The Coddling of the American Mind

[Skybird]

It may be subtle still in America, maybe yes, maybe not, I do not judge it - but over here in Europe and Germany, it is a rampaging pandemic.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

[Oberon]

Yeah, I must admit I can agree to some extent with this. I mean there's being sensitive and then there's being ridiculous. The example given with Harvard with rape law or using the word violate is an example of ridiculousness. Being sensitive by not making jokes about transgenderism in front of a transgendered person or calling a homosexual a 'queer' is not ridiculous, since the latter uses a word which has been given a derogatory term (like ****** to coloured people) and the former is plain rude.
But you get this in all walks, there will always be people wanting to go too far about things, wanting to ban this, censor that, restrict this, and then there are some people who think we should be able to say or do anything, no matter how offensive it is...and funnily enough, when they get offended by something suddenly that rule doesn't apply any more. Strange old world.

Right, well, that's probably the only left leaning post in this thread, I shall hand it over to the no doubt deluge of 'Good old boys' (never did no-one any harm) who will gripe about how Political Correctness has gone mad and no longer lets them call their boy a faggot because he likes My Little Pony.

Carry on. :salute:

[Kptlt. Neuerburg]

Right, well, that's probably the only left leaning post in this thread, I shall hand it over to the no doubt deluge of 'Good old boys' (never did no-one any harm) who will gripe about how Political Correctness has gone mad and no longer lets them call their boy a faggot because he likes My Little Pony.

Carry on. :salute: Yes because how dare someone call their boy a bundle of sticks because he likes MLP!:O:

EDIT: So I did read the article and there where plenty of things that do seem to be bordering on or have crossed the lines of ridiculousness. For example
Two terms have risen quickly from obscurity into common campus parlance. Microaggressions are small actions or word choices that seem on their face to have no malicious intent but that are thought of as a kind of violence nonetheless. For example, by some campus guidelines, it is a microaggression to ask an Asian American or Latino American “Where were you born?,” because this implies that he or she is not a real American. Trigger warnings are alerts that professors are expected to issue if something in a course might cause a strong emotional response. For example, some students have called for warnings that Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart describes racial violence and that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby portrays misogyny and physical abuse, so that students who have been previously victimized by racism or domestic violence can choose to avoid these works, which they believe might “trigger” a recurrence of past trauma. So by the logic of asking an Asian or Latino American the question "Where were you born?", does that mean it is a microagression to ask them "Where are you from?", for the same reason? In the second instance does this mean that all books which feature racism, racial violence, and/or domestic violence should be banned for fear of someone getting offended? The other examples are thus
This new climate is slowly being institutionalized, and is affecting what can be said in the classroom, even as a basis for discussion. During the 2014–15 school year, for instance, the deans and department chairs at the 10 University of California system schools were presented by administrators at faculty leader-training sessions with examples of microaggressions. The list of offensive statements included: “America is the land of opportunity” and “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.” Now how does the phrase "America is the land of opportunity" offensive to anyone, especially when this statement is one of the factors that have driven and still drive people to leave their home countries and immigrate to America. Now the statement "I believe the most qualified person should get the job" as an offensive statement is one that is quite ridiculous, since the most qualified person is the one who tends to have more experience and knowledge of that position, although it isn't strictly correct in a case where a person has worked in that position for a number of years but failed to totally do their job correctly or partly didn't do the job correctly.

[Wolferz]

Tuck the head under a rock...

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb295/Wolferz_2007/Sachs-1.jpg

[Catfish]

Make no mistake, this kind of imbecility is striving at german universities, too.
:nope:

[Skybird]

^ This.

But the point is that it is already out in the wild beyond the academical world, too: public schools, media, politics, business world and economics.

[VipertheSniper]

You should watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvoYtUhjRWM and read some of the comments

[Torplexed]

It looks like we have at least partly raised a generation of young people who have not been given the chance to learn how to solve their own problems. They have not been given the opportunity to get into trouble, survive a few cuts and bruises and find their own way out, to experience failure and realize they can survive it, to be called bad names by others and learn how to respond without adult intervention. So now, here’s what we have. Young people,18 years and older, going to college still unable or unwilling to take responsibility for themselves, still feeling that if a problem arises they need an adult to step in and solve it.

Could be all that helicopter parenting is coming back to haunt us. I think these students haven’t developed skills in how to deal with temporary setbacks, probably because their parents have solved most all their problems and removed the obstacles. As a result hey don’t seem to have as much grit as previous generations.

