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Posted
5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

That is, the reason that higher education is progressive by its very nature, as opposed to the result of some sort of political influence or indoctrination.

This retrograde idealism is definitely a product of indoctrination.

Yes....but...I think that USED to be true.

Sponge-brained youth would show up at university, get exposed to utopian (fantastical, unrealistic) ideas which are often raised by voices/authors on the left, and buy into them hardcore because they have little wisdom, experience, or discernment.  Frankly, it's a natural part of the intellectual growth curve; many people go through an "ignorant, naive idealist" phase.  

Such "ignorant, naive idealist" tendencies generally didn't lend themselves to hardcore retrograde/"conservative" thinking; that mostly came from upbringing.  BUT....in recent years, with social media, algorithms, and an explosion of often purposefully divisive right-wing online content being streamed 24/7 into those same impressionable sponge brains, young intolerant ideologues of the right-wing persuasion have blossomed.  Will they grow out of that phase?  It remains to be seen, we're still pretty early in this game.

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Posted
1 hour ago, bschoolprof said:

Where is the evidence that this generation is more intolerant compared to prior generations? When I was in high school, if you came out as gay, you were ostracized. We’ve come a long, long way since then.

Sure. But the same folks behind this incident are also actively working to get cases in front of SCOTUS to overturn Obergfell. 

Also, go read the dissent in Lawrence v Texas and try to argue that that's not the current majority opinion of the court should a case be brought.

It's going backwards.

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Posted (edited)

I don't know if they're any more or less intolerant than previous generations.

I do believe that they're more emboldened to attempt to take aggressive stances, which has been encouraged by cancel culture and has been allowed to proliferate through weak or poor or even aggressively malignant leadership.

Honestly when I see how open and welcoming my kids are to people who are different than them, how they really don't see race or color or gender or sexual orientation as being identifiers of differences, how they view all of those as either irrelevant or fluid, I'm very proud of them.  That is very different from my teenage/high school experience in the 80s.  So in that sense they are far more open and tolerant than my generation was.  I realize they're not the sole cohort for judgment and they have peers that don't view things in the same way, but those groups seem to be fewer and further between, than when I was a kid.

5 minutes ago, Foosters said:

Sure. But the same folks behind this incident are also actively working to get cases in front of SCOTUS to overturn Obergfell. 

Also, go read the dissent in Lawrence v Texas and try to argue that that's not the current majority opinion of the court should a case be brought.

It's going backwards.

 

That might be true, but it doesn't really address the topic of this thread, about the younger generation.  I don't believe it's the younger generation that's putting court cases in front of SCOTUS and other circuits.

 

 

Edited by utee94
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Posted
16 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yes....but...I think that USED to be true.

Sponge-brained youth would show up at university, get exposed to utopian (fantastical, unrealistic) ideas which are often raised by voices/authors on the left, and buy into them hardcore because they have little wisdom, experience, or discernment.  Frankly, it's a natural part of the intellectual growth curve; many people go through an "ignorant, naive idealist" phase.  

Such "ignorant, naive idealist" tendencies generally didn't lend themselves to hardcore retrograde/"conservative" thinking; that mostly came from upbringing.  BUT....in recent years, with social media, algorithms, and an explosion of often purposefully divisive right-wing online content being streamed 24/7 into those same impressionable sponge brains, young intolerant ideologues of the right-wing persuasion have blossomed.  Will they grow out of that phase?  It remains to be seen, we're still pretty early in this game.

Right, exactly what I was thinking.

The "liberality" of higher education is a natural result and not the product of liberal or progressive indoctrination, it's "organic."

But whatever the source, be it Turning Point or twatterx or insular retrograde parenting, the current wave of youth ideology and intolerance is intentional and external.

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Posted (edited)
7 minutes ago, utee94 said:

 

That might be true, but it doesn't really address the topic of this thread, about the younger generation.  I don't believe it's the younger generation that's putting court cases in front of SCOTUS and other circuits.

 

 

Are we not permitted to respond to individual posts and address the specific claims made within? 

actually, upon re-reading the comment, I think this is a valid criticism. mea culpa

Edited by Foosters
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Posted
1 minute ago, Foosters said:

Are we not permitted to respond to individual posts and address the specific claims made within? 

I mean, you don't need my permission to comment on whatever you like.

