The Age of Outrage

[Andrew NDB]

Do you agree with this article?

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...64/age-outrage

"... a funny thing happens when you take young human beings, whose minds evolved for tribal warfare and us/them thinking, and you fill those minds full of binary dimensions. You tell them that one side of each binary is good and the other is bad. You turn on their ancient tribal circuits, preparing them for battle. Many students find it thrilling; it floods them with a sense of meaning and purpose."

[plastroncafe]

Are you ready for a shock?
No, I don't agree with this article.

I think it's thesis is short-sighted and neglects the fact that most large-scale political movements have had students at their forefronts for far longer than this guy started paying attention to such things.

I do think it's pretty interesting that the author of this Op-Ed admits to paying close attention in 2007, which is four years prior to (cbsnews) the first time in American History that women surpassed me in earning advanced college degrees.

I'm also skeptical of this author's use of Centripetal and Centrifugal forces, as well as the revisionist historical notion that MLK message wasn't intersectional. Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Solution to Poverty (theatlantic).

[Spike Spiegel]

When I started university a few years ago, I was very much on the left, having grown up as one of the only black kids in a mostly white, very Protestant/Lutheran peer group. My immediate family is Pentecostal, so I had a double helping of conservative values crammed down my throat. I saw the social and moral hypocrisy of stereotypical "White, Christian America" firsthand.

What I encountered in college felt like another side of the same coin. During my junior year, I did an internship as part of an interdepartmental project to promote diversity on campus. It was a whole semester of argumentative in-fighting about the issues, and we barely had anything to show for the money that was granted to us by the end of it, save for some hastily edited YouTube videos that recited statistics on race, gender, pay gaps, etc. and photos of trips we took to some museums. We could barely hold discussions about anything--even a logo design or an addition to our web page--without someone shrieking at the other party to shut up.

There were other experiences I had, like a female boss in the English department who was dumbfounded by the idea that one of the female students I'd done some peer tutoring with had started stalking me around campus while also bombarding me with session requests at work. And, despite the decidedly liberal atmosphere, I encountered a lot of hipster racism.

It's important to critically evaluate the society you live in. However, I think that some professors today try to actively proselytize rather than show students how to think and evaluate things on their own--and oftentimes, it is for the progressive viewpoint, though I did also have one conservative Catholic prof who attempted to use a literature course as a subtle means of attempting to debunk atheism and postmodernism.

I've gone back and read some of the same books, plays, and philosophy texts I was assigned to read in college without any due dates for reports or having some authority figure tell me their spiel about the dynamics of power and oppression, and I've found it to be a much richer experience. However, it makes me question the value of paying exorbitant sums of money to be preached at when, in retrospect, I could have just downloaded a list of the most important texts of the Western canon and gotten them from the local library for free. The people who define the meaning of "privilege" have a great deal of privilege themselves, just due to the fact that what they say gets taken more seriously than someone who might be a real life example of the statistics they enjoy citing. For instance, does a white female tenured women's studies professor with a mortgage, working partner, luxury sedan, and two kids have to worry as much about the day-to-day struggles of life as the overworked, underpaid black single mother of two who gets her Pumpkin Spice lattes for her every morning at the campus Starbucks?

IMHO, polarization on American campuses is just one symptom of a larger problem with education in the country as a whole. Is it overvalued? If so, for what reasons? With this mentality that everyone needs to go to college, despite skyrocketing costs, are we placing the value in sitting in a classroom to pass the tests and get a degree rather than struggling with weighty concepts to formulate your own views?

Maybe some of these kids cling to their polarized views because they become the only tangible thing they can hang on to. When you and all your friends realize you'll graduate with crippling debt and sh*tty job prospects, and you see how f*cked social mobility really is in American society, it would seem easy to want to fall back on those narratives you were taught in school. They've effectively replaced religion for certain groups of people, and they help give context to the uncertainty of the economic state we are currently in.

[Jester]

Well said, Spike.

[Coola Yagami]

Age of Outrage sounds about right. Nowadays it seems people are just purposely looking for something to be offended by and raise a ruckus about.

[PApagreg]

Fun fact the woman in the photo is wearing expensive shoes and she is mad about not affording ramen

[Cure]

Yeah, I don't think anything she has on is inexpensive. She's dressed pretty goth-chic.

[plastroncafe]

Huh, wonder why that picture is there at all, as it's not attached to the article.

Nice trollando you got there, Andrew.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by PApagreg

Fun fact the woman in the photo is wearing expensive shoes and she is mad about not affording ramen

Originally Posted by Cure

Yeah, I don't think anything she has on is inexpensive. She's dressed pretty goth-chic.

"B-b-but how do you know those boots weren't gifted to her? Or maybe she got them second hand, super cheap? How do you know she doesn't cut her own hair??" <--- are the general responses I'm seeing online about the picture.

[Cure]

I can believe she cuts her own hair, because yikes.

I forget women's hair cuts are super expensive. Barber shops around here are $15.

[IndigoErth]

lol Of course she can't afford ramen, the money went to her wardrobe. Probably designed and sold by said rich people who received her money and whom she will now eat...


Although plenty of the rich might make good eatin' if you're okay with cannibalism. But maybe avoid those that fattened up on Big Macs

[Candy Kappa]

How dare poor people have something nice, they should be miserable and dressed in rags and use a cup with a string for phones.

[Andrew NDB]

That picture has been circulating for a while now, yet I've always been suspicious of it. The lettering doesn't look Photoshopped, yet... it's all the way at the top. Why? I suspect there may have been a different message there originally.

[PApagreg]

Originally Posted by Candy Kappa

How dare poor people have something nice, they should be miserable and dressed in rags and use a cup with a string for phones.

I mean sure I can understand people wanting a few luxuries here and there but when you complain about not affording ramen while wearing expensive shoes then maybe you should reconsider your priorities.

[plastroncafe]

The sign says If she can't afford Ramen she'll eat the rich.
Which isn't the same thing as saying that she already can't.

If the latter were true, then it'd be possible the shoes belonged to her last meal.

[snake]

I'd f*ck her. Alternative chicks are my thing.

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

That picture has been circulating for a while now, yet I've always been suspicious of it. The lettering doesn't look Photoshopped, yet... it's all the way at the top. Why? I suspect there may have been a different message there originally.

I actually went and looked around before posting and was surprised I not to find anything else beyond just one one clear edit to add more text.

A couple images didn't look so pixelated so I guess it's probably legit, but still odd placement.

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

The sign says If she can't afford Ramen she'll eat the rich.
Which isn't the same thing as saying that she already can't.

If the latter were true, then it'd be possible the shoes belonged to her last meal.

[oldmanwinters]

If internet fan boards have taught me anything, it's that people are indeed tribal!

[snake]

If anyone finds her snapchat lmk

[IndigoErth]

Turtle Tribe is best tribe. (In-tribe behavior not withstanding.)