A college-age changer mugged by the reality of COVID restrictions and the narrowness of “liberal” schools
This change story is worth reading. Like so many, it’s not really about someone who changed his or her mind in terms of the basics. It’s about someone who realized that those basic principles couldn’t be found where he or she had thought they were.
A few excerpts:
Those two semesters at home hadn’t been kind to me. I didn’t really keep in touch with my Bryn Mawr friends; gazing at their mansions through a glitchy Zoom made me feel like an outsider. When we did talk, they obsessed over how scared they were of the virus and how many precautions they were taking, as though it was some kind of competition. Instead of sharing my thoughts and experiences, I stayed silent because I feared their criticism and eventually dropped off…
The stakes of leaving were high. I had to walk away from my $75,000 scholarship, my friends—everything. After a few weeks of being overcome with uncertainty, I started looking for schools that were more aligned with my values.
I quickly discovered that almost every school that was operating even remotely normally was overtly religious. That was really hard for me to wrap my brain around given I had a somewhat fixed view of conservatives being rigid and intolerant. Yet, here I was, confronted with the fact that these religious institutions were, in practice, far more aligned with my values like individual liberty, critical inquiry, and diversity of thought than the place that explicitly claimed to be those things…
[Now at Hillsdale] I went to office hours—in person—the other day for one of my new classes, a required course about classic literature and I got into an interesting debate with a professor. Upon sharing an idea that directly refuted his interpretation of a line from Genesis, which I had never read before, he said, “That’s a great point. Why didn’t you share that in class?” “I didn’t want to be argumentative,” I told him. “Be argumentative,” he said emphatically.
As I mentioned in my link to this in the open thread this young woman’s mother is AJ Kay who has been a fierce fighter against the COVID authoritarianism affecting us all but especially kids.
Here is her twitter.
https://twitter.com/AJKayWriter
This was AJ Kay’s thread from when she returned home from getting her daughter settled at Hillsdale.
We need more Hillsdale College’s.
https://twitter.com/AJKayWriter/status/1480743996984991748
I would encourage everyone to read the editorial posted three weeks ago by the excellent Chicago Thinker (run by very bright young students at the U of C) entitled “The U. of Chicago Must End its Booster Mandate; We Are Not Lab Rats”. One of the members of the board is Evita Duffy, whose parents are Sean and Rachel Campos-Duffy (Fox); her latest essay is on the “dangerous intellectual intolerance” being fostered at our universities which are, undeniably, contributing to the destruction of the republic, mostly at the expense of hard-working tax-payers. who may not always be aware that their money is contributing to such a dire future for their progeny and the nation.
Fascinating article. I’m glad she found a way out of the higher ed gulag; not many do.
My change happened way back in the mid 1980s, but her story resonated a bit with me. Moving to Nassau County, FL 5 months ago was also liberating. I was stunned at first that the majority of the people here are MoR and conservative. I was shocked to hear from complete strangers a joke being made about Biden. Never would happen in Connecticut. And, the only real place where there is some acknowledgement of a virus is at a health facility where masks are still required. I’m hoping even that changes soon.
I graduated high school in 1982 so I remember the Carter years and had no affinity for Jimmah, who just seemed like a sad clown, but still clung to the notion, constantly reinforced in school and in the culture, that Repubs were (somehow, amorphously) evil. I wasn’t thrilled with Reagan; he seemed so jolly all the time and I was at peak angst. Like the young lady in this change story, I started noticing that stated goals and aspirations of the left did not line up with actions, and changed to fit the moment, and also that the smugness of the left was suffocating and led directly to dull, soul-sucking conformity.
The last few years as college campuses have totally gone off the rails have led me to give thought to my own experiences in college from the late 1980s to early 1990s at a private university in western WA.
Other than a few vague memories of calls for more diversity I don’t remember anything drastically political happening at all. I’m quite certain that most faculty was to the left but for the most part it never showed to me and I was always rightward leaning (thanks dad!).
With friends in the dorms we almost never talked politics of any kind and this was during the presidential election of 1988 and Dukakis spoke at my college and the only thing I remember people talking about was how they were blocking access to several buildings the day he talked. That’s it.