I'm just pointing out that if there's any "moving backwards" as you cite, it's not coming from the younger generation, regardless of any intolerance they might or might not have.

Overall I think they're likely more tolerant.  But those on the edges also seem to be more aggressive when trying to eliminate opposition ideas and speech.

Posted
30 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Answering the broader question, the young are always/usually/often idealistic to the point of being ideologues, with the attendant intolerance of the status quo or other notions.

Historically, that's taken the form of utopian and other pretty impractical notions that are identified with progressives or liberals.

So, it's a bit startling to see these retrograde ideologues cropping up.  So it seems that it may be six of one, half a dozen of the other.  However, I think the liberal idealism is a more natural result of new autonomy and exposure to new ideas.  That is, the reason that higher education is progressive by its very nature, as opposed to the result of some sort of political influence or indoctrination.

This retrograde idealism is definitely a product of indoctrination.

Being a rabid MAGA supporter or bigot or far-right weirdo is far more transgressive and anti-establishment on most college campuses or in polite society than it is to be a pretty standard liberal.
 

There’s for sure an element who sees an appeal in that, especially at a young age. 

Posted
Just now, utee94 said:

I mean, you don't need my permission to comment on whatever you like.

I'm just pointing out that if there's any "moving backwards" as you cite, it's not coming from the younger generation, regardless of any intolerance they might or might not have.

Overall I think they're likely more tolerant.  But those on the edges also seem to be more aggressive when trying to eliminate opposition ideas and speech.

Yeah, I suspect there's quite a tension in the youth between going with their natural inclination to be accepting and external forces opposing that.

Posted
1 minute ago, utee94 said:

I mean, you don't need my permission to comment on whatever you like.

I'm just pointing out that if there's any "moving backwards" as you cite, it's not coming from the younger generation, regardless of any intolerance they might or might not have.

Overall I think they're likely more tolerant.  But those on the edges also seem to be more aggressive when trying to eliminate opposition ideas and speech.

I edited my post, so I'll submit, but I'll only add that I guarantee you that these legal orgs have young lawyers and recent grads foaming at the mouth to do this stuff. 

Just take a look at The Federalist Society in law schools. The difference from even ten years ago is pretty jarring 

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Posted (edited)

I dunno if they are really more intolerant.  I tend to think that with technology and social media the intolerance is more broadly known and glommed on to by other pockets of disaffected/intolerants.  

In that way, it is no different than all the other age groups.  We've managed to bring the worst of us together.

Edited by Surly Bevo
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Posted
9 minutes ago, Foosters said:

Just take a look at The Federalist Society in law schools. The difference from even ten years ago is pretty jarring 

A lot of this.  See @DDD Dad, who IIRC was active in the Fed Soc in law school....and these days, is quite opposed to their actions, mission, etc.

5 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Oh please, the first time I had a student try to get me fired was in the 90's.

And ironically, in 2023, the year before I retired, I actually tried to get myself fired, but none of my students complained.

Interesting way to tell us you TRIED to have an inappropriate relationship with a pretty young coed, but none were interested.  SAD.

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Posted
3 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It’s not particularly new for college students to believe that they have a right to silence speech they believe conflicts with their moral values, and it’s not particularly confined to the left or right. You can’t even begin to count the number of guest lectures that have been pulled down on college campuses over the last 15 years or so after undergrad groups threw fits over the content. 
 

It is fairly new for the chief executive of the country to indulge their tantrums. 

FIRE literally counts them and has to overcategorize (i.e. equate students protesting with actually cancelling a speaker's appearance) because there are so few.

Posted (edited)
15 minutes ago, Foosters said:

I edited my post, so I'll submit, but I'll only add that I guarantee you that these legal orgs have young lawyers and recent grads foaming at the mouth to do this stuff. 

Just take a look at The Federalist Society in law schools. The difference from even ten years ago is pretty jarring 

I'll take your word for it as I have no knowledge of it.  I certainly wouldn't find it surprising.

And I'm just trying to address the main idea in general, of increased intolerance among younger people.  I do so, because I find it an interesting proposal and I'm just trying to work through the hypothesis and see what evidence I can find to support or refute it.

In general I think younger people have been far more open to different lifestyles than my generation was at the same point in life.  That's sort of a baseline, a rising tide lifts all boats type observation.

