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realtalk-princeton · 5 years

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why are people in our generation so sensitive

Response from Opal:

I am not 100% sure as to what you mean by “sensitive,” but generally, when people ascribe that word to a demographic as sweeping as “our generation,” they are alluding to a perceived trend of overzealous “political correctness” or something adjacent to that. Therefore, I will assume that you are doing the same. Why is our generation so sensitive? I will be upfront with you and say that I have personally had my fill of people telling me, on the Internet or at lecture events or across the dinner table, that something is wrong with the youth of America today who are so keen to fuss, agitate, and voice their discontent about the state of the world. “Sensitive” is actually a pretty spot-on descriptor for us, but it does not mean, as those same people often imply, that we get upset all the time over nothing of actual import and cannot tolerate being exposed to different ideas. Rather, it means that we are more attuned to what is unjust and what helps perpetuate that injustice, and that we are actually in a position to speak up and do something about it sometimes. We have always lived in a society bounded by structural oppression, and we have always had people who recognized this, fighting to liberate their minds and their bodies from the systems that give certain individuals indisputable and unethical power over others. There is nothing unique about the malcontent of our generation in that sense; we are simply able to build upon the work done in the past to expand our current understandings of what is wrong and what we must change. Just because some of those things are personally not relatable to people from older generations or in power does not mean that they are not real, creating real repercussions on the real lives of real human beings. Those who get the short end of the stick in an unjust society are the ones who are most knowledgeable about the various ways in which it manifests injustice in the first place, and we are doing nothing more than continuing to unlearn harmful internalizations and protect each other by listening to what those important, historically marginalized voices have to say. I am afraid that this whole spiel may be getting a little convoluted, so I apologize and will just leave you with this: Systemic oppression is powerful and pervasive enough to permeate all aspects of our lives, our social institutions, and our interactions with each other, and it is so multitudinous that we are a long ways away from knowing all there is to know about identifying, resisting, and undoing it. Progress, by definition, is made whenever we take another step away from a status quo that does not allow all of us to live freely, but these acts of disobedience will always appear obnoxious, irritating, and uncalled-for, because society as a whole is so conditioned to buy into the narratives of power, and because wherever there is inequality, those who benefit from it will feel threatened by calls for change. I hope our generation stays sensitive. I hope we keep getting better at uplifting each other by refusing to accept subjugation and all its tools - large and small, institutional and interpersonal, conscious and unconscious, obvious and subtle.

Response by Alito:

re: Opal. 71% of Americans believe “political correctness is a problem in America today.” Things have definitely gone overboard from the eyes of an average American (maybe not a Princeton student considering demographics).

Americans ideals have drastically shifted as a result of generational change. In my theory, Millennials and subsequently our generation wants to “minimize hurt feelings.” While Gen X prides itself in resilience and grit, Millennials and proceeding generations took “tolerance and inclusiveness” and ran w/ it (cough participation trophies cough), making it a “centerpiece” of their “progressive” ideology. Whether that’s now too extreme or not is for you do decide.

This from my viewpoint has led to extremely “progressive” views being pushed while other narratives that don’t conform 100% to the PC progressive narrative be demonized and deemed “hateful,” when they could potentially be valid. It’s led to a closed-minded/“you versus me” mentality where when one’s view is challenged, he or she personally takes offense (and assumes the incorrectness of the opposing party) rather than trying to debate why one believes his or her view is valid. It’s led to the rise of dangerous authoritarian ideals, like censoring speech. To be specific, censoring any speech not conforming to the “progressive” political viewpoint. It has led to the loss of respect for the rule of law in the name of “feelings” and “progressivism.” Personally, the avoidance (voluntary or forced) of challenging ideas for the sake of “feelings” is indefensible. The Vatican has the Devil’s Advocate for a reason.

