at least according to those who started a petition for the removal of a statue of one of the founding fathers of the United States. http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/24588/
What the fuck ever. How about these idiots undergo "the emotional and psychological strain" of getting their faces bitch slapped?
"Misplaced anger" pretty much explains it. Instead of trying to change the past why not work to change the future?
I've always thought Jefferson at least in regard to his presidency is vastly overrated. The author of "Star Spangled Men America's Ten Worst Presidents" has a special chapter on Jefferson and his (along with Kennedy's) extreme overratedness.
I called this back when we had the confederate flag issue in the summer. They'll go after Washington next.
This. Who will, all 70 of the young and naive university students who have signed this meaningless petition?
So it's a change.org petition with 70 signatures? And @BeamMe wonders why folks don't take him seriously.
Nothing in his post claims it's popular. Seems to just be a statement about a particular mentality from what I can tell.
I had no idea that the purpose of college was to teach young people to be even more stupid than nature made them.
This is a placeholder to remind me to come back and post about how this sort of thing fits into the mental and emotional development of young adults (often still in their teens), because it's a pretty interesting topic.
WTF?!?!?!? When we toured the campus prior to Eldest enrolling/attending Mizzou, they made sure to point out how the Mizzou looks upon Jefferson as it's philosophical founder, how it's the first major land-grant university west of the Mississippi River, how several of the buildings are modeled after Monticello, etc.... They'll have better luck getting alcohol and co-eds out of the frat houses!
Colleges absorb knowledge from students. Terry Pratchett noted this in the Discworld books. Kids go to college confident they know everything, but leave readily admitting there's a lot they still have to learn...
Indeed. I have some young cousins who are just enough older than my children to have entered that awkward phase of political awareness, wherein they have absolute certainty but also massive naivete. My own children are less certain and in many ways more wise for it. But they also aren't quite ready to argue a point of view, whereas my cousins will. At some point, they will again find a measure of doubt and then take that next step of seeking out more information, more reasoned understanding.
OK, so not long ago at the college I went to, there was a girl who found herself short of a tampon. She also found herself short of the quarter she would have needed to get a sanitary napkin from one of the coin-op machines in the public women's restrooms. At this point you're probably asking "How the fuck do you know this? Does that college have the most insanely detailed alumni newsletter in the history of alumni newsletters, or what?" Well, what the student did after that was (a) vandalized the machine by destroying the coin-op mechanism so she could get a pad, (b) left a self-righteous sign on the machine, and (c) penned and published a lengthy diatribe about how this was a feminist issue and she shouldn't have to pay for something she can't control. This got a lot of discussion on an alumni forum I'm part of. While most of us had fond memories of being young, immature and easily outraged, the general consensus was "Um ... you know that there are a lot of things students need and can't control, right? Like food, shelter, shampoo, deodorant, and so on? And that the college doesn't supply any of these things for free?" However, the group also didn't rip on her the way you'd expect to see on a general-public Facebook group. One, because most of have fond memories of being young, immature and easily outraged. But two, because that sort of thing is developmentally appropriate for a college student's age and where they are in their education. Is it a little silly to take every minor personal inconvenience and develop a big overblown theory about how it represents a huge systemic injustice, as so many college students are prone to doing? Yep, it is. But ... besides the acquisition of skills and knowledge, there are two broader-level things that kids should gain from a college education: First, an ability to look at the big picture and see the way individual situations are influenced by systems. This is a skill that anyone who's ever going to be in any kind of leadership or decision-making role will need, and college is where most people really start to get it. Second, the confidence that they have the ability to change their circumstances and influence the world around them. I think that's where this sort of thing comes from. To an outside observer, it might look like they're whiny, self-entitled babies, constantly looking for something to be offended by. But the other way to look at it is that their brains are constantly exercising these new skills, these new cognitive pathways, that for most people really don't start to develop until after high school. Teenage brains are not fully matured. Human brain development continues at a rapid pace well into our 20s. In effect, the "college students protesting absolutely everything" syndrome is a stage of development that's part of the evolution of the students' minds and part of the process of becoming healthy, effective, and competent adults.
You might have more of a point if only it wasn't for the fact that so many of these young adults aren't growing out of this "stage" as they get older. Even if we took what you said here as absolute fact, so what? Kids go through a lot of stages as they grow up, like the "terrible twos." That doesn't mean anyone should coddle them in that. Quite the opposite, since they're already there to learn, learning how to get over the whole "whiny, self-entitled babies, constantly looking for something to be offended by" phase should be all part of how college prepares them for life as a productive adult. Although it would also probably help if they stopped offering "gender studies" as a degree.
What makes you think they don't grow out of it? Do we see a lot of this kind of thing happening off campus? Even on campus, they've managed a grand total of 70 signatures. Not even worthy of our taking notice. To be honest, it's the supposed adults who freak out about these non-issues who might need to grow up a bit more.
Uh, yeah. It's the basis of the social justice movement. We had a recent example of Anita Sarkesian and Zoe Quinn speaking for the UN. I'm not talking about the petition to remove the statue. I thought that was pretty obvious what with the direct quote in my post that I was responding to. Doctor, heal thyself.
