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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2324 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: “Microaggressions”, “Trigger Warnings”, and the New Meaning of “Trauma”

So a point we keep not connecting on is the peculiar environment of the American university. I've repeatedly observed that the collegiate environment within the United States has grown increasingly cloistered and that the social mores within its walled garden reflect that of the world without to a lesser and lesser degree. A corollary to this would be the economic system that led to this walled garden: student loans are outsized compared to incomes, colleges and universities are increasingly dependent on tuition rather than grants and public funding to stay afloat, and the caliber of an undergraduate degree matters less than simply possessing one which means many universities are competing using luxury dorm rooms, health centers, concierge service and other perqs that are completely divorced from the academic environment.

So we've got a bunch of kids going deeply into debt that are choosing whether to spend their money at one deeply-pampering environment or another. they're being told that their feelings matter and that equality and equity are the most important thing. Effectively, they're being given knives and being told that they're expected to stab.

I just don't see this as a problem with the kids. I see this as a perfectly natural reaction by the kids. More than that, I think most kids understand that they occupy a special environment with weird rules and that they're playing by them. The outrage is real - the butthurt is real - but it doesn't take much for a person to acclimate to a new ruleset. This is why i raise the Google Manifesto - the dominant culture amongst high-achieving college graduates is not one of "i'm special because I'm black" it's one of "I'm special because I'm white and male and everyone else better shut the fuck up."

I agree that the environment we're creating at universities is counter-productive. I disagree that the symptoms displayed there are spreading into the greater world. I have no interest in belittling your concerns but I would caution you to focus on the sources and motivations of your information. Vast swaths of the world are in better shape than you've been led to believe.





FirebrandRoaring  ·  2324 days ago  ·  link  ·  

We're not connecting on that point because we're talking about different things now. You're still on the specific subject while I went on to a more general problem.

The point of optimization is not to eliminate the bad. The point of optimization is to improve the object. "Functional" is merely a step on the ladder.