When I first arrived at Princeton, I was quite shocked to see Princeton students call for the death of free speech and anything that is mildly against the Progressive narrative. I have heard students advocating for the hijacking/weaponization an entire academic department for pushing their own political views. This is horrific considering the purpose of academia is original research to discover new things, not confirm preexisting biases. The disinvitation of Amy Wax from a Whig-Clio event on the freedom of speech, followed by the hosting of comedian Chelsea Handler to discuss “wokeness and white privilege” (along with a slew of other spotlighted events covering everything from Marxism to reparations for the black community), is just one of the examples I’ve encountered regarding this phenomenon here.

Sorry, I’m v tired rn and my words might not make much sense. I’ll follow up later and maybe extend this response, but this is what I have for now.

Response from Opal:

re: Alito. There is a lot going on here! I will not respond to all of it, because I have no desire to turn this particular post into a massive debate, but I do think it is important to note that criticizing, protesting, and reacting negatively to certain individuals or viewpoints, both on this campus and anywhere else, does not constitute censorship. We are all entitled to say what we want, but we are not entitled to other people accepting, engaging with, or even listening to us, and that is not to be confused with “the death of free speech.” The disinvitation of a speaker for a campus event, while perhaps a breach of decorum, does not inhibit that speaker’s actual ability to maintain and express their beliefs - especially not Amy Wax, who has multiple publications and a professorship to her name. The Constitutional right to freedom of speech is not a right to an audience, and it is therefore a non sequitur to label all ideological backlash and avoidance as morally wrong because they are violations of free speech.

It is more pertinent to examine the kinds of ideas that you observe to be either drawing fire or largely ignored. To this, I will say that the sensitivity of our generation is much less about “minimizing hurt feelings” than it is about resisting ideas, narratives, and beliefs that threaten the humanity or existence of entire demographics of people. As a queer woman of color, I believe that my right to move freely through the world, fully as myself, supersedes the rights of others to tell me that my identities make me inferior, subordinate, undeserving, or wrong WHILE expecting that I will not raise a stink about it. Such words are inextricably linked to literal violence and oppression, and listening to them creates pain and fear that go far beyond “hurt feelings.” Say that my poetry is bad, my nose is too wide, or my love for ABBA is embarrassing if you want to hurt my feelings. Say that I am less of a human being than you are, and the Vatican will not even need to supply an advocate for the devil because he just spoke to me directly. Screw “tolerance and inclusivity” - I demand respect and reciprocity. We all do. And I am tired of rhetoric that delegitimizes my demands.

Response from Alito:

re: Opal.

“I have no desire to turn this particular post into a massive debate”

Likewise

“criticizing, protesting, and reacting negatively to certain individuals or viewpoints, both on this campus and anywhere else, does not constitute censorship.”

Of course! However, I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding the issue at hand. The problem with the Whig-Clio incident is that individuals with a degree of authority disinviting speakers cannot be simply accepted as a “protest or criticism,” it’s the literal depravation of a forum for public debate and criticism. We never knew what Amy Wax would have said about free speech. Whig-Clio’s actions were even denounced by Eisgruber I believe. We are depriving her of her voice and her ability to express her opinions as a result of her previous statements. This has nothing to do with audiences, and that is a grave misrepresentation/straw man.

Also, for speech to be speech, wouldn’t we need an audience? If we don’t have one, it would literally be talking to ourselves… I think that’s what the Founding Fathers meant as speech.

Let me just say I find students here particularly hypocritical how and to the extent they decide free speech is applied depending on political ideology and opinions taken (the specific issue I would mention is like a nuclear bomb rn, so I won’t). Let me just say a lot of conservative/libertarian ideals and censored and shunned when they could merit DEBATE and value

I won’t respond to your proceeding argument because I don’t wish to start a flamewar, but we shouldn’t ignore 71% of Americans and how they think.

