John Leo is entirely right: if it weren't for blogs, talk radio, and other non-MSM elements of our media culture, things like Delaware's obnoxious residential life indoctrination program would continue on under the radar.
Sure, some group might file a lawsuit, but how do you think the NYT or WashPo would report it, if they deigned take notice at all?
People pay lots of attention to what professors say or write - and they should - but mostly, I suspect, because such writings are relatively easy to find. But the truth of the matter is that colleges' and universities' residential life programs can have much more pervasive effects, as they tend to really set the tone for the whole campus (or perhaps reflect and amplify one portion of it).
And it's striking in an era when universities have largely eschewed their role acting in parents' place that they have nonetheless settled on what can only really be described as a kind of proto-totalitarian mindset. It reminds me of Vaclav Havel's classic essay "Power of the Powerless," where he talks about a greengrocer in communist Czechoslovakia who puts up posters in his shop with slogans like "Workers of the World Unite!" He knows, Havel says, that these are lies (in the sense that the state is not at all interested in the welfare of workers, united or otherwise) but puts them up anyway as a quite reasonable attempt to keep his job and protect his family. But in participating in the lies, he becomes implicated in his own oppression and, indeed, becomes a part of the oppression.
No comments:
Post a Comment