What was the anxiety and sense of precarity that you saw in the 1968 students? It came as a surprise to me to read that: those of us born in later generations often think of your generation as having very high levels of material privilege in comparison to us, when we hear the stories they tell us about how easily they fell into jobs (and when they somehow seem to actually believe the phrase "do what you love and the money will follow"). But you were there and I wasn't. Was it mainly about the fear of being drafted to Vietnam, or was there something else as well?
It was the fear of being drafted, yes, along with many others. I would not hesitate say that Columbia classes of that time were from wealthier backgrounds than those since. I was from a very un-wealthy background, so added to my anxieties was the fear fo blowing a chance I didn't really understand how to grasp.
I'd have to say that what you've been taught is just more revisionist history. No, things were not peaches and cream then. Besides Vietnam, there was the civil rights movement. The turmoil was greater than what we're seeing today. No, minorities are nowhere near as disadvantaged today as they were then. And nobody today is sweating the draft. It was a very real thing in the 60s. I know, because I came very close to being shipped off to Vietnam. The younger among you, as you complain of how you are mistreated, try to imagine being forced to go fight in Vietnam. There is nothing like that today.
And, no, employers were not eagerly offering jobs to unqualified applicants any more then they do today. Then as now, they don't want to hire if you have no experience, and you can't get experience if they don't hire.
Two terms that are well known today didn't exist in the 60s: Nanny State, and helicopter parent. There's entire books on those subjects, and I won't try to examine them here. But it's worth thinking about how those two terms largely explain the difference between then and now.
I wasn’t at Columbia - but I was out protesting in the streets of nyc against the Vietnam war. I was 19, between transferring from one college to another. I personally knew at least four highschool classmates who were in Vietnam. Later many more. One had been my steady in my junior year and my prom date. An overgrown goofball who could dance. In 1969 He’d already been shot up and shipped home to his parents, completely disabled (at 19 years old).
No one believed in the abstract principles of the domino theory highschool. The kids who went were from military families - or drafted (as my future husband was).
It was a mess. No one in Vietnam had damaged us - except in the field - and if you want disfunction all you needed was a good look at the Nixon administration clown criminals.
That’s the war we weren’t supporting while no one in Washington was listening to the kids who were shipped there to get killed.Then shunned. No one wanted to hire a Vietnam vet. No one.
Yes. By the time I went home for my first Christmas vacation, I had lost classmates or friends from earlier classes to Vietnam, and others had come home with almost unspeakably horrible memories. And there was a stigma attached to it. Not so much perhaps in the Midwest, where i was from, but certainly in the cultural centers.
In NYC it felt as if people were embarrassed about it once they knew. But these kids hated the war too, that’s the irony of it. His best friend was a conscientious objector. Still close.
I never heard the term ‘baby killer’ used. But I think there might have been a weird kind of survivors guilt in those who avoided these young men.
I was born in ‘71 and remember hearing this, but now I’m wondering why that would be the case? Because we “lost”? Because employers thought they were “baby killers”? (Seems unlikely that business owners then, much less now, would think that way)
People hated the soldiers for carrying out an unjust war. Wearing a uniform around the general public might ger you mocked.
I presume because people were not interested in being drafted so they might die in a rice paddy in Southeast Asia, the war had to be considered unjust and the soldiers carrying out the war had to be denigrated, lest the objectors be considered cowards.
I was draft age then, and just missed getting my ticket punched for Vietnam. I knew the feeling of being pushed into something I didn't want to be part of. There is no way in hell I would blame any of the guys who were sent there, very few of whom wanted to be there, for anything that happened.
But you are right. Young guys in uniform were treated like crap by 'civilians', as if any of it was their fault. I don't remember it very well, but there is the movie, "Coming Home", that some might want to watch. I remember it as being very one-sided and preachy. But it gives some perspective on what we're talking about.
When my husband left the Army he was told that to his face, repeatedly.
Employment agents told him that it was too widely known that most vets used drugs. Employers told them they didn’t want ‘junkies’ working for them. I went for a job interview in Manhattan which was going well until I was asked if I was married (we were young) and then what work was my husband doing. When I said he’d just got out of the Army, that interview ended. The employment agency told me never to mention it again at an interview.