Maybe my experiences were different because I majored in Econ but I also got a Politics and Government degree and I don’t remember anything that overt there either.
The interesting thing is that my fellow students are now administrators and faculty at these same types of universities and they were never as extreme in our youth as they now seem to be.
Too bad for today’s youth because it was fun times back then.
Free speech and free thought used to be the norm at Creighton. Now Creighton requires masks. The law school professors list their pronouns. Some law school profs are “anti-racist.” Creighton posted on FB that it was anti-racist. When I was at a rowing meet last spring, female undergrads wouldn’t remove their masks when I took their picture (at their request!). Creighton undergrads campaigned for the sale of fossil fuel stocks from the endowment portfolio. (The sale is over a period of time, but how stupid is that decision?)
I got into it with the law school dean when he was protecting his crybaby tenured law faculty. The last thing was when the health law professor got the OSHA mask mandate wrong and I criticized her. I told her that she had to practice cruel neutrality in her teaching.
I’m sick over what has happened at my beloved alma mater.
My undergraduate college experience in the mid 60s was simply
STUDY, WORK, STUDY, WORK, STUDY.
Politics was not a subject ever brought up. Neither was race.
Then in the early 70s, in graduate school, politics appeared. And liberal politics was intolerant and abusive to conservatives. I blame Viet Nam for the spark that ignited the campus.
Remember also that the demonstrations stopped once the draft was discontinued. But the poison remained and grew on campus.
Then is spread to main street when the students left campus to enter the real world. The legacy of the “Woodstock Generation” is what we now experience.
I’m not sure if this is a controversial statement or not but I kind of think the years of about 1985-2000 was the best time to be young in this country maybe ever. Economy was mostly good, no long wars, technology was advancing but not too far, freedom was still valued.
Of course not all was great but I consider myself fortunate to have come of age when I did.
Griffin:
They’d lose their jobs these days if they weren’t politically extreme. Perhaps they don’t really believe what they say they believe, or perhaps they do. Who knows?
I was a member of the original Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 64 / 65 and I can tell you that this sort of dark hole of oppression and racial hate was not at all what most of us had in mind. The YSA and the Wobblies and the Communists among us (oh red diaper girlfriend who is now a lesbian-focused therapist) probably had some different marching orders from the Party, but the vast majority was just worshipping the 1st Amendment and despising all attempts to pervert it. Now it is just the opposite.
The adult day care center in New Haven with pretensions to being a university discourages students from eating at local pizza joints and other restaurants: “Yale instituted a campus-wide quarantine until Feb. 7 or (which may be extended depending on public health conditions). Students may not visit New Haven businesses or eat at local restaurants (even outdoors) except for curbside pickup,” Yale Daily News tweeted.
“Dining is grab-and-go until public health conditions improve. Yale is currently set to resume in-person classes on Feb. 7 — after two weeks of remote instruction.”
https://news.yahoo.com/yale-tells-students-not-dine-210519667.html
Meanwhile, note the unctuous virtue-signaling atop the main COVID-19 webpage:
“Yale is focused on the health and safety of its community as it continues to create and share knowledge that benefits the world.”
https://covid19.yale.edu/
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Bryn Mawr to Hillsdale! Alpha to Omega.
they obsessed over how scared they were of the virus and how many precautions they were taking, as though it was some kind of competition.
That’s completely normal among the NPR-listening crowd – in fact it’s mandatory within that groupthink, and she’s right that it’s a competition, and a serious one too. Participation by parents has had a very bad effect on their offspring, who are shut in and masked, and injected over and over again to keep ahead of the Joneses.
Remember when liberals claimed to be original thinkers?
There is a reason that the Democrat politicians still talk about making life better in America. They know that the bulk of their voters, especially not the older ones, are NOT for weakening America as a nation, even if the leadership is a bunch of globalist who want to weaken America.
I am not sure that I saw a changer in there. So, she was uncomfortable among the ultra-privileged, she felt isolated by the exile, and surprised that she can speak her mind at Hillsdale; but, what else?