But at the same time, I can see narrow bands of idealistic intransigence,  focused beliefs that can vary widely from group to group.  I think the internet and social media have allowed people with narrow like-minded views, to find one another, and reinforce one another.  This is true of all age groups but seems especially focused in the younger generation because at the same time, their baseline society has moved away from the 4 TV channels or even the 43 TV channels that cable brought to us as young people, and moved into the world of highly diverse streaming content providers, youtube, tiktok, insta, and all of the other places younger generations consume their media, which has fractured what used to be a more monolithic set of cultural norms.

8 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

I dunno if they are really more intolerant.  I tend to think that with technology and social media the intolerance is more broadly known and glommed on to by other pockets of disaffected/intolerants.  

In that way, it is no different than all the other age groups.  We've managed to bring the worst of us together.

Yeah this for sure.

Edited by utee94
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Posted
Just now, wildcat09 said:

FIRE literally counts them and has to overcategorize (i.e. equate students protesting with actually cancelling a speaker's appearance) because there are so few.

I noticed this too when scrolling through their database. They also treat equally a single student complaint that led to no action with a student complaint that led to a professor's dismissal. That's like saying a random tweet is as harmful as legislation passed and enforced.

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Posted
Just now, Foosters said:

I noticed this too when scrolling through their database. They also treat equally a single student complaint that led to no action with a student complaint that led to a professor's dismissal. That's like saying a random tweet is as harmful as legislation passed and enforced.

They do some good legal work representing people who need it, but their public issue advocacy is just right wing propaganda dressed up to look like an actual ideological commitment to free speech. 

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Posted
35 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yes....but...I think that USED to be true.

Sponge-brained youth would show up at university, get exposed to utopian (fantastical, unrealistic) ideas which are often raised by voices/authors on the left, and buy into them hardcore because they have little wisdom, experience, or discernment.  Frankly, it's a natural part of the intellectual growth curve; many people go through an "ignorant, naive idealist" phase.  

Such "ignorant, naive idealist" tendencies generally didn't lend themselves to hardcore retrograde/"conservative" thinking; that mostly came from upbringing.  BUT....in recent years, with social media, algorithms, and an explosion of often purposefully divisive right-wing online content being streamed 24/7 into those same impressionable sponge brains, young intolerant ideologues of the right-wing persuasion have blossomed.  Will they grow out of that phase?  It remains to be seen, we're still pretty early in this game.

I’d argue that the current of thought among the right-wing is idealistic and utopian. It’s a question of who the intended utopia is for; but these ideas are meant to usher in a bright future of plenty and peace for the “right” people. 

There’s no iron law that says dissatisfied youth will glom onto a progressive cause; much of the tumult in the Muslim world in past decades was young students reacting against the perceived defects of secular and liberalizing governments in favor of a retrograde Islam promising perfect truth and justice to the faithful. 
 

There’s been decades in the West where liberal democratic values and ideals of equality, tolerance, and individual rights have been on the march. Young people who feel like the system isn’t delivering are reacting to dismantle those structures.  What’s really new is that today’s far-right views the “ground rules” of society as illegitimate in the same vein you’ve ordinarily heard from the far left. The proposed replacement they come up with is of course radically different. 
 

There are fewer and fewer people who see things like free speech and freedom of  conscience as inherently good and needed. 

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Posted
3 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

There are fewer and fewer people who see things like free speech and freedom of  conscience as inherently good and needed. 

Good post.  And I definitely agree that we are in an era of "my authoritarianism is better than your authoritarianism" rather than "the neutral Rule of Law and protecting human freedoms are better than authoritarianism."  For a dwindling number of us, we don't see goose-stepping authoritarians in snappy Hugo Boss uniforms as an improvement over (real or imagined) goose-stepping authoritarians with red stars on their hats.  For those of us "On Liberty" types, this is NOT our era.

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Posted
6 minutes ago, utee94 said:

But at the same time, I can see narrow bands of idealistic intransigence,  focused beliefs that can vary widely from group to group.  I think the internet and social media have allowed people with narrow like-minded views, to find one another, and reinforce one another.  This is true of all age groups but seems especially focused in the younger generation because at the same time, their baseline society has moved away from the 4 TV channels or even the 43 TV channels that cable brought to us as young people, and moved into the world of highly diverse streaming content providers, youtube, tiktok, insta, and all of the other places younger generations consume their media, which has fractured what used to be a more monolithic set of cultural norms.

