Things That Make Me Laugh, Campus/Culture Edition

Member Group : Jerry Shenk

The arc of progressive campus history always bends to the laughably absurd.

For example, to “fight white supremacy and promote social justice,” a University of New Mexico professor has called for faculty to value “emotion as knowledge,” especially when students are made to feel “uncomfortable.” Got that? Apparently, any uncomfortable emotional anxiety resulting from failure to prepare for finals should be “A”-worthy.

Beloit College offers a major in “Critical Identity Studies.” “Combining a variety of academic disciplines (gender and women’s studies, ethnic studies, queer studies, disability studies, postcolonial studies), Critical Identity Studies (CRIS) investigates the ways identities are shaped within structures of inequality and through systems and practices of power and resistance.”

Huh?

One wonders…do the IQ standards for “Studies” departments’ faculty and students have maximums rather than minimums? And has higher education deteriorated to the point where declensions and fractions have become graduate-level courses?

Franz Kafka, call your office: Robert Weissberg asks, “What kind of world is it when a campus can be in turmoil for a week if a white woman wearing hoop earrings is caught serving tacos at ‘South of the Border Night’ in the school cafeteria? All to be followed by a cowardly administrator offering heartfelt apologies to offended students and promising do even more to promote a fully inclusive campus.”

Begs a question: If “cultural appropriation” is unacceptable to campus activists, why isn’t “gender appropriation” similarly proscribed?

In 2016, law school professor Gail Heriot suggested that transgenders should not be indulged. U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) flipped out, so Heriot asked, “Does that mean you think I am a Russian princess?”  Lofgren responded, “I have no idea.” Lofgren knows the truth, but the left-wing’s culture of fear won’t permit an honest answer without risking allegations of doubleplus-ungood-gender-crimethink.

Also in 2016, Brown University’s student body president hand-delivered menstrual products to all public bathrooms on campus, including men’s rooms, because “pads and tampons are a necessity, not a luxury,” and that “not all people who menstruate are women.” Coulda fooled me…

Think that’s silly? According to one young writer, straight women shouldn’t be allowed to use the word “girlfriend,” not because women are no longer technically “girls” after a certain age, but because doing so is “non-inclusive” – or something. Only humorless people get upset that others might find both affectations amusing.

In 2017, Occidental College sociology professor Lisa Wade warned that everyone should be “suspicious of males who strongly identify as men.” Seriously, does Wade favor full emasculation of what are already the least masculine campuses in history?

Generally, telling liberal undergraduates, “I don’t accept the premises underlying your assumptions” won’t start rational dialogs. It will only get you hollered at and called names.

Is there a cure? Most of this hysterical nonsense originates on campuses, so, clearly, education isn’t a cure. Many psychiatrists take this stuff seriously, too, so mental health “experts” can’t fix it.

Possibly the only thing that has a chance to cure campus/cultural “eccentricities” is general ridicule. Join in – if you dare…

https://www.ldnews.com/story/opinion/2019/10/03/things-make-me-laugh-campus-culture-edition/3850039002/