No undergraduate student today of typical college age (18-22) was alive when 9/11 happened. None of them have the direct experience of a national event like 9/11. That catastrophe hit everyone in the face with the raw, unfiltered fear for which there is no orderly playbook, script or peer group to show you how to react or cope.
The student protestors on college campuses today are acting as if the Hamas attacks on Israel, and Israel’s response, is their 9/11. They are reacting like this is a national event of epic proportions where extraordinary measures must be taken. Since most of the country does not share their hatred of Israel, these students believe they are standing alone on the front lines and must riot, vandalize, and threaten others to save our country from itself. And in the process, ruin their own lives.
If there was a word in the dictionary ten times stronger than “bizarre”, we would use it here. The behavior of these protestors is so beyond the pale, we must ask ourselves if we are slowly devolving as a species. Has this generation of young adults been so poisoned with progressive doctrine and absurd sensitivities, that we should forget about any evolutionary contribution from them? They clearly lack strong guiding principles that allow one to survive adversity without panic, chaos, or despair. Maybe the right thing to do is write them off and just sit back and be entertained by their inane world view.
On the other hand, if we are being honest, it can be argued that a version of this very same condition happened with the children of the baby boomer generation. Those young adults, mostly born after 1975, were not around for the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations, the Civil Rights era riots, and the horrors of the Vietnam war. Some of the baby boomers who did experience those events themselves believed the succeeding generation was “soft”, not having had to confront and adapt to similarly difficult circumstances.
In fact, it could be further argued that people born between 1905 – 1940, which includes the “Greatest Generation”, also saw their children (the baby boomers) as “soft”. To these parents, even Vietnam, political assassinations, and race riots were less challenging to live through than World War I, the great depression, and World War II – which included the Pearl Harbor attack, use of the nuclear bomb, and a worldwide death toll of between 70-85 million people.
Granted, we certainly do not wish for calamity to be the only way for us to “improve” ourselves as a species. We know there is an instinctual drive in all of us to react to threats to ourselves or others we care about. But in the absence of any major threats, it is lunacy to create them.
In part, this is exactly what happened to the current generation of young adults with COVID. While COVID was a genuine threat to our health, it most definitely was not on par with events like 9/11, Vietnam, or WWII. However, government leaders, educators, and the national media treated COVID as if it was. The illusion of a much larger danger was artificially created by closing schools for extended periods, illegally mandating vaccines, instituting completely ineffective mask-wearing edicts, and exaggerating death statistics (the CDC admits to counting deaths from a myriad of other primary causes as COVID deaths).
All of this created a false reality, making it appear to impressionable teenage minds that they were living through an apocalyptic viral nightmare. Now as young adults, these former teens have fallen hook, line, and sinker for another false reality – that Israel, not Hamas, are the aggressors in this latest Middle East conflict and that the unconscionably barbaric acts committed by Hamas on October 7th,2023 never occurred (or worse, don’t matter).
Why are these false realities being concocted when they obviously have such destructive effects on our youth? It’s because they serve so well the hidden agendas of progressive politicians and educators. They want these young minds to live, eat, and breathe a liberal/socialist philosophy so they can infuse that philosophy into the institutions where they will eventually work, and into the states where they will vote. Manipulating our pliable youth is too easy and delicious to resist.
While the political benefit for these false realities is plainly obvious (to affect elections) the true agenda of leftist educators is more subtle. It became clear as we saw the ultra-progressive presidents of many colleges (primarily the ivy league “elites”) initially doing nothing to stop violent protestors, encampments, and hate speech toward Israel. Why? Because many of these educators are deeply antisemitic themselves and want a strong message sent to our government that we should not be supporting Israel. To that end, they are reveling in the fact that student protestors are channeling antisemitism. They want these violent protests to continue and be broadcast to the greatest extent possible.
These same university administrators must carefully orchestrate their words and actions in order to keep their jobs. That is why you hear them talk “tough” with ineffective tactics such as: “negotiating” with rule breakers and rioters, imposing deadlines without consequences upon their expiration, and referencing freedom of speech1 as if it is a shield that excuses any bad behavior.
Sadly, we have a weak and mal-educated generation of young people who have been sucked into a secular/progressive world view by a poisoned education system. They are easily fooled by re-writes of history, alternate realities, and social media “trends” because they are apparently incapable of critical thinking. Additionally, they are seduced by drama and peer pressure. They never question the progressive dogma with which they’ve been indoctrinated.
If there is one positive thing that came out of COVID, it is the massive movement of children out of the public school system and into charter schools, home school, and private/religious schools. This bodes well for the next generation of young adults. Our bet is that a great number of them won’t even consider going near the Ivy League cesspool. With any hope, they will re-learn that in the real world it takes critical thinking and genuine effort to discover truth.
1Freedom of speech is not a personally inherent “right” as college administrators would like you to believe. The 1st Amendment of the Constitution only says that ”Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech…”. This mandate was later extended to state legislatures in addition to the federal government. It does not apply to private (non-government supported) institutions. For example, Columbia University can make any rules they want to limit speech – they simply choose not to.
2 Responses
Your article does a great job of explaining the current state of higher education and student unrest issues, bringing to light the cycles of actions and reactions throughout generations, and how those cycles affect the psyche of future young Americans.
There are a few related weird cycles (or reversals) in groups that bother me. The Democrats used to be the purveyors of free speech and also the defenders of small groups that were oppressed or treated unfairly.
Today, more and more free speech is being stifled by them and there is threatening speech against the Jewish by many of the very same group of Democrats.
As for defending those oppressed, Democrats are ignoring the Jewish people that have historically been part of their political voting group. In my entire life, I cannot think of a more passive people than the Jewish people – they should be defended. Someone please tell me when the jewish people in this country have displayed any aggression or law breaking. Many nationalities have bad groups within them as mafias, gangs or other trouble makers but I know of no such Jewish groups.
Israel is now seemingly alone on the world stage to protect their freedom and faith again. A country of laws and peaceful if left alone. Why, oh why do the majority of Jewish people still vote Democrat when the Republican party is trying to protect their rights? I can’t answer that but having watched a powerful true story series called ‘The Lucky Ones’ of a Jewish family in Poland at the time leading up and during WW II. I came away with a thought that the Jewish people believe in the good of people’ and ‘don’t worry, everything will be alright’ – until it isn’t.
Thanks Johnny – great comment! Sorry it took so long to approve this. Seems as though our comment notification system failed us this time.