I think a key structural difference you're overlooking is that TV is one-way communication. There's no realtime feedback loop from watcher to TV station, where because you watched one show they start pushing more of that show to you. 

Today, nearly EVERYTHING is algorithmically driven. Facebook and Twitter will show you ragebait to make you engage more, and then in turn use your posts as ragebait for someone else. Youtube sends young men down the radicalization pipeline with glee, because hours and hours and hours of conspiracy drek means massive advertising revenue numbers and a thriving market. And as a bonus, it comes with a free echo chamber where you aren't even exposed to different ideas except for the express purpose of upsetting you.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Parliament said:

I have 2 siblings, early Millennials, who work in education.  One in HS ed and one in college.  They both say the youngs' dumbassery bottomed out 5-8 years ago.  Plenty of kids today have their acts together, example being college graduation.  Many of them take college classes in HS and put themselves on track to graduate college in less than 4 years.  Big contrast with the 90's gen that was on the 5 year plan.

5 years.... yea 5 years...

Excited Chris Farley GIF

Posted
3 minutes ago, Captainant said:

I think a key structural difference you're overlooking is that TV is one-way communication. There's no realtime feedback loop from watcher to TV station, where because you watched one show they start pushing more of that show to you. 

Today, nearly EVERYTHING is algorithmically driven. Facebook and Twitter will show you ragebait to make you engage more, and then in turn use your posts as ragebait for someone else. Youtube sends young men down the radicalization pipeline with glee, because hours and hours and hours of conspiracy drek means massive advertising revenue numbers and a thriving market. And as a bonus, it comes with a free echo chamber where you aren't even exposed to different ideas except for the express purpose of upsetting you.

Oh yeah for sure.  I wasn't really trying to overlook it, although I didn't call it out explicitly.  It's certainly a difference in both consumption and interaction.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

There are plenty of proximate causes for the coarsening of our society: softer parenting styles, everyone-gets-a-trophy culture, social media, but my candidate is the rise of narcissism.  Plenty of studies have shown that narcissism has increased, especially in the past 15-20 years since social media became widespread.  It tracks: in an influencer-culture, where it's all about look-at-me, you become the center of your own world.  Any disruption to that is a Bad Thing for you.

When you're surrounded by amplification of your worldview by the algorithms, your internal antibodies will be strongly programmed to reject any opposing view.  #MeToo, Cancel Culture, DEI, and now their analogues on the right-side have taught those who seek power that you can "defeat the evil" by getting people fired, shouting them down, getting corporations to stop working with them, or removing them from a platform.

Bingo as to the narcissism.  My wife and I called it "I am the only person in the world" energy, our kids corrected us and said it's "I am the main character" energy.  In any case, it's toxic individualism that is not just at the expense of community/any common good, it's directly opposed to it.  That is, if something is good for us collectively, it MUST be bad, and MUST be opposed, because that certainly means it's not the best thing for ME, individually.  And I am - literally - the only person who matters.  The death of the commonwealth, people (leaders, like Elon) declaring that "empathy" is poison, etc.  It's fucking killing us.  A society of 340 million people, each of whom is vastly more important than everyone else, at the expense of everyone else, is a recipe for collapse.

We need a healthy dose of "dude....just don't be a dick."  Instead, we celebrate maximum dickishness as the only true measure of whether you're doing good/right.

Oh, and the aggy President's statement on why the dean and prof were dismissed is a flat-out lie.  He said that it was because the prof was going to stick with teaching something that "wasn't in the syllabus."  Yet the syllabus expressly referenced examining concepts of "justice, power, gender":

546485913_1515995619426151_8184601835666

In other words, the pretext -- prof addressed a concept that was not disclosed in the syllabus, and thus "broke his contract with the students" is a lie.  The action taken was not because the syllabus was inaccurate.  It was because the US DOJ and other very political entities did not like the subject matter.  That's chilling as fuck.  But, it's the new normal.

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Posted
2 hours ago, hornian said:

 I am stating accurately what happened, from the article:

So what part of what I wrote is inconsistent with this?

Read that, along with the quoted section in the first post where the student complained that the professor was "teaching that there are more than two genders."