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pamphletstoinspire · 6 years

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Why Growing Up with Relativism Has Millennials Searching for New Rules for Life

Written by: Isaac Withers

How growing up with ‘you do you’ without ‘practical wisdom’ has left young people searching for rules for life:

‘They try to accuse people like me who believe in empiricism and the enlightenment of somehow what they call moral relativism, as if its some appalling sin, where what it actually means is thought’. This was a statement that Stephen Fry made in the 2009 Intelligence Squared debate entitled ‘The Catholic Church is a Force for Good in the World’ and it captures well the cultural conversation around relativism and truth. Is relativism a damaging and destabilising thing, or is it in fact just free thought?

Well, before we get in to it, a definition for the term would be helpful. The Oxford English Dictionary defines relativism as ‘the doctrine that knowledge, morality, etc, are relative rather than absolute’. Put simply it’s the belief that your morals are not universal truths but are in fact more personal opinions ‘relative to’ or ‘related to’ your upbringing or class. At first that may seem like a totally inoffensive idea but it is a debate that has continued passionately over the decades between liberal and conservative thinkers. Paul Ryan, four years before he became Speaker of the House said, “If you ask me what the biggest problem in America is, I’m not going to tell you debt, deficits, statistics, economics—I’ll tell you it’s moral relativism.” How could this idea possibly be that important?

How Prevalent is Moral Relativism and Why?

Across the generations we can see a statistical rise in the idea that morals are relative. In their research, ‘The End of Absolutes: America’s New Moral Code’ the Barna Group found that over half (51%) of millenials were moral relativists compared to only 39% of the pre Boomer generation of Elders. It is then perhaps not surprising that in Barna’s more recent study of Gen Z (those after millennials) found that only 34% thought that lying was morally wrong. Jonathan Morrow, one of the researchers stated, ‘When only 34 percent of Gen Z can agree that “lying is morally wrong” – that’s a big problem. Not only is our culture deeply confused about moral and spiritual truth, gender and sexuality, but we are getting to the point where no one will listen to someone else’s point of view unless the completely agree with them.’

Young people will also be aware that society has held too collective moral norms that were wrong not too long ago, with Jim Crow segregation laws only ending in 1968 and with marital rape only being made illegal in 1993 (both in the US). Clearly, we have collectively been morally wrong before as a society, which would suggest that morals are relative to the time period.

The Greek Response and the Moral Animals

An interesting counter to the idea that diversity encourages moral relativism however comes from Dr Norman Doidge (author of ‘The Brain that Shapes Itself’). Doidge writes ‘When the ancient Greeks sailed to India and elsewhere, they too discovered that rules, morals and customs differed from place to place, and saw that the explanation for what was right and wong was often rooted in some ancestral authority. The Greek response was not despair, but a new invention: philosophy. For the ancients, the discovery that different people have different ideas about how, practically, to live, did not paralyze them; it deepened their understanding of humanity and led to some of the most satisfying conversations human beings have ever had, about how life might be lived.’

Doidge’s comparison of the ancient response of philosophy, to the modern response of relativism, is really fascinating; that cultural differences in the ancient world did not get rid of long held truths but encouraged comparison and philosophical conversation. That certainly sounds like more fun to me. Doidge continues that, ‘Aristotle argued that though specific rules, laws and customs differed from place to place, what does not differ is that in all places human beings, by their nature, have a proclivity to make rules, laws and customs. To put this in modern terms, it seems that all human beings are, by some kind of biological endowment, so ineradicably concerned with morality that we create a structure of laws and rules wherever we are. The idea that human life can be free of moral concerns is a fantasy.’ Doidge goes on to describe humans as ‘moral animals’.

How has Moral Relativism Affected Young People? All the above quotes from Norman Doidge are actually from his introduction to Canadian clinical psychologist Dr Jordan B. Peterson’s ‘12 Rules for Life: an Antidote to Chaos’. This book rose to be a number one Sunday Times and International Bestseller, and Peterson has been called ‘one of the most important thinkers to emerge on the world stage for many years’ (Spectator). His lectures have been watched on YouTube sixty-four million times to date. His rules for life are ‘traditional wisdom’, presented through the collective stories and religions of many cultures, calling people to unifying human truths and to live responsibly in order to find meaning. Why would this become a sensation – especially among the young audiences he attracts?

