There are some beautiful aspects of childhood- things like reading The Hobbit, playing with Lego or running around outside probably come to mind. These are things some of us still do from time to time, too. We don’t always have to be adults.
For every good aspect of being a kid, however, you’ll inevitably find a bad one. The good ones may be socially questionable to do today, but are in no way harmful to your life if done in moderation. Video games, doodling, making ridiculous and immature jokes with friends- you know, kid stuff.
Conversely, there are the childish things that are harmful and toxic to one’s life, like temper tantrums, ignoring what others have to say, emotional outrage, arguments that make no sense, or being the last one to find out Santa isn’t real. Really, this is the shit that can seriously damage your elementary school image.
Now, imagine what happens when we condition adults back into a similar state of emotional arguments with a dim grasp of what’s real and what’s fantasy. Your typical gamer understands their video game world is a simulation, while your typical college student is still leaving cookies out at night for the gender wage gap.
And as universities become more “progressive” and tumblr-esque, this infantilization of college students will only get worse. I can only imagine the kind of BS I’ll be adding to a revision of this list in the next couple of years.
Here are the top 5 ways Universities are infantilizing students today (and not in the good way!)
1. Safe Spaces
This is a relatively new addition to many Universities; it is essentially a safe room to which students will flee when faced with opinions or situations that “trigger” them. These triggers range from a simple comment they don’t agree with, to being in a room with too many white straight males.
Students are emotionally affected to the point where they can no longer take being exposed to foreign opinions or ideas, and are driven into a state of panic. To coax them out of it, Universities have applied a patch job instead of a cure by treating these students like children. They are simply removing them from the situation rather than having them face it like adults and become more resilient to emotional and illogical responses.
Users of these “hugboxes” are in no way prepared for their future outside of university, where one can’t take a timeout in a business meeting when their ideas are shot down.
2. Affirmative Consent laws
California and more recently New York have adopted “yes means yes” and “affirmative consent” policies. These mandatory procedures on campuses exist to regulate sex and ensure that fully grown adults understand what the definition of consent is.
With the progressive redefinition of the word “consent” people are having issues understanding what it means as well as with being falsely accused of rape and lacking the evidence to prove their innocence. In response to this epidemic, many universities across Canada and the U.S are introducing “consent kits” equipped with consent forms, pens, and condoms. Apparently university students are so socially challenged that they have no idea when someone wants to have sexual relations with them or even when they themselves have consented said relations. These kits have reduced students to the social level of children who cannot handle the responsibility of impromptu kisses or romantic spontaneity. They now have to have a signed piece of paper, a breathalyzer test and picture that they can present to their trusted adult figures at the University to ensure they don’t get falsely accused of rape. The policies also advocate for a guilty until proven innocent judgement of the accused, therefore forcing students to buy into this ridiculous form of consent.
3. Campus Protests
Adult temper tantrums, that’s all they are. Radical students gather by the hundreds outside academic buildings and campus speaking halls with poster boards and raised voices that either achieve nothing, prevent intelligent debate, destroy the life of a falsely accused individual or someone who made a bad joke.
The ridiculous protests at Dalhousie University screaming for the expulsion of dental students who made inappropriate jokes on Facebook are a perfect example of this. Mattress girl at Columbia university takes it to a whole new level with her ridiculous display of dragging a mattress around campus to protest a student’s continued existence at the university. A student whom she falsely accused of rape, and now demands retribution. You’ll find it is exceedingly difficult to attend a worthwhile campus protest as they are so few and far between nowadays. The ones you’re more likely to encounter revolve around notions of patriarchy, bad jokes, perceived racism and nipples.
4. Post modern art & writing
When a child brings acanvas covered in scribbles to their parent, they stick it on the fridge, Instagram it and get excited if there is something that remotely resembles anything other than spaghetti. As that child gets older, if their art doesn’t progress with their age, they usually give it up or their parents hide their liger doodles in a drawer.
Art doesn’t have to be perfect; it could literally just be a wash of colors and still be appealing. Nowadays, however, people are abandoning the most conventionally appealing aspects of art simply for the sake of being edgy and counter-culture. I imagine their thought processes were something along the lines of “you know what? Fuck hygiene. I’m painting this with my menstrual blood, and if you don’t like it you’re sexist, because this embodies the oppression of women.”
And that’s literally what they’ve done – now all bodily fluids are fair game. These students are applauded by their art departments, teachers and fellow students for their “ingenuity.”
This goes for writing as well, in my first academic writing class we were introduced to a poet by the name of Bill Bissett. A man who deliberately spells things wrong – his writing appears to be that of an elementary school student if not simply word vomit. Visit his website if you dare.
5. Teaching fantasy as fact
Rape Culture? The wage gap? Despite the wage gap being excessively debunked, professors continue to valiantly defend its existence. It’s easy enough to point at a horse and call it a unicorn if you ignore the absence of a magical horn. Similarly, the wage disparity is attributed to sexism when you ignore differences in time worked, positions filled, degrees earned or any other factors that are relevant to the equation. Young students living in the western world with no overarching social problems eat up their professors’ extreme narratives without question as they search for their generation’s imaginary civil rights movement. Rape culture, white privilege and other exaggerated terms are taught as fact, not as an idea to entertain or debate. This will inevitably make for a bunch of graduates who believe in the intellectual versions of dragons and unicorns.
This combination of utter nonsense has created the largest entitlement and victim complexes on earth. What universities are stuck dealing with is a bunch of infantilized adults who are running around regurgitating the exact views of their professors, bleeding on canvases, hiding in safe spaces when faced with opposing opinions and arranging petitions to remove people who make jokes they don’t like. It really is the reincarnation of some of the worst traits most of us grew out of as kids.
If universities continue to encourage this behavior, we’re going to have to introduce nap time and friendship circles to keep pace with regression of our future adults minds.