I was glad to read her story, and forwarded it to my three daughters, all of whom have children who are talking about going to college in 3-4 years. I have mentioned Hillsdale to them, but don’t think they take me seriously.
In any case, I’m glad the writer is happy at Hillsdale. I have given Hillsdale a little money for the past several years. I’m glad I have.
Oldflyer: I get that. But baby steps. She noticed the competitive fear manifestations and the up-yours, I mean the one-up you, in mitigation restrictions imposed on oneself and anybody else int the neighborhood.
They’re running for Top Karen.
At least she noticed and found it annoying. She can’t think about the why until she notices.
My granddaughters were born skeptics.I I asked the ten year old what she was learning in “tech eng” (I had no idea, myself). “Nothing I need in life,” she responded. I still know nothing about it.
I think the Left takes comfort from having a hive mind. That way, no one ever disagrees with you.
It reads like she was raised with Pentacostals and Baptists, and just now is finding out about the Evangelicals.
It’s kind of funny how the Progressive left always assigns the worst religious stereotypes of intolerance and close-mindedness to all religions, then makes a show of (a) condemning stereotypes while (b) displaying their own intolerance and close-mindedness.
And then once in while when one breaks ranks and mingles, they’re shocked to their very core to find nice people running around loose, being friendly, welcoming, giving the benefit of the doubt and open to different points of view. There ought to be a name for this syndrome.
“I didn’t want to be argumentative,” I told him. “Be argumentative,” he said emphatically.
It seems to me that in my lifetime the left went from “question authority” to “don’t you dare question MY authority.”
It is true what Ronald Reagan said “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Party left me.”
Oldflyer:
She identified as a liberal and couldn’t wait to leave the conservative community in which she was raised, in order to attend college. She discovered there that liberals were actually very close-minded and she later discovered that it was conservatives who allowed both sides to speak. Change doesn’t have to be 100% to be change.
A lot of commenters remarked that her problems were also due to B M being a bad fit for her socially as well as ideologically, because of the economic class disparity.
“I’d gone to underfunded, overcrowded public schools my whole life and this was my first experience with small classes and teachers who seemed to love teaching. I took a poetry class where the professor would sing folk songs to us in the hallway as we made our way into class. I learned to write short stories from an Italian instructor who compared writing to preparing homemade pasta. I had been nervous about not being able to keep up academically, but the calculus class I took that first year was easier than the one at ASU.”
Sounds like a lot of fun, but there’s part of the problem right at the end.
They can’t have rigorous classes because their students can’t handle them.
Because, reasons.
The wealth disparity at small liberal arts colleges in the east is a huge deterrent for a lot of kids. My daughter attends an alternative public MS/HS that regularly sends students to Bard, Smith, BM, Bennington, etc., and students report back that the wealthy elite act pretty entitled and their status remains unchallenged in any way that will truly change their attitudes towards the blue collar middle class. Why do you think they cling to the “we’re racists and must atone”? Because that requires lip service only – no one will have to actually make a sacrifice, like giving up top-notch amenities to which they have grown accustomed.
Malcolm Gladwell did an excellent podcast episode on this issue by comparing how Bowdoin College and Vassar utilize their funds to help financially challenged students attend. Vassar has eschewed cushy living quarters and top rated chefs to ensure there are funds to support first generation college students, while Bowdoin caters to a wealthy clientele accustomed to such treatment.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/food-fight/id1119389968?i=1000372453199
while Bowdoin caters to a wealthy clientele accustomed to such treatment.
FWIW, I’ve been personally acquainted with three Bowdoin graduates and none of them fit that description.
The research took five-year averages of medical conditions and then compared the track record to the results after the mandatory military vaccination program was initiated. The results are alarming:
Heart Attacks +269%
Pericarditis +175%
Myocarditis +285%
Pulmonary Embolisms +467%
Cerebral Infarction +393%
Bell’s Palsy +319%
Guillain-Barre +250%
Immunodeficiencies +275%
Menstrual Irregularity +476%
Multiple Sclerosis +487%
Miscarriage +306%
HIV +590%
Chest Pain +1,529%
Labored Breathing +905%
This is an analysis on the effect the jab is having on active duty military personnel. Comparing numbers since the jab to the previous five years. Think of what the GEN POP looks like. The jab was an experiment…a bad one and failed.