Doidge, in his introduction, presents his theory about Petersons’ millennial audience. ‘They are, I believe, the first generation to have been so thoroughly taught two seemingly contradictory ideas about morality, simultaneously… The first idea or teaching is that morality is relative … the additional claim that one group’s morality is nothing but its attempt to exercise power over another group. So, the decent thing to do – once it becomes apparent how arbitrary your, and your society’s, “moral values” are – is to show tolerance for people who think differently, and who come from different (diverse) backgrounds. That emphasis on tolerance is so paramount that for many people one of the worst character flaws a person can have is to be “judgemental.” And, since we don’t know right from wrong, or what is good, just about the most inappropriate thing an adult can do is give a young person advice about how to live. And so a generation has been raised untutored in what was once called, aptly, “practical wisdom,” which guided previous generations. Millennials, often told they have received the finest education available anywhere, have actually suffered a form of serious intellectual and moral neglect.’

When I read that, I totally understood why a book that was just ‘rules for life’ had become a phenomenon – because to progress your life in the right direction, you have to believe there is a right and a wrong direction – a relativistic society would never offer that to young people. But it goes deeper than that too. Peterson believes that without these foundations it is impossible to find meaning in life.

‘In the absence of such a system of value, people simply cannot act. In fact, they can’t even perceive, because both action and perception require a goal, and a valid goal is, by necessity, something valued. … We are not happy, technically speaking, unless we see ourselves progressing – and the very idea of progression implies value. … We must have something to set against the suffering that is intrinsic to Being. We must have the meaning inherent in a profound system of value or the horror of existence rapidly becomes paramount. Then, nihilism beckons, with its hopelessness and despair. … So: no value, no meaning.’

But this is not merely intellectuals making statements about young people; this is what Peterson says young people tell him all the time.

‘They say one of two things … a quarter of them say ‘when I listen to you talk it’s as if you’re telling me things that I already know’. It’s like yeah well that’s exactly right because that’s what archetypal stories are … the other thing that people say and this is more like three quarters of them is ‘I was in a very dark place, I was addicted, I was drinking too much, I had a fragmented relationship with my fiance and I wasn’t getting married, things weren’t going very well with my family, my relationship with my father was damaged, I didn’t have any aim, I was wasting my time – some variant of that. I’ve been watching your lectures, I’ve decided to establish a purpose, I’m trying to tell the truth and things are way better. … People stop me on the street all the time and tell me exactly that story, which is just wonderful! … It’s like the lights are going on.’

New Rules: Guilt vs Shame

And yet, Peterson is not the only sign of a secular reawakening to objective morality. We are seeing this come through on the political scene too in America. In ‘How the American left is rediscovering morality’, you have former Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders saying ‘It’s hard to imagine why anyone would be involved in politics if one didn’t have a moral sense of right and wrong, of justice and injustice’ and newly elected New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying ‘Everyone’s going crazy about socialism and democratic socialism. For me, that’s not my seat. My seat is a moral seat.’ Whatever you think of their policies, those are interesting things to say.

In some ways, we are seeing a new emerging culture of moralism, but perhaps in not as healthy a way; David Brooks, in his piece ‘The Shame Culture’ for The New York Times, claims that, ‘College campuses are today awash in moral judgment. … Those accused of incorrect thought face ruinous consequences. When a moral crusade spreads across campus, many students feel compelled to post in support of it on Facebook within minutes. If they do not post, they will be noticed and condemned. Some sort of moral system is coming into place. Some new criteria now exist, which people use to define correct and incorrect action. The big question is: What is the nature of this new moral system?’