The professor is apparently going to be disciplined, and the Dean has been fired, for not toeing the line that transgender people don't/should not exist. Is your critique that I typed "LGBT" instead of "transgender" in my initial post? If so, stop being a pedant and maybe try to actually engage in a conversation. 

Again, my question is what has changed in the last generation that the typically more tolerant generation is the one being the thought police?

 

The class is Children’s Literature. Aka, Kiddie Lit. The class is not biology, political current events, or social studies, or some other course that is meant to debate men/women or social topics. It’s kids books. 

No where in that article does is say, “fired for not forcing a professor to toe the line and teach that LGBT people exist.”  No one anywhere has said lesbians don’t exist. 

 

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Posted

In all seriousness, I think people often incorrectly assume they're being "cancelled" (which again, is not a real thing) when someone yells at them for saying/doing something stupid or shitty.

If you're expressing a viewpoint that a lot of people find abhorrent, getting yelled at and being called a fucking idiot, etc, is not getting cancelled. If you can't handle your half-baked thoughts being challenged...I don't know maybe either shut the fuck up or learn to support your arguments like an adult. Or maybe engage in a little introspection and/or critical thought before you open your mouth in a public space.

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Posted
Just now, Texas Fight said:

The class is Children’s Literature. Aka, Kiddie Lit. The class is not biology, political current events, or social studies, or some other course that is meant to debate men/women or social topics. It’s kids books. 

No where in that article does is say, “fired for not forcing a professor to toe the line and teach that LGBT people exist.”  No one anywhere has said lesbians don’t exist. 

 

Read the syllabus.  The class is not to teach people about a particular piece of kiddie lit.  It's about teaching the concept and application of kiddie lit/YA lit, INCLUDING its themes, authors, audiences, etc.  And it EXPRESSLY said it would explore "conceptions of . . . gender."  Saying that the prof was fired because discussing conceptions of gender was not in the syllabus is a flat-out lie.  The prof was punished for daring to teach the perspective of more than two genders.  Period.  That was it, that was the reason.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Texas Fight said:

The class is Children’s Literature. Aka, Kiddie Lit. The class is not biology, political current events, or social studies, or some other course that is meant to debate men/women or social topics. It’s kids books. 

No where in that article does is say, “fired for not forcing a professor to toe the line and teach that LGBT people exist.”  No one anywhere has said lesbians don’t exist. 

 

So, to clarify, your stance is that transgender people don't exist? 

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Posted
16 minutes ago, dieucla98 said:

So, to clarify, your stance is that transgender people don't exist? 

My stance is that the OP made up an inflammatory summary of the situation, calls out a generation of the population for some mental issue, and then says he doesn’t want to make this thread political. I think he is part of the problem. 

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Posted
13 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

In all seriousness, I think people often incorrectly assume they're being "cancelled" (which again, is not a real thing) when someone yells at them for saying/doing something stupid or shitty.

If you're expressing a viewpoint that a lot of people find abhorrent, getting yelled at and being called a fucking idiot, etc, is not getting cancelled. If you can't handle your half-baked thoughts being challenged...I don't know maybe either shut the fuck up or learn to support your arguments like an adult. Or maybe engage in a little introspection and/or critical thought before you open your mouth in a public space.

Office Space No GIF

Sure freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.  But to say cancel culture doesn't exist is asinine.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/karlynborysenko/2020/02/12/the-dark-side-of-metoo-what-happens-when-men-are-falsely-accused/

Dershowitz recounts his side of the story in the book Guilt By Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #metoo. His case is particularly interesting because it started before the #metoo movement and continues today. When asked if he noticed a difference between perception before and after, he said it was very noticeable. “There’s no question. Before the #metoo movement, I had won. It had gone away. I had the submission, I had the tapes, the recording, the emails, I had a full investigation by the former head of the FBI who said it was false, I had a judge who struck it [down], the lawyers had withdrawn it...it was over! It was completely over. And then the #metoo movement came, and suddenly it was resurrected.”

“If you call a women a liar, even if you didn’t do [what you’re being accused of], you’re guilty of calling a woman a liar, so there’s no way out. If you don’t deny it, you’re thought to be guilty. If you do deny it, you’ve committed an additional political sin, so it’s a trap. And it feels just horrible...They either assume your guilt or they assume you shouldn’t be asserting your innocence. 

...

