"Water Buffalo!"--Here Come The Affirmative Action Police

One of my favorite pastimes is to read articles from either the New York Times or The Atlantic. I believe that these media agencies publish some high quality, thought provoking, and insightful and educational reads (and sometimes the satirical, funny read!) that help further my growth and understanding as a person and the world around me. This is very important to me; I wish to be an informed and secular human being. This is one reason I am at college. One day, as I was perusing my readings, I discovered a great article. Upon discovering the article, "The Coddling of The American Mind--How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health On Campus" published by The Atlantic and written by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, I began to read this rather long, but very accurate proposal. This article discusses how "in the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don't like" (Lukianoff, Haidt, 1). The primary argument of the article can be found on page 22 under the heading "What Can We Do Now?" and says, "Attempts to shield students from words, ideas, and people that might cause them emotional discomfort are bad for the students" (Lukianoff, Haidt, 22). This article is surely right about current college students being too coddled because, as some individuals may not be aware, recent studies have shown that American culture is becoming increasingly politically polarized, which in turn affects how a child grows up and is sheltered from the opposing ideological perspective, thus entering college where it is desired that one be protected from anything that conflicts with their views (Graff, 62). 

When it comes to the topic of college, most of us will readily agree that college is worth attending to further one's education and obtain a ticket to the middle class. Where this agreement usually ends however, is on the question of what should be taught and what should be censored but still provide a furthering of an education. Whereas some are convinced that anything containing a trigger warning should be censored, others maintain that just because it is a trigger warning, does not mean it should be banned (26). In support of the latter, the article even says regarding trigger warnings, "According to the most-basic tenets of psychology, the very idea of helping people with anxiety disorders avoid the things they fear is misguided" (Lukianoff, Haidt, 16). I am thinking of the book by Mark Twain, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." This book has received an inordinate amount of criticism solely because it features the word, "nigger" in its text. This has resulted in it being banned from reading list of several schools, because of people who take the word out of context and claim the book is racist based on their trigger warning. However, this is highly inappropriate. The book was banned due to people raised with a sense of vindictive protectiveness and use emotional reasoning as their source of generating opinions. This is to serve as an example of how coddled some college students are in the fact they have a problem reading a book published over 100 years ago that is considered a timeless classic, solely because it features n-word. How is one student supposed to develop a secular view and understanding of history if one of their english books is banned because it could potentially offense somebody whose psyche is as fragile as a piece of glass?

Another reason I have to agree that current college students are too pampered and that universities should put a stop to this behavior is that too many people are graduating college without critical thinking skills. In other words, what I'm trying to get at here is that too many people are developing emotional reasoning instead of critical thinking (Graff, 166). This distinction is important because one prepares you for the working world, one does not (166). College is not just about preparing for the real world, it involves growing both socially and mentally. But that is not to say that one reason college (as an institution) exists is to help train students how to think critically: a skill desired in the working world. Unfortunately, universities have been condoning such behavior (censoring what is being taught in the classrooms and teaching emotional reasoning--whether intentional or not) that negatively affects the students. Because these children coming from Baby Boomer parents have been more sheltered, they have been raised to look out for any sign of microaggression and tend to have a psyche made of thin glass. These children then grow up and become more polarized in their views and then attend college. At these colleges, these coddled children attend, they will make a mountain out of a mole-hill regarding any issues and when defending their viewpoints, use what on which they have been raised: emotional reasoning. The article put it quite nicely, "Emotional reasoning dominates many campus debates and discussions. A claim that someone's own words are 'offensive' is not just an expression of one's own subjective feeling of offendedness. It is, rather, a public charge that the speaker has done something objectively wrong. It is a demand that the speaker apologize or be punished by some authority for committing an offense" (Lukianoff, Haidt, 11). However, the real world demands logical, valid arguments when proving oneself. In a court of law, one does not use emotional reasoning to validate one's argument, that would be inanely childish. But this is what is being taught at our universities: that emotional reasoning is a good skill! When people use emotional reasoning in their arguments (which violates classicist argumentative ideology), they are not using the critical thinking skills that they should be learning in college, instead, they are becoming ill-prepared for the real world and influencing what universities teach in their classes. 

I read this article and rejoiced; I said to myself, "Finally! this issue is being realized!" I am a person who tends to think critically and having grown up and been exposed to this sense of vindictive protectiveness, bothers me because it does not sponsor quality, high level thought. The fact that colleges are having to play the political game and instead of teaching students to think in a Socratic manner, to avoid getting in trouble, they are encouraging their students to be shielded from discomforting ideas and use emotional reasoning which poorly prepares these students for what is expected of them upon graduation. Maybe one day, people will wake up and this attitude of being sheltered will go away for the betterment of society and university students. 

Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. They Say / I Say. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2015. Print.

Lukianoff, Greg, and Jonathon Haidt. "The Coddling of the American Mind." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 10 Aug. 2015. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.