In a way it's parallel to the popular practice among some young parents of slathering both their child and their environment with all manner of anti-bacterial products. Reduces the odds of the kid getting sick, yes, but also causes their body's defenses to atrophy making their lives miserable when they start to live among other children in school. There are mental defenses you need to develop when growing up too.

[u crank]

Could be all that helicopter parenting is coming back to haunt us. I think these students haven’t developed skills in how to deal with temporary setbacks, probably because their parents have solved most all their problems and removed the obstacles. As a result hey don’t seem to have as much grit as previous generations.

There are mental defenses you need to develop when growing up too.

The sad part of all this is that the real world has not changed. People still say bad things. People still say racist, misogynistic, homophobic crap. They still bully others. They still laugh at the misfortune of others. The longer people are sheltered from this, the harder it is going to be to adapt to it. It isn't going to change. I think that most young people who buy into this kind of thing will snap out of it when the hit the real world. Those that don't will be in trouble.

From the article....

According to the most-basic tenets of psychology, helping people with anxiety disorders avoid the things they fear is misguided.

[NeonSamurai]

Oh its absolutely rampant in Canadian and American Universities and Colleges.

Use to drive me absolutely nuts when students in my masters clinical social work classes use to demand that class be a "safe space", or insist on trigger warnings (in this field if you are seriously worried about being triggered, you are probably in the wrong field to begin with), or blather on about about micro-aggressions and all the other stuff. Some of it was just unreal.

[August]

I think we may find this is related in some way to school shootings. Being that ready to take offense all the time for ridiculously minor things, it's no wonder that some of them snap and go on bloody rampages. They're always about revenge for some slight.

Could it possibly be that these horrific crimes might be prevented by just teaching our young to grow a skin?

[NeonSamurai]

That I am not so sure about. It is most often seen in the class room relating to class topics with certain topics causing discomfort in students. Trigger warnings are especially irritating as most of the students think being triggered is if something makes you feel really uncomfortable like say the subject of rape and they don't realize there is a difference between that and the reactions of actual trauma victims (of which about 80-95% of students aren't).

Micro-aggressions certainly do exist, but they tend to be more mildly offensive such as asking a Chinese person where they came from, with the (potentially fault) assumption by the Chinese person being that the person asking the question is assuming they were not born in the US.

I doubt very much that any of it has to do with school shootings. Those things are more often related to undetected mental health problems, the individual feeling isolated or excluded, easy access to firearms (or bomb making material), potential religious beliefs and/or extremism, and the amount of media attention placed on these events.

[Skybird]

If schools and universities breed these kind of egocentric mimosas, they will either crack open once job reality finds them and plows them under - or they will end up influencing the world according to their mimosa standards that in principle are a combination of weakness and thin skin - and blatant egocentrism resultung from the claim for own defence of mentioned thin skin.

Of these two scenarios, I find the second far more worrying.

What this mimosa attitude could lead to, is self-victimization being used to enforce your ways and to blackmail privileges, for example. It could backfire back on education and cripple critical thinking and courageous questioning even more. Of course, it also could lead to even more "reasonable defending" of political correctness.

Its a nightmare.

That egocentrism that I mentioned, cannot hide that on a collective level the way of the mimosa nevertheless mercilessly leads the way to collective self-negation, the denial of own group identity. Because that would require to look beyond oneself. Nevertheless, such people could flock together, pretending to be a collective, united, and of shared identity. A big illusion. I think of the UN and Muslim self-victimization there, and beyond. Being thin skinned, can earn you immense privileges and influence. And it can ruin the reasonable.

And if you look around in the world today, in the media, in politics, economics, public opinions - it already is happening. Possibly the battle already is lost.

The way of the mimosa, did I say that? :88) Think I better stick to the Hagakure then... :huh: Not ideal, but better than the Mimosa way.

[Oberon]

I doubt very much that any of it has to do with school shootings. Those things are more often related to undetected mental health problems, the individual feeling isolated or excluded, easy access to firearms (or bomb making material), potential religious beliefs and/or extremism, and the amount of media attention placed on these events.