Dershowitz described the challenges he has faced in being accused, including the financial cost of fighting the accusation, to the embarrassment of having to tell every potential client of the claims while he is pursuing it in court, to the impact it has had on his family, including his grandchildren: “It’s been terrible. No one who knows me believes it, none of my personal friends. Even those who are really upset at me about the Trump thing don’t believe it because they know I’m not that guy. I’m not a player. But it has still had a terrible impact on my grandkids who are in school where people believe everything that’s said, and on my children. It’s had a terrible impact on us. I’m a victim, and no one wants to treat me like a victim.”

Or if Dershowitz is too powerful/monied to possibly be a victim, how about this guy who was anonymously and falsely added to a list of "Bad Men" and was chased out of his work at the Washington Post and had to take the only thing he could get: janitor at Dave & Busters:

https://nypost.com/2020/02/01/being-wrongly-metood-has-ruined-my-life/

A side note to the accusations leveled at me was the claim that an “HR file at The Washington Post,” where I was an editorial aide from 2005 to 2008, existed that presumably backed up the accusations. The Post keeps scanned personnel files on all employees, so a file on me does exist. But when I called the newspaper for verification, I was told my file contains no mention of accusations, investigations or disciplinary actions.

(Ed. note: The Washington Post declined to verify this.)

Baffled, I reached out to the former co-worker I had assumed was my accuser, a female reporter in my office whom I felt sure had at times found me rude or inconsiderate. She said she didn’t write my entry and didn’t know who did.

Obviously, I’m drawing attention to the list now. I’m tired of trying to hide in plain sight, of feeling psychologically broken for actions I never took. The top of the Sh-tty Media Men spreadsheet admonished readers to take the allegations with a grain of salt because its charges are uninvestigated. But in my experience, more than a few people have equated inclusion on the list, regardless of the alleged offense, as proof that a man is undeserving of ever being hired or heard from.

And there are many others as well who were given career death-penalties with scant evidence as part of these various movements, not for things they said or did, not under adjudication by a jury of their peers with evidentiary rules, but by the mob seeking blood.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Foosters said:

sorry to cherry pick, but I can't let this go.

Cancel Culture was a right-wing thing LONG before it became a left wing thing. 

What was anti-gay legislation and criminalizing same sex relationships?

What was McCarthyism? 

What was the reaction to the labor movement and the suffragette movement in the early 20th century?

What was the reaction to the Dixie Chicks 25 years ago?

The right-side, throughout history, has used pressure, social stigmatization, legislation, and even imprisonment to "cancel" anyone who questioned the prevailing societal norms of the time.

 

I agree with you.

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Posted
53 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

At some point as a society we went from: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."  To: "When you say something I disagree with, you are the embodiment of evil and must be silenced."

Whenever I walked through the West Mall, I would laugh at the chuckleheads shouting from atop their milk crates.  I even remember going to see a few speakers on campus who had very different views than I did and thinking "well, that guy is an asshole."  But it would have been antithetical to me to want to tar and feather them.

A few wedge issues where there is a black/white worldview and you fall to one side or the other have amplified this problem.  To pick one from both sides: abortion and Palestine.  Many people have heartfelt views on either side of those issues. It's very easy to cast the "others" on the opposite side as uncaring and evil.  If you believe "words are violence" all of the sudden you are justified, in fact obligated to shut them down, shout them down, silence them, de-platform them, and demand their firing.  And if you extend that, all of those consequences should not just be reserved for the speaker but also anyone who follows them, anyone who provides them with a platform, anyone who scheduled them so speak on campus and so on.

There are plenty of proximate causes for the coarsening of our society: softer parenting styles, everyone-gets-a-trophy culture, social media, but my candidate is the rise of narcissism.  Plenty of studies have shown that narcissism has increased, especially in the past 15-20 years since social media became widespread.  It tracks: in an influencer-culture, where it's all about look-at-me, you become the center of your own world.  Any disruption to that is a Bad Thing for you.

When you're surrounded by amplification of your worldview by the algorithms, your internal antibodies will be strongly programmed to reject any opposing view.  #MeToo, Cancel Culture, DEI, and now their analogues on the right-side have taught those who seek power that you can "defeat the evil" by getting people fired, shouting them down, getting corporations to stop working with them, or removing them from a platform.  Give that mouse a cookie and he wants a glass of milk, and it leads to more.

