Topic: Liberal Fascism
It’s customary to refer to Yale as an “elite university”—meaning that both the faculty and the student body represent the cream of the cream. Conservatives might dispute this characterization given the leftie orientation of Yale’s faculty. But an even better reason to greet it with the raised eyebrow of skepticism is the adolescent, nay, infantile, behavior of Yale’s student body—by which I mean this.
Here we have a young lady, a Yale student, throwing a literal hissy fit over some imagined slight. It may be argued that her behavior is unrepresentative of Yale students in the large. Really? Then will this foul-mouthed junior harridan be denounced in the student newspaper? Disciplined by the administration for what was, presumably, a gross violation of Yale’s student code of conduct? Provided with the anger management counseling she so obviously needs?
As if.
No, her rant will be taken oh, so seriously—by fellow students, by faculty and by Yale’s administration. That her meltdown was triggered by an email about Halloween costumes, that it was wildly over the top, that it was both obscene and insulting—those facts will not be taken into account. In some way inscrutable to normal people, the issue of Halloween costumes at Yale became a proxy for the slow boil of over-the-top racial/ethnic/gender/Gods-knows-what resentments that seems to have become the main preoccupation of American higher education. And where such resentments are concerned, there’s no brake on bad behavior.
To review, the student’s screaming temper tantrum was caused by the following act of oppression. Shortly before Halloween, Yale’s administration sent an email to all students, cautioning them to be “sensitive” in their selection of Halloween costumes. In response one Erika Christakis, a lecturer at Yale, sent this email to students of Silliman College, one of the university’s so-called residential colleges. It read in part:
Even if we could agree on how to avoid offense—and I’ll note that no one around campus seems overly concerned about the offense taken by religiously conservative folks to skin-revealing costumes—I wonder, and I am not trying to be provocative: Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious… a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive? American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience; increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition. And the censure and prohibition come from above, not from yourselves! Are we all okay with this transfer of power? Have we lost faith in young people’s capacity—in your capacity—to exercise self-censure, through social norming, and also in your capacity to ignore or reject things that trouble you? We tend to view this shift from individual to institutional agency as a tradeoff between libertarian vs. liberal values (“liberal” in the American, not European sense of the word.)
To you and I no doubt, this sounds like common sense. But in the hothouse atmosphere of campus race- and gender-baiting, it was a thought crime of the most henious character. Worse, it was insensitive and hurtful. How can one demand broad-minded toleration from pathetic and helpless student victims of an oppressive, racist, sexist patriarchy? Hence the nosebleed female student’s Two Minutes Hate performance—directed at Erika Christakis’s husband, Professor Nicholas Christakis, who is the residential master of Stillmore College. We can take it for granted, I think, that Professor Christakis is no troglodyte conservative, no white supremacist, no goose-stepping Nazi stormtrooper. But his offense in allowing his wife’s little lecture on tolerance to be broadcast to Stillmore’s unbearably sensitive students was, well, intolerable.
There is in this some small sip, perhaps, of schadenfreude to be savored by conservatives. One imagines the consternation of Professor Christakis, good progressive that he probably is, as that stupid little girl spewed her hateful spittle into his face. How could this be happening? Well, Professor, I’m sorry to say that you had it coming, if only as a representative of your class: the leftist intelligentsia. You’ve encouraged a generation of students to nurture their resentments and grievances, ascribing all slights and disappointments to the demons of racism, sexism, etc. and so forth. Now you’re the one wearing horns and toting a pitchfork. There’s a measure of justice there.
As for the insufferable twerp who so viciously reviled you, I’m only surprised that she hasn’t been invited to the White House yet.
