one of the right-on, politically correct lefty professors who started this bullshit, partly by interpreting "hugs" from the lecturer as belonging in a serious academic setting. And now he finds this mentality he has nurtured has come and bitten him on the arse. Sympathy level: 0

[David]

I’m reminded here of the Aesop fable about a man who nurtures deadly snakes from the egg and gets bitten.

Pretty much.

[WTP]

"What the hell is wrong with people?" They've been educated. They're smart now. They know that the brave are the ones who are truly fearful, that capitalism is nothing more than slavery, and that the academic class knows how the world works and any failure of their ideas is really a failure of the world to meet their expectations. It's been going on for three or four generations now. It is accepted by most of society even if most society doesn't vote. Better question is what is wrong with everyone else.

[Ted S., Catskill Mtns., NY, USA]

David:

To be fair, if any non-cop did what Darren Wilson did, the shooter wouldn't get what amounts to a paid vacation and the likelihood of the case going to trial would be much higher.

[sackcloth and ashes]

'The Prospectus would warn in advance that, qualifications having been sorted out, the young men would be required to prove they were not precious flowers by going three one-minute rounds in the boxing ring against an opponent of the same weight. The object would not be to win, but to demonstrate courage and willingness to take punishment'.

Maybe a bit harsh. We're not recruiting for a war here. But I'd suggest two alternatives, at least for the humanities/social science students. The first would be a viva in which the student is invited to defend his/her arguments against a panel of three old-school academics who will not hold back. Failure would be due to dogmatism, losses of temper, hissy fits. Success would be guaranteed by any student ready to hold his/her own, or for that matter any student prepared to admit humility and to accept that the very reason why they're at the Uni is because they don't have all the answers.

The second would be to give a 5 minute presentation prior to entry summarising the case for a given argument. However, the student will be given the task of defending an ideological position he/she doesn't agree with. So a liberal-minded will be given the task (say) of justifying the Iraq war, whilst a conservative will be told to defend the welfare state. The student's ability to see that there is another side to the debate is what should be assessed, and his/her ability to do it justice even if he/she doesn't agree with it.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

To be fair, if any non-cop did what Darren Wilson did, the shooter wouldn't get what amounts to a paid vacation and the likelihood of the case going to trial would be much higher.

Aside from the fact that there are numerous cases of shootings deemed justified, as the case of Officer Wilson appears to have been, sans trial by virtue of the shooting having been self defense, I too am amazed by the luck of Wilson to have a "paid vacation", living in hiding due to death threats to himself and his family, and forced to resign (and likely relocate) because race pimps, thugs, and other "progressive" vermin are unwilling to accept due process.

[pst314]

Hey Farnsworth, wake up and smell the dialectic! If a black thug punches you in the face, shattering bones, and tries to take away your gun, you have no right to shoot him. He is black and therefore above any "white" law. Thuggery is just another culture. As is recreational random attacks on non-whites (see "knockout game" and "polar bear hunting".)

[WTP]

Psssst, pst314...You're not supposed to say that out loud. (Ahem)..pst314 is of course just being facetious. We all know that knockout games and polar bear hunting are just urban legends. Look! Over there! Sarah Palin is kissing Tim Tebow!!!...

[dicentra]

because race pimps, thugs, and other "progressive" vermin are unwilling to accept due process.

I caught a radio program this morning with some breathless women talking about Ferguson, and one woman said she felt sick to her stomach when the Natl. Guard was pre-emptively called out, because what does it say that they expect the people of Ferguson to act like thugs? How did we come to "hate each other" so much?

HEY LADIEEEE! It's not the "people of Ferguson" who are worrying law enforcement, it's the people NOT of Ferguson who just want to bust things up. People like the Black Panthers.

These women were reporters and other professionals, supposedly informed. And they didn't know that. (Or if they did, deliberately left it out.)

I hate people like that. Either they're too incurious to look for all the puzzle pieces (but that doesn't stop them from broadcasting a strong opinion) or they mouth bald-faced lies "for the greater good."

::spit::

[aplofar]

And now he finds this mentality he has nurtured has come and bitten him on the arse.

Quite possibly in full effect at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal: http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/uqam-profs-accused-of-sexual-harassment-school-says-it-s-slander-1.2101514

Scroll down for the only-in-academia image of a seminar poster, hung by one of the sociology professors in question on his bulletin board, advertising a conference on the "crises of late capitalism", which is now slapped with one of dozens of stickers implicitly accusing him of sexual assault. Now, far be it from me to *assume* his stance on the matter of anonymous sex crime accusations - I don't even know him. Still, you'd have to be pretty oblivious to run in those sorts of academic circles and somehow avoid noticing that denunciation, no-evidence-needed assertion, and "solidarity with whatever" are cherished local norms. And perhaps observing that the sociology department at UQAM is a rather sketchy crowd. (But maybe I'm just being one of those awful victim-blamers.)

[David]

Gateway Pundit has been covering the ongoing Ferguson saga, from the looting, death threats and presidential dissembling to the terribly daring vandalism of the Anarcho-Communist Solidarity Alliance.

It’s not exactly cheery reading.

[David]

Also, this:

After the speeches and poetry readings, each speaker would step down from the podium and immediately be ensnared in what students described as “solemn” hugs.

Hence the tag psychodrama.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

It’s not exactly cheery reading.

No, but on the other hand, from the not unsurprisingly ineffective plastic bottle Molotov cocktails, to a state senator getting arrested with a weapon at a protest and later getting carjacked by her pals, to having their cars stolen by their pals, to apparently shooting themselves, it is a fascinating look at their pathology. When your movement is composed of clowns, don't be surprised if a circus breaks out.

[Mr Eugenides]

Only tangentially related, but a new entry for your series "classic sentences [in this case, headlines] from the Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/24/lewis-hamilton-lack-popularity-black-formula-1-champion

[Account Deleted]

Whoever wrote that article should look up the meaning of "collective narcissism" and (hyper) "ethnocentrism". It's not pretty when "White" people do it, and it sure hell isn't when "non-Whites"/POC do it too.