Lots of truth in here.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Surly Bevo said:

I dunno if they are really more intolerant.  I tend to think that with technology and social media the intolerance is more broadly known and glommed on to by other pockets of disaffected/intolerants.  

In that way, it is no different than all the other age groups.  We've managed to bring the worst of us together.

Nailed it. Social media and the ability for instances like this to "go viral" instantly only exacerbates the divide. 

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

 

Interesting way to tell us you TRIED to have an inappropriate relationship with a pretty young coed, but none were interested.  SAD.

Please note the bolded below, m'lord:

1 hour ago, Beau Vine said:

Oh please, the first time I had a student try to get me fired was in the 90's.

And ironically, in 2023, the year before I retired, I actually tried to get myself fired, but none of my students complained.

 

Edited by Beau Vine
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Posted (edited)

Its not complicated. It’s cool to support trump and be conservative now. Look at any high profile athlete at the moment, any rapper, any podcaster or YouTuber or influencer. 90% of them support trump. If you don’t support him you’re viewed as a beta male loser, that’s just the reality. If I go on Instagram or tiktok or X, it’s wall to wall conservative vids with insanely high views, likes, and comments. It’s all young people driving up those numbers. The demonization of young men and cancel culture has all helped make Gen Z maybe the most conservative generation of all time.

There’s a catch to all this, though. The only constant in human history is change. Eventually there will be a time when having liberal views makes you a “rebel” again, when blindly supporting authority isn’t seen as positive trait, when people get sick of their lives not becoming what was promised. It happens over and over again, I expect the current red popularity to fade in the next 15 years or so 

Edited by Helobious
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15 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

Office Space No GIF

Sure freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.  But to say cancel culture doesn't exist is asinine.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/karlynborysenko/2020/02/12/the-dark-side-of-metoo-what-happens-when-men-are-falsely-accused/

Dershowitz recounts his side of the story in the book Guilt By Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #metoo. His case is particularly interesting because it started before the #metoo movement and continues today. When asked if he noticed a difference between perception before and after, he said it was very noticeable. “There’s no question. Before the #metoo movement, I had won. It had gone away. I had the submission, I had the tapes, the recording, the emails, I had a full investigation by the former head of the FBI who said it was false, I had a judge who struck it [down], the lawyers had withdrawn it...it was over! It was completely over. And then the #metoo movement came, and suddenly it was resurrected.”

“If you call a women a liar, even if you didn’t do [what you’re being accused of], you’re guilty of calling a woman a liar, so there’s no way out. If you don’t deny it, you’re thought to be guilty. If you do deny it, you’ve committed an additional political sin, so it’s a trap. And it feels just horrible...They either assume your guilt or they assume you shouldn’t be asserting your innocence. 

...

Dershowitz described the challenges he has faced in being accused, including the financial cost of fighting the accusation, to the embarrassment of having to tell every potential client of the claims while he is pursuing it in court, to the impact it has had on his family, including his grandchildren: “It’s been terrible. No one who knows me believes it, none of my personal friends. Even those who are really upset at me about the Trump thing don’t believe it because they know I’m not that guy. I’m not a player. But it has still had a terrible impact on my grandkids who are in school where people believe everything that’s said, and on my children. It’s had a terrible impact on us. I’m a victim, and no one wants to treat me like a victim.”

Or if Dershowitz is too powerful/monied to possibly be a victim, how about this guy who was anonymously and falsely added to a list of "Bad Men" and was chased out of his work at the Washington Post and had to take the only thing he could get: janitor at Dave & Busters:

https://nypost.com/2020/02/01/being-wrongly-metood-has-ruined-my-life/

 

A side note to the accusations leveled at me was the claim that an “HR file at The Washington Post,” where I was an editorial aide from 2005 to 2008, existed that presumably backed up the accusations. The Post keeps scanned personnel files on all employees, so a file on me does exist. But when I called the newspaper for verification, I was told my file contains no mention of accusations, investigations or disciplinary actions.

(Ed. note: The Washington Post declined to verify this.)

Baffled, I reached out to the former co-worker I had assumed was my accuser, a female reporter in my office whom I felt sure had at times found me rude or inconsiderate. She said she didn’t write my entry and didn’t know who did.

