"Vindictive Protectiveness"

"Therapy often involves talking yourself down from the idea that each of your emotional responses represents something true or important."

An important new article at The Atlantic — I know, stop laughing - discusses how the campus atmosphere in the US right now has major consequences for freedom of speech, liberty of consicence, and mental health.

I disagree with the authors’ too-kind characterization of speech control as motivated by laudable and compassionate impulses that have gotten out of hand. I think instead that speech and thought control are totalitarian in their genesis, so it should surprise absolutely no one when they are applied in destructive ways. BUT, the general tenor of the article is accurate and welcome, and couched in the kind of language that makes the points in an unobtrusive and “objective” way. And because it is being published in a faux-highbrow publication like The Atlantic, at least some people (the sort who take NPR seriously too) will take it seriously.

The list of recommendations at the end of the article are particularly useful, especially the first one, which calls for the de-escalation of the DOE’s currently insane application of the term “harassment.” Alas, despite the well-modulated and undoubtedly useful thoughts of Lukianoff and Haidt, the perverse incentive structure of the 21st Century campus will stymie any meaningful reform.