Yeah, that’s right. I think social media brings out all kinds of people and, sure, people pull that kind of thing when engaging in rhetoric. The same thing happens in the other direction. We could chat about this in the other thread, but I’ve decided to take a vacation from it.
As for the college campus situation, I’m with you entirely in the hopes that this calms down soon.
It has to calm down. It must calm down. The college administrations simply don’t have the votes for it not to calm down, so they have no choice but to strictly enforce the place, time, and manner policies already on the books, or more heads will roll.
The overall systemic positive effect of this will be a pushback against the cancel culture that dominated college campuses in recent years.
And if that seems counter-intuitive, it’s only until you think about it: all these cancellations depended heavily on disruptive policy violations.
No more.
Definitely not.
@ameridad Thx for replying. I wondered about her (the rabbi’s) take.
Move off from politics please
Ran Bar-Yoshafat came back and successfully gave a talk this evening with a larger number of security guards.
Of course it won’t get better. World events don’t seem to be improving in that area, so it is unlikely college students are suddenly going to stop caring. Public protests on campus may be more regulated, but I expect some students just will be privately avoided by their classmates as public consensus continues to coalesce. Easier that way, for the students and the school.
As long as universities apply an even hand on campus I’m OK with letting students associate as they wish. Now, some might say that universities should attempt to build a thriving academic culture, but maybe that’s no longer possible.
Privately canceling some students will become the new version of public cancel. Perhaps that is an improvement, although some will continue to complain about a hostile environment. So be it.
Like when the moderators on CC suggest you just ignore people who annoy you instead of banning people. It is effective and allows for peaceful coexistence.
Isn’t that what most people do in real life? They associate more closely with people they enjoy. The key is to be able to work with anyone in work-research-study issues. That environment is what universities and businesses should strive to establish.
Personally speaking, I’ve found this to be a very effective strategy. I highly recommend it.
My time spent reading many threads has reduced dramatically (along with my blood pressure) once I put certain persons on ignore. 
There was a time not long ago when, for example, Senators or Supreme Court justices with very differing views were actually civil to one another, and even socialized with one another. Sometimes they engaged in civil conversations. I guess that time is over everywhere. Expect clubs and even majors on campus to self-segregate. After all, when such division occurs, not everyone should expect to be welcomed everywhere. Tolerated, of course. Not surprising. CC is a real-life example.
That is perhaps the future that we, as a society, should look to avoid. Universities could be part of the change by actively working to encourage students to work together and realize that politics does not need to be at the fore in many academic pursuits. Engineering for example.
Back when I was starting as an engineer the unwritten rule was that politics and religion were off the table. In that environment, projects advanced with contributions from engineers of diverse backgrounds unhindered by political/religious baggage. In many companies, that unwritten rule was tossed out years ago, but many are now realizing the business costs of doing so. There have been a few articles recently on how Google appears to loosing the AI race (a race that was theirs to loose) due to the internal adoption of political stances that has grown to the point of stifling the free and open exchange of ideas.
But even here, on CC ,there are islands of a saner approach. I have had some vigorous back-and-forth with a certain CC poster and I know that we are diametrically opposed politically. But I recently had a private exchange on a non-political issue and found common ground around skiing. After our messaging I’m found myself thinking “I could sit down with this person apres skiing and have a cold beverage”.
Hope Remains…
“Applying an even hand” is the real key here for college administrators.
At the most agitated campuses, there are multiple groups accusing admins of selective enforcement, leaving students on all sides of this issue feeling “unsafe” and unprotected by their schools.
Again I come back to the difficult issue of Jewish students in particular who are aligned with the pro-Palestine movement and who are basically being rendered invisible by their administrations. The MIT chapter of Jews for Ceasefire is the latest example, they’re out with a new letter detailing their exclusion from the MIT task force on antisemitism, and the task force’s refusal to provide any useful working definition of antisemitism.
(And I realize he’s not quite a college student at, but look at the growing backlash against Jonathan Glazer…)
I haven’t found that to be the case. Quite the opposite, actually.
They can care all they want, but if they violate policies and cause disruptions, I expect them to be removed from campus.
For what it’s worth, I am being told that things on MIT campus have quieted since CAA got banned and disciplinary process was initiated against the individual organizers.
Most students who attended some earlier protests seem to have gradually realized they don’t actually care enough to regularly spend time yelling at passerby’s, let alone jeopardize their future by testing the administration’s patience.
There are from time to time demonstrations that are held in the city that pass through the public street traversing the campus - but that is outside MIT’s jurisdiction.
And if Jewish students are simply quietly avoided by their classmates who in the absence of policy enforcement would chant for their extermination (because that is what “globalize the intifada” means to them), well… I call it a win.
If it’s a “Free Palestine” club, they can self-segregate all they want. Off-campus.
But any clubs that continue to effectively exclude Jewish students in the name of intersectionality will face a very difficult future remaining university-funded and associated.
We are coming for their microaggressions.
The tide is turning.
I was reading a pretty heartbreaking thread on Reddit, where a student suffering from PTSD is asking the UCB ongoing Sather Gate protestors to stop playing loud audio tracks of bombs, gunshots, and women and children screaming for their lives.
The student doesn’t oppose the protestors’ cause, but reports that the audio being played at the continuous protest site is a serious problem for students who are combat veterans or victims of domestic violence.
@Chekov How can universities retroactively correct their selective enforcement over the last 5ish years? Your earlier point about cancel culture makes sense but in practice how can the mistakes be corrected?
If we want true academic freedom on campuses then we should not shut down speech that questions things like DEI, gender-affirming care, etc. and there cannot be topics that are off-limits just because they offend (unless of course they amount to violent hate speech).