The interesting thing is that my fellow students are now administrators and faculty at these same types of universities and they were never as extreme in our youth as they now seem to be.
One of the bad actors at Cornell agitating to have Wm. Jacobson fired has been Sandra Babcock. She and I were in a political discussion club long ago in a galaxy far away. She had no trouble amiably arguing with the Republicans in the club, who were half the total and vociferous, and she was not a sectary. I was fond of her, as were others.
@mark – interested in the source for that!
Mark. I see one condition which is supposed to be caused by an external agent–HIV. The rest are what might be considered “mechanical”.
Any idea why HIV is in there?
Lock downs causing desperation in dating, maybe?
Had a couple of uncles go to Bowdoin back in the forties. Had some help because of football but had to go lumberjacking a couple of years to make the bills.
My college years were in the dark ages of the 1950s. More recently, after I retired as a surgeon, I taught medical students for 15 years. That was very interesting. Two of my female students invited me to their weddings. In spite of the difference in age, and my tendency to be a curmudgeon, they liked my teaching style. Before I quit a few years ago, I met the new Asst Dean for Social Justice. That was not her title; I think it was “Diversity” but that was the idea. I have no idea what students there are like now. I’m happy not to know.
To be snarky, surprise,
it seems
that the vaccines
can be correlated
with everything.
Do they correlate with an upsurge in white nationalism and adverse effects of climate change?
The old conundrum of causation never dies.
To be snarky, surprise,
it seems
that the vaccines
can be correlated
with everything.
Do they correlate with an upsurge in white nationalism and adverse effects of climate change or insurrections?
The old conundrum of causation never dies.
Went to college in NYC during height of anti-war demonstrations; the college was forced to shut down due to the demonstrations.
I estimate that at most, there were 500 anti-war demonstrators.
The college had about 20,000 students.
At that time, three things stood out to me;
1. Why did so many of the demonstrators wear clothing remarkably similar to that of Ernst Rohm’s Brown Shirts.
2. Why did the leaders of the protests determine, all by their lonesome, that they, and ONLY they, had the decision making power to shut down the college. What about the opinions of the other 19,500 students?
3. Why did the college admin folks agree to shut down the college as opposed to expelling, permanently, those disruptive students.
So the lesson I learned is that determined, persistent folks, who are prepared to use any and all means, regardless of their numbers, can impose their will upon the masses, and they do not care in the least what the majority of people want or support.
They are totalitarians at their core; mini Hitler’s , mini Stalin’s.
Here is a very interesting article:
https://spectator.org/what-american-woke-cancel-culture-has-taught-me-about-nazi-germany-and-terrified-american-professors/
Bryn Mawr to Hillsdale. Now that’s incredible!
Sounds like a lot of fun, but there’s part of the problem right at the end.
They can’t have rigorous classes because their students can’t handle them.
Because, reasons.
It’s a women’s college.
Aggie, I was raised a Baptist, and the various congregations I participated in seemed be a diverse (if I may borrow a term) group of people.
You paint with an overly broad brush.
It may not be fair of me, but as I kind of indicated before, I think the young woman is a bit dramatic; and I suspect that applies to her description of her early environment as well the later. It was interesting that she had to tell us that she curses at Hillsdale. I wonder what she curses about? Posturing? In your face? Just curious. It seems like a lot of that goes on among some women now. I guess that is their version of free speech.
I could be wrong about all of this. I occasionally am.
Re: face diapers.
As you may infer, I think them essentially useless for their claimed purpose, and counterproductive to most of the rest of life.
That said, I do think that the paradigm of required mask wearing in health facilities has merit, not for the Chinese Biological Weapon, or it’s relatives (or Influenza viruses), but for respiratory germs (like pneumococcal bacteria).