Obviously, I’m drawing attention to the list now. I’m tired of trying to hide in plain sight, of feeling psychologically broken for actions I never took. The top of the Sh-tty Media Men spreadsheet admonished readers to take the allegations with a grain of salt because its charges are uninvestigated. But in my experience, more than a few people have equated inclusion on the list, regardless of the alleged offense, as proof that a man is undeserving of ever being hired or heard from.

And there are many others as well who were given career death-penalties with scant evidence as part of these various movements, not for things they said or did, not under adjudication by a jury of their peers with evidentiary rules, but by the mob seeking blood.

Citing Jeffrey Epstein's attorney and a man who has personally been accused of rape and pedophilia several times over as an anti-cancel culture source certainly is a choice.

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Posted
Just now, Brian Fantana said:

Citing Jeffrey Epstein's attorney and a man who has personally been accused of rape and pedophilia several times over as an anti-cancel culture source certainly is a choice.

Ah I see the guilt-by-association and guilt-by-accusation fallacies have come out

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Posted
Just now, Horn of Gabriel said:

Ah I see the guilt-by-association and guilt-by-accusation fallacies have come out

I think it's more who-gives-a-shit-what-a-monumental-colossal-piece-of-shit-has-to-say.

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Posted
33 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

Office Space No GIF

Sure freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.  But to say cancel culture doesn't exist is asinine.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/karlynborysenko/2020/02/12/the-dark-side-of-metoo-what-happens-when-men-are-falsely-accused/

Dershowitz recounts his side of the story in the book Guilt By Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #metoo. His case is particularly interesting because it started before the #metoo movement and continues today. When asked if he noticed a difference between perception before and after, he said it was very noticeable. “There’s no question. Before the #metoo movement, I had won. It had gone away. I had the submission, I had the tapes, the recording, the emails, I had a full investigation by the former head of the FBI who said it was false, I had a judge who struck it [down], the lawyers had withdrawn it...it was over! It was completely over. And then the #metoo movement came, and suddenly it was resurrected.”

“If you call a women a liar, even if you didn’t do [what you’re being accused of], you’re guilty of calling a woman a liar, so there’s no way out. If you don’t deny it, you’re thought to be guilty. If you do deny it, you’ve committed an additional political sin, so it’s a trap. And it feels just horrible...They either assume your guilt or they assume you shouldn’t be asserting your innocence. 

...

Dershowitz described the challenges he has faced in being accused, including the financial cost of fighting the accusation, to the embarrassment of having to tell every potential client of the claims while he is pursuing it in court, to the impact it has had on his family, including his grandchildren: “It’s been terrible. No one who knows me believes it, none of my personal friends. Even those who are really upset at me about the Trump thing don’t believe it because they know I’m not that guy. I’m not a player. But it has still had a terrible impact on my grandkids who are in school where people believe everything that’s said, and on my children. It’s had a terrible impact on us. I’m a victim, and no one wants to treat me like a victim.”

Or if Dershowitz is too powerful/monied to possibly be a victim, how about this guy who was anonymously and falsely added to a list of "Bad Men" and was chased out of his work at the Washington Post and had to take the only thing he could get: janitor at Dave & Busters:

https://nypost.com/2020/02/01/being-wrongly-metood-has-ruined-my-life/

 

A side note to the accusations leveled at me was the claim that an “HR file at The Washington Post,” where I was an editorial aide from 2005 to 2008, existed that presumably backed up the accusations. The Post keeps scanned personnel files on all employees, so a file on me does exist. But when I called the newspaper for verification, I was told my file contains no mention of accusations, investigations or disciplinary actions.

(Ed. note: The Washington Post declined to verify this.)

Baffled, I reached out to the former co-worker I had assumed was my accuser, a female reporter in my office whom I felt sure had at times found me rude or inconsiderate. She said she didn’t write my entry and didn’t know who did.

Obviously, I’m drawing attention to the list now. I’m tired of trying to hide in plain sight, of feeling psychologically broken for actions I never took. The top of the Sh-tty Media Men spreadsheet admonished readers to take the allegations with a grain of salt because its charges are uninvestigated. But in my experience, more than a few people have equated inclusion on the list, regardless of the alleged offense, as proof that a man is undeserving of ever being hired or heard from.

And there are many others as well who were given career death-penalties with scant evidence as part of these various movements, not for things they said or did, not under adjudication by a jury of their peers with evidentiary rules, but by the mob seeking blood.

Using Alan Dershowitz as your example is some incredible work. 

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