This is a fascinating article by Natalia Dashan about her own experiences at Yale and the endless, seemingly pointless political/social controversies there. Read the whole thing; it's a bit long but very insightful.
One thing which struck me very profoundly was her point that the Yalies (both faculty and students) are actively abdicating power. This is odd because the whole point of a liberal-arts education is to prepare students to hold positions of power. Seriously: that's what it's about. You learn history and rhetoric and logic so that you can understand and, yes, influence other people. At least, that's what it used to be about. Now, I'm not sure.
Anyway, read the article.
Says it all: "These are the people who buy clothes from Salvation Army and decline your Sunday brunch invitation because it’s too expensive, sometimes with the implication that they are saving their money to donate to more effective causes, if they aren’t pretending not to have it. They are the people who might attack or cut off their friends for ideological reasons. They discharge their personal responsibility by sacrificing everything outside of their distant mission, including friendships and social fabric."
Posted by: Gregory Benford | 09/23/2019 at 01:43 PM