College Students Are Ridiculously Infuriating Safe-Space/Mega-thread

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

The forces of reaction have been successful at portraying legitimate concerns raised by students of color as "SJW victimhood" drivel or whatever. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of students who've participated in these protesters do not support censorship or whatever. The problem with these protests is that they're based on horizontal organizing structures, where everyone's voice is legitimized/attached to "Black Lives Matter" and the like, which leads inane claims made by idiots to be taken as a voice of a protest or movement.

This backlash was bound to happen, white America is tired of the petulant demands of people of color, but it has been truly appalling witnessing well-intentioned students get excoriated for views that they do not hold because they lack discipline and organizing experience. It's been doubly appalling reading articles written by liberals who have bought into conservative messaging on these protests.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

The forces of reaction have been successful at portraying legitimate concerns raised by students of color as "SJW victimhood" drivel or whatever. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of students who've participated in these protesters do not support censorship or whatever. The problem with these protests is that they're based on horizontal organizing structures, where everyone's voice is legitimized/attached to "Black Lives Matter" and the like, which leads inane claims made by idiots to be taken as a voice of a protest or movement.

This backlash was bound to happen, white America is tired of the petulant demands of people of color, but it has been truly appalling witnessing well-intentioned students get excoriated for views that they do not hold because they lack discipline and organizing experience. It's been doubly appalling reading articles written by liberals who have bought into conservative messaging on these protests.

You have it backwards.  Black Lives Matter has legitimate grievances about the discrimination of African Americans by police.  Unfortunately, some of them have decided the best way to make progress is to make as many people as possible angry at them.  I agree with their goals, but their tactics are counterproductive.

The college protests are a mixed bag.  Its a shame the equivalent of temper tantrum being thrown at Yale is being used the discredit the Missouri protests.  

The fact that these people are making millennial liberals look bad is part of why I'm so frustrated with them.  Every time I bring up a social issue from now on, I'm going to have to defend myself 'No, of course I don't want to silence protesters who disagree with me.'  'No, I'm not about to accuse you of harassment/racism/sexism/whatever just because you disagree with me on this.' 'No, I don't believe that universities should control what their students wear for Halloween'.  Its going to be exhausting.

It's hard to discuss BLM's goals because it is not an organization, it is a sprawling constellation of groups that have affixed the name to their various causes and most of these groups don't appear to be very disciplined or consistent. As a result, some of the statements of allies/members of BLM are very objectionable. Although most supporters wouldn't agree or support these statements, reactionaries and the mainstream conservative media has an abiding interest to discredit these nascent movements, so they use isolated incidents against the movement as a whole.

I don't think Yale was a temper-tantrum. The context that inspired the protests was pretty objectionable. In general, elite universities are contradictory institutions that promote the simultaneously promote the notion of racial equality/meritocracy and represent/embody the monied elite. There are a lot of grievances at these kinds of universities that ought to be addressed; selective schools are prone to tokenizing students of color while maintaining an elitist tradition.

While I don't agree with the demands of the protesters, I think the subtext of the message is quite clear: non-white millennials feel ignored by institutions that have remained overwhelmingly white. There's a lack of recognition for the tremendous racial/ethnic gulf that separates millennials from previous generations and it seems that various institutions, whether private or public, have done a poor job of accommodating difference. "

Note: Accommodating" does not imply special treatment, it implies fair treatment that acknowledges that ingrained cultural traditions and organizational practices oftentimes do a disservice to those who are from different backgrounds and that some acculturation is required for organizations or institutions to integrate minorities in a fair manner.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I've always been bemused by the notion that liberal freedoms are designed to promote "pluralism" because I've always seen the "freedom of expression" as an instrument of the "freedom of association". The freedom of expression gives individuals the ability to voice viewpoints/perspectives/ideas that can sway people to associate with other groups but, ultimately, the freedom of expression does not give anyone the right to "have their voice heard" or their opinions considered by another group or whatever nor should it. In fact, I'd argue that the viewpoint pluralism notion of the freedom of speech borders on an infringement of basic freedom: the freedom to have an utter disinterest in the opinions/views/beliefs of others. This is a deeply important implicit part of the "freedom of association". Because all human beings are social animals/political animals/non-atomized, we can't really conceive of freedoms as being separate to their role in the "social organism".

The freedom of expression is good but "viewpoint pluralism" is not necessarily good. In fact, it's often bad. No, I don't think that we should take stupid viewpoints seriously, however I define them. No, I don't think that people should be told that they must consider stupid viewpoints, they should not. They should run away from them because they are stupid. I support the rights of idiots to say stupid things out loud but I'm not going to listen to them and I hope that my peers will refuse to listen to them.

Anyways, this is just my take on liberal freedoms: they're good and worth defending but it's tiresome seeing certain political actors cloak their interests in the language of liberal freedoms/rights. It's "illiberal" to refuse to use student funds to finance a speech by some biovating hack or some moral cretin. It's actually well within the confines of the liberal tradition. What isn't particularly liberal is believing that "value pluralism" is the ultimate end of liberal freedoms: what Anglo-American political philosopher or theorist of note in the 20th Century has expressed that viewpoint? I have seen this view on a few blogs but the people who espouse this viewpoint mostly seem to be saddened by the fact that their right-wing libertarian or centrist perspectives are no longer taken seriously by young people, who have higher standards on issues of race, gender and sexuality.