Infantilization

  • Drowning in politically-correct language

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    Saturday, April 15, 2017 3comments Higher education, Infantilization, PC Language Police, Political Correctness, University of Chicago Permalink 0

    ◆ Quick tip on how to spot a university drowning in politically-correct ideology:

    ⇒ Your daughter’s acceptance letter calls her “they” so the school can avoid a gender-specific pronoun

    No surprise here, the school is Brown. (James Freeman in the Wall Street Journal)

    Other schools may be equally PC, but none tops good ole Brown. No, siree.

    There were labor camps in the Cultural Revolution that had more robust political differences.

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    Comment: Even tough-minded universities have succumbed. Alas.

    At the University of Chicago, where the Dean of Students sent out the famous “no safe spaces here” letter to incoming students, some Deans end their emails with a standard signature that explains “my preferred pronouns.”

    The last one I received was from a person named Stephanie, and I was shocked to discover her preferred pronouns are “she, her,” and . . . wait for it, yes . . . “hers.” That’s right. These administrators think you are so dumb, so clueless you need to be told the correct possessive. 

    Why? First, they are probably trying to show how oh-so-sensitive they are to people who are “gender fluid” and who, as a personal preference, use other pronouns. I am happy for folks to use whatever pronouns they want. Honestly. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. So, why not simply let them include that “preferred pronoun” thingy in their letters, without everyone else having to follow them like lemmings? Because, of course, it is crucial to display how sensitive and politically correct you are. Or, perhaps you simply fear your “sensitive” boss, who effectively demands conformity from underlings. That is an all-too-familiar type on campus: sensitive-but-tyrannical.

    Another group that might want to include preferred pronouns are people with names from other languages. Since I don’t speak Chinese, I wouldn’t know “Bojing” was male, “Bingwen” female. Again, if they want to include their preferred pronouns, that’s fine. In fact, I would find it helpful. 

    But don’t make everyone do it to display how earnest and sensitive they are.

    My name is Charles, and I’m going to make a wild assumption here that I don’t need to tell you  I prefer the pronouns “he, him, and his.” 

    As a special bonus, I won’t assume you are such a dunderhead that I prefer the pronoun “he.” An odd choice, I know.

    I will also assume that, knowing I’m a “he,” I gonna go with “him” and “his.”

    But I fervantly hope, dear reader, you could have figured that out on your own.

    Even if you went to Brown.

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    Thanks to James Freeman for the article and David Herro for sharing it  

  • Students hand out the Constitution at a community college; they are arrested because that violates the college’s rules

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    Wednesday, January 18, 2017 0 Campus Crazies, Free Speech, Infantilization, PC Language Police Permalink 2

    These criminals were handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution, asking people if they like “freedom and liberty,” and seeing if anyone wanted to sign up for their student organization.

    The passing students not impeded on their way to classes or approached aggressively.

    They were simply asked the kinds of questions that campus organizations ask all the time when they recruit and try to spread their message.

    Officials of Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, Michigan, had these Constitution-flaunting criminals arrested.

    What was the university’s reasoning? That their students are idiots.

    Administrators told the activists that asking students if they “like freedom and liberty” was disruptive because students “don’t know that they can say ‘see ya later.”

    That’s right. The administrators assume their own students are too stupid and ill-informed to know that they can continue walking if they don’t want to answer that question or sign up for the organization.

    Of course, that reason is camouflage. The real reason was either (a) the administrators want to maintain total control over any activities on campus, or (b) they wanted to shut down the activities of a conservative student group, or (a+b).

    Quick tips to the Kellogg CC officials.

    1. If your students don’t know that they can keep walking rather than talk with people handing out flyers, then you should really check your admissions requirements
    2. If your administrators don’t know that handing out the Constitution is precisely the kind of rights our constitution was meant to protect, even at the snap, crackle, and pop of community colleges, then you are incompetent to handle the mop at your college, much less the mop and bucket.

    The students are suing, represented by a public-interest, pro-bono legal organization. (Campus Reform)