I 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.
While I sympathize with your viewpoint, perhaps I can shed some clarity on the other side. The concern is not feelings getting hurt, but rather physical security as a person of minority status. This is something that a white heterosexual middle-class male (such as myself) can probably never fully appreciate, but I try to sympathize. Imagine what it is like to be black in a country where just a few generations back yo…
This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
111–120 of 707 posts
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#112This seems to be thrusting in two directions. One about trigger warnings and safe spaces and so on, and one about sermons and guilt. One common narrative re safe spaces seems to be: "if something makes you uncomfortable, you should suck it up instead of trying to force everyone else to accommodate you". I think this is somewhat missing the point, but I can relate to it. I feel like this is the dominant narrative in t…
1 Corinthian 13 is supposed to make us reflect on love and have some negative feeling when we remember that we've not shown our family, friends, neighbors and strangers love. We're supposed to "feel bad". It means we are alive and healthy.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
One takes offence, one does not give it. It's an idiopathic condition. I'm a white male, but I grew up being called Gwailo, Gaijin, Auslander, and when I finally returned to the anglosphere in my early teens, I was still an outsider as I spoke with a weird accent and was by that point a through-and-through third culture kid. I got the crap bullied out of me, and eventually figured out that it only hurt if I took it t…
> Folks need to have thicker skin Why? Congratulations on being such a paragon of excellence. Why should we require such virtue of all humans? Instead of expecting you to develop a thick skin (are you sure this is a good thing?), why can't we try to reform your aggressors in the first place?
Imagine you have an API that receives a POST with some JSON. Every time your API receives a malformed POST, your application crashes or hangs. Do you a) try to do your best to make sure no one ever POSTS to your uri with malformed data, or do you b) rewrite your API to be more robust and send back an error code when malformed input is received rather than crashing?
Does that analogy make any sense or is it too far fetched?
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#114Being brought up Christian, I also have no argument that many of the "Christian" religions, Catholicism in particular, do seem to favour guilt as the tool of choice to manipulate their congregations into toeing the line - it's one of the many reasons I shunned the church at a fairly young age. I have no interest in spending my life feeling guilty for not living up to an unreasonable expectation of a collection of long dead ancestors that have little (if any) bearing on today's society. What happened to just treating others as you wish to be treated in return?
There is guilt on both sides of this argument and neither one can stop to address their own shortcomings before judging the other.
On the other hand, I have little to argue with the content of the article. If you're not equipped to deal with how the world around you treats you, you will forever be playing the victim card. Is that what you really want for your whole life? or are you ready to take charge of yourself, responsibility for your own emotions and behaviour? or would you prefer to be treated as a child for the rest of your life, protected from reality by 'yes' men, validating you because you haven't learned to deal with your feelings of a lack of validation?
Nobody ever accomplished anything without dealing with the discomfort of the world around them.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#115Every adult has screamed about the "Next Generation" being softer or not as capable as the current. I think it's a lack of adults remembering how they were when they were young. I'm "Gen X", the naming of which was often (incorrectly) attributed to aimlessness: "The Unknown Generation" (the real naming reason has a much less arrogant reason).
I am concerned about the seeming "addiction to Victimhood" that appears[1] to be plaguing generations below me, however, I'm about as concerned about it as I would be any trivial thing. Success (however it's defined) requires one to figure out how to navigate the perceived injustices and figure out how to carve out a life. We did; they will, too. Hopefully it'll happen without a bunch of new legislation under the guise of Justice but with the result of further erosion of freedom.
There's one, key, difference between today's screaming and the screaming of generations past: Reach. Just like the current crop of over-protective parents dreaming that crime is so much worse these days than it was when we were kids (when in reality many crimes against children occur with half the frequency they did when we were young), the screaming about injustice is much more visible. This serves two negative purposes: we perceive that the entire generation of kids is a bunch of weak, whining losers based on a handful of folks with extreme positions and those striving for an identity see an opportunity to jump on the large (again, perceived) bandwagon and get some attention. Everyone has an opportunity to be heard and it's up to each of us to set our filters appropriately. Unfortunately, Critical Thinking is something that is often absent or ignored[2].
[1] "Appears" being the operative word. Though I've read many articles, I tend to surround myself with people who fit the age-range and socioeconomic status of the typical Victimhood addict and I don't see any of these traits in them. Anecdote, yes, but so many of the news stories are based on little more evidence.
[2] That sounds like a dig; it's not meant to be. I believe Critical Thinking is a fancy way of saying "wisdom" and is something that is acquired through experience, is rarely teachable (if it's even attempted to be taught) and is often forgotten in the face of highly-emotional arguments. It's the sort of thing that changes the phrase "Founders with heavy accents are rarely in the top 100 start-ups" into "I think people who don't speak English are dumb". Over time, and with experience at your back, you (hopefully) learn to be slow to ascribe malice to another's actions and give people the benefit of the doubt. Everyone communicates differently and I think most of us intend the best, not the worst.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#116There is a lot of press about this "Yale problem" type of stories but I live in Europe where I find kids fearless and aggressive. I find this type of reasoning very hard to relate to. Do you feel this type of behaviour is affecting a majority of NA youth ? Or is it more media looking at what could be the very beggining of a trend ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11573646/...
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/goldsmiths-student-div...
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Having spent far more than my fair share of time around University students (11 years), I can assure you that the complaint is likely what the student said. It smells very much like what students today are saying." I guess I have different students because I've been teaching college since 2000 and have never had any complaints like this and neither have any of my friends.
What subject do you teach? I was talking to an old physics professor of mine and he said the same thing, but my former psych professor was completely the opposite. Maybe it's a subject-related issue?
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#118This seems to be thrusting in two directions. One about trigger warnings and safe spaces and so on, and one about sermons and guilt. One common narrative re safe spaces seems to be: "if something makes you uncomfortable, you should suck it up instead of trying to force everyone else to accommodate you". I think this is somewhat missing the point, but I can relate to it. I feel like this is the dominant narrative in t…
> For example, if the sermon was all about how gay people are going to hell, and that made a student uncomfortable, that's not because the student is a bad person. That's because it was a terrible sermon. Well, no - the proper response to that is not whining but saying: "Since in hell are probably also Freddie Mercury, Voltaire and Oscar Wilde (and probably Mark Twain) - do I strictly have to be gay to go there or ar…
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The idea that people's feelings should come first, especially before truth/understanding of reality No one is arguing for this.
Yes, they are. As soon as you claim they are, they scurry away claiming that's not what they mean, but as soon as you say "OK then" and move on, they turn right around and it's all about their feelings again. It is very much a part of the modern PC platform that if someone "feels" assaulted, they are, and you must believe them or you are blaming the victim. This is why accusations are as good as conviction in places…
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Having spent far more than my fair share of time around University students (11 years), I can assure you that the complaint is likely what the student said. It smells very much like what students today are saying." I guess I have different students because I've been teaching college since 2000 and have never had any complaints like this and neither have any of my friends.
What subject do you teach? I was talking to an old physics professor of mine and he said the same thing, but my former psych professor was completely the opposite. Maybe it's a subject-related issue?