Ever cross paths with a woman carrying around a small dog as a fashion accessory? Oftentimes, those little creatures can be seen quivering in fear from the overload of oversized surroundings, loud noises, hustle and bustle. I imagine that some students at the University of Missouri are feeling that way after the latest bit of head-scratching insanity that came out of the university’s Diversity Office.
Apparently, telling a disabled person who has achieved success that you’re “inspired” by their achievement has been added to the ever-growing list of no-nos, because it could be considered patronizing and therefore a form of microaggression. We already know that we’re not supposed to use any words that might make someone with disabilities… strike that – someone who’s “different” in any way, shape or form… feel bad about their difference, be self-conscious about their difference, or even be made aware that we’ve noticed their difference.
The last bit is the head-scratcher. If we’re not supposed to even acknowledge that someone is in any way shape or form different, doesn’t that demolish the entire edifice of identity politics that is what drives today’s social justice warriors and liberal crusaders?
I get and embrace the idea that treating others as people rather than as labeled packages makes for a more harmonious society. In fact, that’s a key principle of libertarianism – to hold the individual supreme over the group, and if we behave towards someone who’s “different” as we do towards everyone else, we embrace the spirit of individualism.
That’s not remotely, however, what social justice and political correctness are about. Multiculturalism and diversity are all about elevating differences to an exalted state, about making the identity group the differentiating factor, about selecting certain differences as important enough to protect. That protection has morphed from protection against negatives to protection against… well, everything?
The poor, beleaguered Mizzou students, coming off last November’s turmoil, must be feeling tugged in many directions. Would a wheelchair-bound person feel microaggressed if someone held a door for him rather than letting it slam in his face? Dare a student congratulate another who just won a medal in the Special Olympics or Paralympics, or would that congratulations run the risk of giving offense and therefore constitute a microaggression?
I’d call this insanity, but I’d almost certainly be castigated for denigrating the insane (I’m not joking).
What, exactly, are these institutes of higher learning preparing students for nowadays? What are they contributing to society in exchange for all the money they’re taking out of both the private and public sectors and for all the debt they’re burdening their charges with? If they spit out an endless stream of quivering chihuahuas into the real world, do they seriously think that those chihuahuas have been well served by the thorough mental beat-downs they’ve endured from those who’ve made it their life’s work to mine every depth and explore every last nook and cranny of human interaction for things to be outraged about?
Two years ago, I wrote about how the educational system is drifting away from its basic role of preparing young people for life as adults. That drift (more of a forced march, really) continues, even in the face of growing public awareness of the absurdities that have resulted from social justice run amok on college campuses. More and more are actively questioning the value of a college education, and I noted a few months back that something’s bound to break sooner or later.
When does this madness end? The propaganda compliance officers have been working overdrive to homogenize thought, and, like true fanatics, embrace and continue with the process rather than celebrate achieving goals. Now, we’re not even allowed to say nice things to each other.
The festering cesspools that produce this garbage survive because they are insulated from financial pressure, feedback or recrimination. A seemingly bottomless well of public money keeps driving tuition ever higher, academia is aggressively liberal and conformist and leaves no room for dissenting voices. That is, of course, the great big joke about diversity on campus – diversity of thought is not only unwanted, it’s hunted down and beaten into submission. Despite the conversion of universities from oases of free thought to concrete indoctrination gulags, society continues to propagate the message that everyone should go to college and politicians want to pump even more money into tertiary education.
These quivering chihuahuas don’t get to stay in their safe spaces forever. They have to venture out into the real world, a world of economic malaise, questionable job prospects, and a decided lack of authority figures to protect them from microaggressions and to tell them what to say and think. Like animals that grew up in captivity and released without any sort of acclimatizing, they’re woefully underprepared for life.
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