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The Therapeutic Culture and the Infantilization of Everyone
When the news came in that Donald Trump had actually won the election, there were moans and groans and a gnashing of teeth. An economics professor at Yale cancelled a class, thinking that the poor darlings were in deep distress. Students at Cornell University — where I was once a student and later an assistant professor — staged, of all things, a “cry-in.” In Portland, OR, there have been riots; and in many places there have been demonstrations. “Not my President” read the signs.
All of this is to say, that those on the left in this country are either experiencing a meltdown or having a temper tantrum. Nowhere, however, have the caretakers of these brats conducted themselves in a more embarrassing fashion than at the University of Michigan Law School, where this was put up on the website:
The Romper Room at the University of Michigan Law School
Let me see now: “coloring sheets, play dough [misspelled, of course], positive card-making, Legos, and bubbles” for women and men — all of them 22 years old or over. Our institutions of higher learning unthinkingly take openly partisan stands, and they have become kindergartens. They are teaching the millennial generation that immaturity is perfectly respectable.
Someone at the University of Michigan Law School, which is one of the best in the country, had the good sense to take this down. Myself, I would have scheduled an examination on the Friday after the election. What we are witnessing is a display of self-pity on the part of the coddled. The proper response to the moans and groans should have been: “Grow up!”
Published in Culture
How many of the comfort foods provided will be examples of cultural appropriation? They should get the diversity czar over there post haste.
The reaction on the left to Trump’s win is the reason for his win.
Unfortunately, they don’t just whine and cry. They destroy.
https://rushbabe49.com/2016/11/12/this-is-thoroughly-disgusting-liberal-violence/
We complain, but what is to be done. How about cutting all Federal funding of schools, research and students. What else?
Self-Pity certainly, and you are right to tag the therapeutic culture.
But we are also, I suspect, seeing the reaction of a religious cult when their god is exposed as a fraud. In this case, the god of History?
I am also reminded of the reaction of our campus Leftits in 1990 (?) when the Sandinistas. They “cause kids” were truly shell-shocked. They did not know how to process reality when the result forced it upon them. But they did not retreat to the fetal position, at least.
Im about a decade ahead of this cohort and now find myself actively encouraging uni/college students to drop out.
We’re now entering an era where smart parents will tell their children that they should NOT go to college.
Mark Steyn said it best:
“Can you imagine any of the teenagers who stormed the beaches of Normandy – boys who were men, and often five, six, seven years younger than today’s elderly “students” – agreeing to participate in anything so ostentatiously self-indulgent as a “cry-in” followed by free Play-Doh?”
I could imagine a few guys showing up, but just to try to get into the pants of some emotionally unstable girls. I don’t believe the left has overcome that bit of human nature yet by rubbing unicorn manure on everyone.
Penn did something similar with coloring books and puppies. Penn!
The best way for any institution of higher learning to get the message? Alumni should not donate.
While I agree this is pitiful, there are other, more ominous rumblings. Over at Zerohedge (not always reliable) there is talk of a Soros-funded Clinton-managed “purple revolution” being plotted. Recall that black and purple were de rigeur at the Clinton concession speech.
The “demonstrations,” a.k.a. riots may mark the beginning of an organized effort, they suggest, to establish a “shadow government.” I can readily imagine the hordes of administrative agency hacks making life for the new administration difficult, if not impossible. Trump could face some air traffic controller moments à la Reagan. Should this transpire, it will be interesting to see if he will be able to control his own agencies.
Even scarier is that this is a LAW school. Our legal system is adversarial. Somebody wins, somebody loses, every time. Will these bozos be able to handle that? Or will we have to go to some system like the People’s Court, where both sides get paid for participating?
Law school used to be about weeding out all but the toughest students. On the first day, some prof would intone:”Look to the left of you, look to the right of you. One of those people will be gone by next year.”
SHEESH–can you imagine if they were to say that to THIS crew? They’d have to have ambulances on site!
I had been proud of Cornell for staying out of the university infantilism news trope. Oh well, at least I didn’t go to Yale. ;-)
This is certainly pathetic. I wonder though, would there be such a thing as “the right” today if it weren’t for coddled millennial crying in safe spaces? During the 2012 election the left mocked Romney’s Mormonism and his old-fashioned manners because a sense of cultural superiority based on antipathy toward those things was all that they had to bind together a fractious coalition. I’m beginning to think that in a similar way contempt for the kind of thing described in this post is in fact all that conservatism is about in 2016. That’s no basis for a coalition or even a community like ricochet. I worry less about them than about us.
This is a thought worthy of exploring in its own post.
I am a history professor at institutions in Texas I shall not mention, but I did THIS the days after the election. My students were fine.
Dr. Sheth, who is apparently in charge of U of M’s romper room, emphasizes the following concerns. She is certainly a woman/person of /for these times:
Professional Interests
I attended both and taught at both.
I am likewise wondering, and second Prawn here, @gaius. Especially since Ricochet is in some ways a “safe space” of its own – many folks feel much more free to let their conservative hair down here than they do in the rest of life.
SUPPORT HILLSDALE COLLEGE
We do.
OBTW, I am wearing my Hillary for Prison 2016 t-shirt around today, and I have gotten four comments. All positive (including the assistant manager at the Chick-Fil-A where I had lunch). In fact, I have never had a derogatory comment on the shirt.
Oh c’mon – that had to be a joke. Wasn’t it?? ……?
Otherwise, does the UMich have staff to hold hands with students when crossing the street?
As someone in college in the mid-90’s, I assure you that this tactic worked. You had to be earnest and concerned back then (and have a few Tori Amos CDs to scatter around), but woo could indeed be pitched by simply feigning veganism.
Maybe they should also have offered diapers, a blankie, and a bottle. I seriously hope none of the law students actually felt the need to take advantage of this, or I shudder to think what’s going to happen to them the first time they face adversity in the practice of law.
If I were working in HR, I would be tempted to keep a mental note of institutions that engaged in coddling students throwing temper tantrums and then toss any resumes listing such places in the trash.
Bringing back the draft is starting to seem like a better idea all the time.
I’ve been seeing the phrase ‘self-care’ a lot. I find it pretty annoying. Ok, theoretically, I guess it is smart to look after all aspects of your personal health, including mental/emotional–but trying to use that as a self-important justification for slacking off or playing with Play-dough is just ugh.
I prefer this sign that’s attached to the front door of a boys Catholic high school.
Totally not the idea I would have come up with regarding that phrase at that age.
Maybe college students, around 1940, felt less of a need for play-dough and bubble blowing parties because they came from communities in which family gatherings and church socials supplied them with enough of something similar.
Here’s why I think that’s possible: For forty years, I took care of a lot of old people. They sometimes recalled harsh situations. (Having to quit high school to help support a family, for instance.) On the other hand, their recollections were also full of ice skating parties, pumpkin carving, church fairs, girls and women getting together to make ornaments, frequent dances (Especially in the late 1930’s or early 1940’s, young people danced a lot, it seems.) Christmas caroling.
Also, in 1940, the homes young people were leaving to go to college may, more often, have been “safe spaces”. And the 1940’s college student may more often have entered college with better social skills, and fewer illusions about adults, due to years of attending church and seeing parents attend church and be more involved, than most parents ever would be today, in the business and politics of a church community. He might also have had the example of parents more aware of, if not more involved in, local decisions about, say, public schools.
In other words, it’s possible young people used to start college with more experience in membership, or citizenship, as well as more experience of childlike play with other people in a “safe space”.
Many people actively lied about their age to join.
This isn’t just elite universities. Boise State University provided free counseling for the election.