I’ve had a few people ask me in recently: “what’s going on with students these days?” Or words to that effect. Although they don’t say so explicitly – they assume I know what they mean – what they are talking about is (in no particular order): that Atlantic article from a couple of months ago about intellectually-coddled students, the imbroglio at Yale, and the highly amusing Yogapocalyspe at the University of Ottawa.
The line people seem to have these days goes something like: “isn’t it disastrous that students seem to be so intolerant/oversensitive/
Take the Atlantic piece. I mean, it’s the Atlantic for goodness sake. They publish a variation on this article every three years, or so. They take a half dozen incidents, mostly at Ivy League schools (maybe a couple on the west coast too, for the sake of variety), damn near all of them in humanities departments, and then claim that this is representative of the entirety of American higher education. These articles are entertaining, of course, and they appeal to our “oh my God everything is going to hell in a handbasket” sensibilities (which we all have to some extent). But as an accurate reflection of the state of higher education in America – let alone north of the border – it’s simply not on. Worrying? Maybe. A trend? Probably not.
That’s the thing about these stories, you have to keep an eye on the sample size. Take the Yale story, for instance. Basically, the administration, in somewhat circuitous terms, sent out an email telling students to please not wear blackface at Halloween. One minor college official decided to make this a teachable moment, and sent out an email saying: “hey, this is Yale, should a paternalist administration really police what kids wear at Halloween?” In some ways the email was quite a reasonable one, and if it had been sent from one administrator to another, no one would have thought anything of it. But frankly, if you’re a college professional in this day and age, and after a year of #blacklivesmatter, if you think it’s a good idea to send out an email to hundreds of students in which it looks like you might be defending blackface in the name of free speech, you need your head examined.
And so yes, a number of students got upset. Some of them asked for some resignations, and one or two of them were even rude and insolent to professors and administrators! On film! But again, how many people are we really talking about here? Is what they said really so terrible? I mean these students are 20 years old. Twenty year olds say a lot of stupid stuff – the difference today is that the rest of society can hear about it and discuss it in real time. The issues at play at Yale are important, but at the same time, from a generational zeitgeist POV it’s tempest-in-a-teacup stuff.
And then there’s the yoga thing at U of O. It’s somewhat different in the sense that it’s not people (seen to be) over-reacting to a provocation, but rather a sheer po-faced holier-than-thou inanity by a student federation functionary. Hilarious? Certainly – my particular favourite being the comment that the student union was really just trying to find a way to be more inclusive of people “that feel left out in yoga-like spaces” (my suggestion: more beer, pizza, and wi-fi in yoga rooms: I know I’d feel more included). Infuriating? Sure – the instructor suggested changing the name of the class from “Yoga” to “mindful stretching” to deal with the cultural appropriation, only to be told there wasn’t time to get the term translated (this is U of O, after all).
But again, is this really evidence of “political correctness gone mad”? What we have on the record are the comments of a single student union officer. This particular student union has had a rough year, having lost two executives before the end of September. If I had a cynical mind, I’d say there’s a reasonable chance that the organization couldn’t get its act together quickly enough to offer all of its programming, and then tried to cover it up by offering up some half-baked account about cultural appropriation. This, at least to me, seems a likelier scenario than any narrative suggesting that even a halfway significant-sized group of U of O students believe a word of this stuff.
In other words, what I think we have here are two nothingburger stories, and a specific-to-Yale story, all of which happened to break in a short period of time, and then people like Neil Macdonald came along trying to spin it into a single overarching narrative. But remember: not all clustering is meaningful; sometimes it’s just coincidence.
So If you ask me what’s up with kids these days, I think I’d answer “they’re pretty much the same as they always were”. And if someone tries to tell you differently, ask about their sampling strategy.
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PROFS THESE DAYS
If there is a trend, I think it has to do with profs, especially those in the humanities and social sciences (of which I am one). We seem overly eager to root out the “microaggressions” that have been determined to be the starting point of serious prejudice. We try to call out every little transgression; we try to demonstrate our own enlightenment by modifying our speech in ways that are awkward or even ridiculous, but by doing so put everyone on notice that we are more aware, progressive, (politically) correct; we are quick to correct others who are not following the script. As a result we have a climate of “microcensorship” that permeates meetings large and small, which in turn hinders open, honest discussion, and leaves others (staff, for example) rolling their eyes, wondering why we’re fiddling while Rome burns. It’s hard not to draw comparisons to the ideologically-dominated university systems of the 20th century. We’re not there yet, but the climate has been worsening, it seems to me. I think we should target any systemic problems with regard to bias and racism, but perhaps not police individual behaviors that are really quite minor. Save the heavy artillery for the big targets, in other words – I think that would be more effective.
I agree with you entirely about the student part of these stories; young people say stupid stuff, as, doubtless, we did when we were that age. What is worrisome to me about the American episodes (it doesn’t seem to apply to the U of O episode) is the reaction of the university administrators: craven pandering. New rules, new procedures will be put in place, which will affect how we are supposed to teach our students both inside and outside of the classroom. When the goal of university pedagogy is making our students feel comfortable – as the current drumbeat of Education professionals would have it – universities are defenseless in the face of these sorts of student complaints: I am uncomfortable, therefore you are guilty of misconduct.
And this is why the humanities matter – if everyone read “The Clouds” they’d realize how bitching about the youth learning useless subjects in school from out-of-touch professors, forgetting their manners and disrespecting the older generations has a multi-millennia pedigree.
It’s literally one of the oldest tropes in comedy, possibly preceded only by fart jokes.