Let’s try it for awhile,with the respiratory infection rate as the metruc. We have a chance to get at least one good thing out of the disaster of the last two years.
Why did the college admin folks agree to shut down the college as opposed to expelling, permanently, those disruptive students.
College admins in the 60s, and apparently now as well, seemed to enjoy a unanimous groupthink which valued ‘activists’ far above those students who merely wanted an education. They had/have apparently NO principles which value the education above the gabbling and quacking of the social milieu. In short, they had/have no business in any university administrative activity.
Time to unhire them, and start over.
@oldflyer 12:22pm “Aggie, I was raised a Baptist, and the various congregations I participated in seemed be a diverse (if I may borrow a term) group of people.
You paint with an overly broad brush.”
I was being a little sarcastic, using stereotypes, because the story is really about a denouement of stereotypes. As they used to say at Baylor, “You know, Baptists never make love standing up, because they don’t want anybody to think they’re dancin’!” (substitute the vernacular for ‘making love’. )
The Baptists I have for neighbors here and now are not the up-tight, closed-minded, status-conscious burgher class that seemed to congregate in our small-town Southern Baptist church when I was young so I take your point. But I hear their conventions can still get a little spicy even these days. Didn’t mean to offend.
“There’s an alternate universe where Covid doesn’t exist, where I stay at Bryn Mawr and am never forced to learn these lessons or to confront my own limitations. I graduate believing that deep down there was something wrong with me for not seeing the world the way my peers did, and feeling ashamed for not being brave enough to voice my dissent. I am the same fearful girl I was at 10, who pretended to go to church so she could make friends. . . . Real growth isn’t about your GPA or the letters after your name; it’s about choosing discomfort and challenge rather than going along.”
I’m enjoying “Private Truths, Public Lies,” about this same corrosive effect on self-respect, but more broadly about the instability in society that results from everyone pretending to go along with nonsense until a crack develops, and we discover how brittle and hollow was the support for nonsense.
Aggie on January 31, 2022 at 11:51 pm said:
“… being friendly, welcoming, giving the benefit of the doubt and open to different points of view. There ought to be a name for this syndrome.”
I think it is called The Golden Rule.
Wendy at 3:55pm: “the instability in society that results from everyone pretending to go along with nonsense until a crack develops, and we discover how brittle and hollow was the support for nonsense.”
In his latest essay Richard Fernandez explores this idea: https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2022/02/01/protests-from-out-of-nowhere-n1554785
something happening here
feeling a bit hopeful
Shooting of Ashlii Babbitt and “For What It’s Worth” on a constant loop. And now the truckers. Something indeed may be happening, “preference cascade.” Brandon and his junta are evil, corrupt, and incompetent. Can’t be hidden any longer, but even so, they can still get a lot more people killed.
“something happening here”
Alas, Stephen Stills, in support of Neil Young, has also decided to quit Spotify.
Maybe Stills should rename his song, “For What It WAS Worth”…
…and perhaps even re-record it (stopping the whole farce after “What’s that sound?” and put THAT on an endless loop…)
File under: “What’s that sound? What’s that sound? What’s that sound? What’s that sound?…”
Related (“What’s that sound?”):
Seems all those revolutionary types from back then are NOW scratching their respective heads and saying, “Hell if I know. Beats me”…
” Johns Hopkins Prof. Slams Media, Own Institution For Hiding Bombshell Study That Found Lockdowns Are Ineffective—
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/watch-johns-hopkins-prof-slams-media-own-institution-hiding-bombshell-study-found
‘Wendy at 3:55pm: “the instability in society that results from everyone pretending to go along with nonsense until a crack develops, and we discover how brittle and hollow was the support for nonsense.”’
Just another of many, many examples (of that Political Party behind the curtain)…
Presenting…Hunterrrr Bidennnn:
“Classified State Department email declared Hunter Biden ‘undercut’ U.S. efforts in Ukraine
“Withheld from public for five years, memo conflicts with Democrats’ official narrative that president’s son had no impact on U.S. anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.”—
https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/classified-state-department-email-declared-hunter-biden
Yep, it’s “All Lies, All the Time”….