ADAMS: UNC, The University of Narcissistic Criminals

This semester, I began my twenty-sixth year as a professor in the UNC system. Over the course of the last quarter century, I have seen a sharp increase in the raw intellectual ability of our students. Unfortunately, I have also seen a sharp decline in the emotional maturity of our students. These students are increasingly unwilling to debate ideas they find to be objectionable. Unfortunately, in this age of social media, they are also more likely to engage in mob-like behavior when confronted with ideas that challenge campus orthodoxy.

Recently, this tendency to elevate emotions above ideas was on full display at our flagship campus when a mob that included many UNC students toppled the statue of Silent Sam. I wish to make some suggestions about how we should deal with this kind of behavior. But first I wish to say something about the psychological mentality that is driving it. That mentality is often misunderstood and therefore mischaracterized by cultural commentators.

We make a serious error when we characterize today’s progressive students as “snowflakes.” The epithet wrongly implies that these kids are incapable of handling an opposing viewpoint due to emotional weakness. The mischaracterization is understandable given that our campus speech codes explicitly tell students they have a right to be shielded from ideas that make them feel “uncomfortable” or which they might deem to be “offensive.” Were we to actually enforce these codes uniformly, a form of reverse Darwinism would soon shape campus debate.

More