Agreed, the average profile of the young shooter is not that of someone who takes offence at everything, but the quiet one. The isolated one, who doesn't fit in because they're 'not right'.
Funnily enough, part of the drive that has lead to this accidental 'coddoling' of the American public was originally to try and prevent the loner type, the outcast either through religion or social status, from happening. To try and make all sorts of people from all walks of life welcome and comfortable.
Like with most things though, it's gone a bit too far because some people have pushed it that way. :/\\!!

[August]

Agreed, the average profile of the young shooter is not that of someone who takes offence at everything, but the quiet one. The isolated one, who doesn't fit in because they're 'not right'.
Funnily enough, part of the drive that has lead to this accidental 'coddoling' of the American public was originally to try and prevent the loner type, the outcast either through religion or social status, from happening. To try and make all sorts of people from all walks of life welcome and comfortable.
Like with most things though, it's gone a bit too far because some people have pushed it that way. :/\\!!

Quiet doesn't mean they aren't angry. These animals are always mad at the world and their perceived unfair treatment.

Take this last one. According to that liberal rag the New York Times.

For investigators searching for his path to mass murder, he left behind a typewritten manifesto at the scene and a string of online postings that showed he had become increasingly interested in other high-profile shootings, angry at not having a girlfriend and bitter at a world that he believed was working against him.Mr. Harper-Mercer appeared to have a particular animus against organized religion, and some survivors’ families have said he asked the victims whether they were Christians before shooting them.
Just this week, on Tuesday, using the handle lithium_love, he commented on a post titled “How many girlfriends have you had?” by saying “0. Never had anyone.” When pressed further by another user, he responded “Well, it means I’ve never been with anyone, no woman nor man (nor dog or animal or any other).” Then, on Wednesday, responding to a comment that he “must be saving himself for someone special,” he said, “Involuntarily so.” It was a day before the killings.
“He did not like his lot in life, and it seemed like nothing was going right for him,” a law enforcement official said, describing the writings found at the crime scene. “It’s clear he was in a very bad state of mind.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/us/chris-harper-mercer-umpqua-community-college-shooting.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=MostPopularFB&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

IMO the natural extension of the entitlement mindset. Mass murder has become the ultimate temper tantrum.

[ikalugin]

“How many girlfriends have you had?” by saying “0. Never had anyone.” When pressed further by another user, he responded “Well, it means I’ve never been with anyone, no woman nor man (nor dog or animal or any other).”
Well, I don't go shooting people to death because of that.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQJ4-yS8uF0M4F6jUY1MQsngBXGlVBlm22sq8FmLvSIzFGsTBydnqvW EQ

[August]

Well, I don't go shooting people to death because of that.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQJ4-yS8uF0M4F6jUY1MQsngBXGlVBlm22sq8FmLvSIzFGsTBydnqvW EQ

Just because that's not your snapping point means it couldn't be his?

[ikalugin]

It could be, I just find a situation where that happens sad, especially as a person who could relate.

A xenophobic paranoid paleo conservatist may even say that the person in question was weak and the society that is moving towards generating more such weakness is doomed. But then I would have to live in North America to actually care about that :)

[Torplexed]

IMO the natural extension of the entitlement mindset. Mass murder has become the ultimate temper tantrum

angry at not having a girlfriend and bitter at a world that he believed was working against him.

Sounds a bit like the "I-can't-get-any-killer" in Santa Barbara from last year. A loser with a gun unfortunately. Increasingly, we have people for whom failure & frustration in life is taken out on complete strangers before they "off" themselves.


Hours after posting a terrifying YouTube warning, a murderous, misogynistic, 22-year-old virgin killed six people and wounded 13 more near a California college.

Elliot Rodger, the hate-filled son of a Hollywood director, vowed in his video to exact his bloody vengeance against the sorority women who rejected him and the men who succeeded where he so often failed.http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/deranged-santa-barbara-california-killer-tied-premeditated-youtube-video-reports-article-1.1804354

[Kptlt. Neuerburg]

Quiet doesn't mean they aren't angry. These animals are always mad at the world and their perceived unfair treatment.

