The Dangerous Safety of College
Having been physically present at ground zero of this thing, and having spent quite a bit of time trying to understand it, let me offer one piece of missing information.<p>This group is well aware of the prevailing doctrine that truth comes from dispassionate investigation and rigorous argument.<p>They just reject it. They reject that it&#x27;s conducted in good faith, and they reject that the sacred constructs of the ideology are subject to any microscope. That intellectual ideal is seen as something by and for the powerful old white men who control power structures, including and especially academia. It&#x27;s seen as just as much a tool of oppression as phrenology, eugenics, and other racist pseudoscience, and they&#x27;re hoping to push it towards the same fate.<p>Some of the more extreme protestors will tell you that advocating for traditional academic inquiry is fundamentally white supremacist, in that a mode of understanding the world favored by the ruling class is seen as more legitimate than others. There is no objectivity, the reasoning goes, so we ought to put the traditionally opppressed in control of the narrative for a while.<p>The article is spot on that the right way to think about it is as a religion. There are articles of faith: the world works in terms of identity-based groups; certain groups hold and actively maintain power over others; it&#x27;s time to depose those groups and let others have a turn at authority, particularly over what constitutes truth. There is testimony: the &quot;lived experiences&quot; - anecdotes - of members of oppresssd groups are gospel. Obedience is paramount - the first and last step of being an Ally is to accept, believe unquestioningly, and evangelize what you are told.<p>These people aren&#x27;t coddled and they aren&#x27;t weak. Appeals to psychological safety are attempts to weaponize empathy, not genuine fragility. They are fierce warriors for what they believe to be justice.