Let Children Touch Hot Stoves
I really can't think of any other meaningful way to regard this. Under the ruse of ending harassment, a number of universities have established speech codes. Bowdoin College has banned jokes and stories "experienced by others as harassing." Brown University has banned "verbal behavior" that "produces feelings of impotence, anger or disenfranchisement" whether "unintentional or intentional." University of Connecticut has outlawed "inappropriately directed laughter." Colby College has banned any speech that could lead to a loss of self-esteem. "Suggestive looks" are banned at Bryn Mawr College and "unwelcomed flirtations" at Haverford College. I think it's important that such insanity be allowed -- encouraged, even -- to play itself out to its furthest adolescent conclusions and implications. There's really only one reason, at base, that things have progressed to this dismal and obviously absurd state, and that's that the "psychological victim" industry is hurting. They have little choice but to turn it up to the highest levels of absurdity possible; before it burns out and all the busybodies doing such "important work" find they have to feed and cloth themselves. Some will find the next scam people everywhere are falling for. A few will go on to eventually put away childish...