Take this last one. According to that liberal rag the New York Times.



http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/us/chris-harper-mercer-umpqua-community-college-shooting.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=MostPopularFB&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

IMO the natural extension of the entitlement mindset. Mass murder has become the ultimate temper tantrum. I think the real problem is, is that people such as this shooter don't recognize the faults in their person. They don't identify these faults and therefore never make any attempt to change themselves for the better and then turn around and blame society for their problems. I should know this from personal experience as at one point in time I was the social outcast, the loner, the nerd, the weirdo, and I was bullied because I was different from everyone else and soon I started to follow the dark road which would eventually lead to either an attempt at suicide or even possibly going committing a mass shooting. Yet instead of trying to blame everything that had gone wrong in my life on everyone else I sought to better myself and to get help when I needed it. These cases have less to do with entitlement and more to do with the mindset of a person who is ostracized for being different be it a physical deformity, having a stutter, not receiving attention from parents and therefore end up playing the fool, the weirdo, the dumb kid, and get teased and bullied for it because it's a form of attention although it's the wrong kind of attention or in some cases they shut themselves away from society because they become paranoid because they feel a person or persons are trying to ruin their life and anyone who this person feels has some act of aggression, no matter how slight or stupid end up as another person who is trying to sabotage them. If they continue like this and not seeking the help they need and try to better themselves, they will eventfully snap and then seek either attention by committing some heinous act or they will seek attention by some form of revenge on those who they feel have wronged them.

[NeonSamurai]

Quiet doesn't mean they aren't angry. These animals are always mad at the world and their perceived unfair treatment.

Take this last one. According to that liberal rag the New York Times.

For investigators searching for his path to mass murder, he left behind a typewritten manifesto at the scene and a string of online postings that showed he had become increasingly interested in other high-profile shootings, angry at not having a girlfriend and bitter at a world that he believed was working against him.Mr. Harper-Mercer appeared to have a particular animus against organized religion, and some survivors’ families have said he asked the victims whether they were Christians before shooting them.
Just this week, on Tuesday, using the handle lithium_love, he commented on a post titled “How many girlfriends have you had?” by saying “0. Never had anyone.” When pressed further by another user, he responded “Well, it means I’ve never been with anyone, no woman nor man (nor dog or animal or any other).” Then, on Wednesday, responding to a comment that he “must be saving himself for someone special,” he said, “Involuntarily so.” It was a day before the killings.
“He did not like his lot in life, and it seemed like nothing was going right for him,” a law enforcement official said, describing the writings found at the crime scene. “It’s clear he was in a very bad state of mind.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/us/chris-harper-mercer-umpqua-community-college-shooting.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=MostPopularFB&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

IMO the natural extension of the entitlement mindset. Mass murder has become the ultimate temper tantrum.

Yes anger & jealousy is often a large part of it, but often in person these people tend to be rather quiet and very isolated. The internet is something else entirely because of the perceived anonymity, so it is not unusual at all to find those people to be far more vocal and self revealing then in person.

The bigger question is, why did this kid go through with what so many kids often imagine doing during periods of grief or loneliness? All kinds of kids go through these experience and yet never get to the point of killing others over it. Entitlement does not explain it as frankly we all in the 1st world have strong feelings of entitlement, particularly within the last few generations. It also is much more than just a temper tantrum, this is a murder suicide, where this person has reached the point where they give up, and want to cause as much harm to their perceived abusers as possible.

Now this does not mean that I think you are entirely wrong either, as some of it does come from this culture of self-victimization and profound egoism. But the behavior of murder suicide has being going on for a very long time (throughout history really). We just know about recent events more because of mass media, and the carnage has gone up with our technological advancements in killing, such as the development semi-auto/full-auto weapons, and large capacity magazines, which really enabled people to kill large numbers of other people very quickly and with decreased self risk. We are long past the days of cap and ball guns, matchlocks, bows, or blades.

[Torvald Von Mansee]

I went to school at a place which was filled with humorless, P.C. Nazis. (OMG...someone has a semester or two of schooling suddenly is a knowitall at 19.) I might be left-of-center, but I certainly don't sugarcoat my words.

[August]

We just know about recent events more because of mass media, and the carnage has gone up with our technological advancements in killing, such as the development semi-auto/full-auto weapons, and large capacity magazines, which really enabled people to kill large numbers of other people very quickly and with decreased self risk.

Those weapons have been available since the 1920's. For example a Thompson Sub-machinegun, far more deadly in close quarters than any semi-automatic, was available for public sale for decades, yet they have never been used in a school shooting. In fact the most deadly school massacre was not committed with a firearm but rather explosives. Google the Bath Massacre.

The point is madmen will always find a way. We need to stop wasting our time with feel good but ultimately ineffectual gun control legislation and start getting to the root of why they commit their crimes and just as importantly in my mind why the media is so eager to feed them with ideas and rewards them with fame for doing it.