Andy Crouch writes compellingly that we are moving from a culture of guilt to a culture of shame. Crouch draws this from anthropologist Ruth Benedict who wrote about her discovery of shame culture in Japan in her 1946 book, ‘The Chrysanthemum and the Sword’. This book, ‘popularized the idea that Japan was a “shame culture,” in which morality was governed by “external sanctions for good behavior.” In other words, you know you are good or bad by what your community says about you. By contrast, in a guilt culture such as the West, you know you are good or bad because of an “internalized conviction of sin”—by how you feel about your behavior and choices.’

Crouch thinks that Benedict’s statements about Japanese culture are ‘sweeping’ but that the insight ‘that some cultures place a higher priority on preserving honor and avoiding shame—has remained.’ Crouch points to the online mob that manifests on social media as proof of this, as well as how university campus controversies egnite so fast. He also claims though, that whereas the opposite to shame in Japanese culture was honour, we are not evolving into an honour-shame culture but ‘are starting to look something like a postmodern fame–shame culture. Like honor, fame is a public estimation of worth, a powerful currency of status. But fame is bestowed by a broad audience, with only the loosest of bonds to those they acclaim.’

Of this theory, Brooks remarks,‘The guilt culture could be harsh, but at least you could hate the sin and still love the sinner. The modern shame culture allegedly values inclusion and tolerance, but it can be strangely unmerciful to those who disagree and to those who don’t fit in.’

How do we help young people in this?

It’s a messy issue, but perhaps the most helpful things the Church can do for young people is offer them a space for the existential conversations, and to offer them that strong guidance on right and wrong whilst engaging their search for meaning.

Bishop Robert Barron sums up the classical morality versus modern morality debate humorously. ‘The modern approach is boring. I say it because it locks the subject so much into himself, there’s no thrilling adventure of discovering formal truth or discovering finality and purpose. All that matters is my little world of my desires, my identity, my sense of myself. I think classical morality … is a much more thrilling, much more adventurous project.’ The Church might first have to convince younger generations that truth exists, or even potentially exists, but when it does that, it also needs to provide a space to explore the different truths in that philosophical tradition. Something like the Alpha course springs to mind here, just the space to thrash the basic ideas out and not be told you are wrong, just to have the conversation of meaning that people are starving for.

Essentially the Church needs to hold to its guns on morality, though it could do with some explanation on the term sin. Again to a generation scared of judgement, sin sounds awful, but its Hebrew origin comes from the archery term for when an archer missed the mark, meaning in a moral sense that sin is a misdirection of our truest desire. An important emphasis too would be that the Church has these morals to protect people from harm. When Jordan Peterson was asked why people are responding positively to his message, he replied, ‘well I’m actually on their side.’ Young people need to be able trust that the Church is on their side, not moralising for no reason, that in the words of Saint John Bosco: ‘Enjoy yourself as much as you like-if only you keep from sin.’

Ultimately, a society without a belief in sin has no need of a saviour, and even Jesus in his famous ‘do not judge’ teaching says ‘why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the great log in your own?’ (Matthew 7:3) There He’s calling for a deep knowledge of our own flaws first to enable our interior transformation, but He is not refuting that there are things in life that are damaging, as His core teaching was ‘repent and believe in the good news’: that balance of the two.

Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King’s College, says it well in his book ‘A Refutation of Moral Relativism’:

‘What do you think Jesus meant when he said “judge not”? Do you think he meant “don’t judge deed, don’t believe the Commandments, don’t morally discriminate a just war from an unjust war or a hero from a bully?” He couldn’t have meant that. He meant “don’t judge the motives and hearts, which only God can see.” I can judge your deeds, because I see them. I can’t judge what your motives are, because I can’t see that.’

In all this we have to remember though that it is not just about rules and morals, that that is not the primary reason for Christianity. As Pope Benedict XVI put it so perfectly, ‘Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.’

#relativism and new rules for life

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