Agreed.
Cultivating an
awareness of "privilege" is one thing. I'd say that is a universally good thing, in fact. Most college students could stand to cultivate a bit more empathy outside of their own worldview and narrow experiences, no matter what they are. Not a few professors and administrators could use that, as well. I believe that this may have at one time been "sensitivity training" in the academic lexicon; most of my colleagues (privileged, all of us) treated this as little more than a joke, I'm sorry to say.
It used to be that this was what higher education was best at-- broadening and deepening awareness and understanding of the world, beyond what even an autodidact would naturally encounter and learn. How incredibly sad that such a thing is being sacrificed for the comfort (or maybe just the hubris) of a vocal minority.
Ubiquitous trigger warnings and safe spaces that muzzle free speech are far past awareness and sensitivity-- and the goings on in some places in higher ed go far, far beyond
that at this point. Those protesting are riding a fine line between civil disobedience/protest and tactics more often associated with mob rule or domestic terrorism. It's as though these students want to UN-do all the good that the protests of the 1960's accomplished in making higher education a place which didn't merely serve to insulate the elite from the real world and ideology that felt alien to them.
Now I have this strange need to re-read
Bonfire of the Vanities, somehow.
