"I like to offend people, because I think that everyone who gets offended, should be offended." -- Linus Torvalds
This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
11–20 of 707 posts
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#12"Oklahoma Wesleyan is not a “safe place”, but rather, a place to learn"
Exactly, I don't get why people are trying to make universities, workplaces, clubs, or anywhere else "safe places". They should not be safe places, they should be places where you feel confronted, challenged and threatened by different ideas and points of view.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#13"If you’re more interested in playing the “hater” card than you are in confessing your own hate; if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather than humbly learn ..."
I agree with the fundamental point about mistaking being offended (or made to feel guilty) for victimization, that being said:
There is such a thing as opression and the sidelining of the concerns of groups within society that are already marginalized. This veers dangerously close to being dismissive of that fact, and the author seems to nearly (if not outright) mock perceived "political correctness" and a set of working vocabulary that has been established around speaking about such marginalization.
I'm not sure that's particularly humble or self-reflective of Dr Piper. Although I'm also sure that such language can be abused (just as any discourse can be misused in favor of the person weilding it). "We don’t believe that you have been victimized every time you feel guilty" may be true, and may even be particularly true for the group of people he is adressing (OKWU students), but I hope it is tightly coupled with a belief in and an understanding of the very real forces of inequality that exist in society today.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#14I find it baffling that there are people, in the real world, who somehow think that for unexplained reasons they have the right to not be offended or be made to feel uncomfortable. Somehow they believe that their feelings are the responsibility of everyone else.
The article blames "our culture" - I'd be interested to know what exactly - the media, the internet, parents, schools, sports clubs, or a combination of each.
Mostly parents+educational philosophy of the 1990's to present.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#15I find it baffling that there are people, in the real world, who somehow think that for unexplained reasons they have the right to not be offended or be made to feel uncomfortable. Somehow they believe that their feelings are the responsibility of everyone else.
That's a strawman. Even the folks screaming at their residence hall master at Yale didn't assert an abstract "right not to be offended." Their beef was about an institution they pay money to not doing enough to police the conduct of other members of that institution.
What's equally baffling is Ivy-league frat boys thinking that "free speech" entitles them to engage in conduct that would get them summarily booted out in the real world.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#16Per Wikipedia, Oklahoma Wesleyan University serves about 900 students and is an evangelical Christian university of the Wesleyan Church located in Bartlesville, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Their motto is "A university where Jesus is Lord." In this article, conservative OKWU president Dr. Everett Piper seems to dismiss the concerns of one student, calling for more sermons full of guilt and shame, as a tool to get c…
I honestly don't think he was being dismissive. I think he was acknowledging that the student's uncomfortable feelings were legitimate, even deliberately provoked, and offered a prescription for how to best handle them. This is (one) Christian message, and presumably one that the students at that school knowingly signed up for (well, their parents did, at any rate). I'm not a huge fan of self-blaming guilt, it tends to be just as self-indulgent as feeling violated by some sermon, but a sense of shame at one's shortcomings can be a useful guide for self growth and development. I am neither conservative nor a Christian but I find that I generally agree with his sentiment.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#17This article's title should have trigger warnings.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#18I think the world would be better if, before you're allowed to respond to someone being wrong, you have to first be able to express their position in a way that they agree represents their view. Because 'political correctness' isn't the cancer at the heart of social politics, it is straw-manning. On both sides of every issue. I'd be surprised, perhaps even amazed, if Dr Piper had represented the complaint in any way…
...or perhaps he just got fed up of dealing with these kind of people (of a different generation) and had to vent it out.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#19I think the world would be better if, before you're allowed to respond to someone being wrong, you have to first be able to express their position in a way that they agree represents their view. Because 'political correctness' isn't the cancer at the heart of social politics, it is straw-manning. On both sides of every issue. I'd be surprised, perhaps even amazed, if Dr Piper had represented the complaint in any way…
The counter-point to that approach is the "motte and bailey doctrine".
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric...
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#20Outstanding article on many counts. It also reminds me of a recent article I read on Psychology Today [1] that talks about fragile students:
"Students are increasingly seeking help for, and apparently having emotional crises over, problems of everyday life. Recent examples mentioned included a student who felt traumatized because her roommate had called her a “bitch” and two students who had sought counseling because they had seen a mouse in their off-campus apartment. The latter two also called the police, who kindly arrived and set a mousetrap for them."
[1] - https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201509/de...