Thanks, all. I am realizing that "Vietnam" is a plenty sufficient answer to my question. I would have been pretty terrified at the prospect of being drafted too. I think it feels less obvious to me because I'm Canadian; the baby boomers I grew up with didn't have those anxieties.
Yes Tom, I think you are correct in pinpointing a desire for "identity" as the source of the anxiety driving the discontent. I would link this loss of identity to the surge of electronic media replacing much of the one-to-one interpersonal connections before the advent of the internet.
I lived through the turmoil of the 60's and 70's dodging the draft by enlisting in the Air Force spending four years in Germany rather than Vietnam like some of my high school classmates. It was that war that broke the trust of American citizens with their government. The blatant use of lies and misinformation to "sell" the war to the public and then topping off with assassinations, race riots, and criminal behavior by Nixon shattered the illusion that the U.S. government was "for the people" and not "for the corporations."
After three and a half years in Europe, I returned to the U.S. to find a profoundly changed society with a strong desire to shift direction toward a Counterculture free of war, greed, and deceit of those volatile years. We then were hungry for a new identity and the baby boom bulge had the momentum and sheer numbers to be formidable. I remember a lot of confusion, but it was offset by a euphoria of excitement and hope so absent in the protests today.
We were also fighting a domestic problem against our own government with an achievable goal of ending a senseless foreign war. Ever sense, we vow to not get involved in another Vietnam yet somehow we allowed ourselves to be dragged into a series of endless Middle Eastern and Asian wars since then with predictable results.
I returned to college in the mid 70's and got a degree in journalism. There was no internet at the time and I was trained to be a newspaper journalist indoctrinated in the importance of the job of being the "fourth estate" - the watchdog of protecting democracy. It was more important to check facts than to make unrelenting deadlines that the digital "fifth estate" ravenous monster requiring 24/7 feedings.
The internet and social media has dehumanized society to being "avatars" rather than flesh and blood humans. "Quantum media" means that we are drowning in ungrounded, unverified, irrelevant information while thirsting for individual meaning and relevance. Endless wars for nebulous reasons in far corners of the world sap energy away from connection to local social connections and human interactions. "Compassion fatigue" is a real thing and we cope by either obsessing on some safely distant crisis or by simply going numb and angry.
We burned out before we could establish our new counterculture. I don't sense the enthusiasm or focus we had back in the 70's and my hindsight predicts the current student protests will quickly fade into despair and impotence. In my time, I witnessed a hard shift to the right with Regan and the GOP conservatives to follow. I fear the hope of the Obama years will drown in the rage that is feeding the Neo-conservatives and far right Neo-fascists.
Since WWII, the world has looked to the U.S. to provide leadership in modeling democratic humanism. We are failing now just as the world needs the focus we once provided. Let's hope we can prove Winston Churchill right: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
John, this is fascinating. I, of course, was talking "identity" in the developmental psychology sense. You're taking the other track: finding and then relating to cultural identity - or failing in these. Much more ambitious!
Yes, I see it from a cultural psychology point of view. You are probably correct that being online since infancy many college students may be stunted in a variety of identity developmental stages. There seems to be an urgent yearning to find focus and purpose in a wildly fragmented and technologically turbulent world. Our rate of change is far out stripping the pace of our sociological and psychological adaptations.
To me it seems more like ennui; there’s a group in need of an outlet and all this protesting and counterprotesting is simply a convenient release valve.
I’m also following the protests in Tbilisi (Georgia) against the government’s ‘Russian law’ and that seems much more ‘real’ in so many ways. Might be my own sympathies that affect my perceptions here, but the Georgian protests seem to lack this sense of self-pity that pervades modern western protests. Where it not for their oligarchic regime and the threat of Russian invasion, I’d almost envy them.
Yes, and boredom, in turn, could be suppressed anxiety, so yours can be considered a friendly amendment. :-)
To your second point, I did mention "vanity," which might be taken to include self-importance, self-pity, personal and generational impatience, and frustrated ambition and/or entitlement, all of which were present in me or my cohort in one way or another and maybe are just a different way of decomposing "immature." But young people are easy targets of analysis and our language for psychologizing is almost too rich - so I settled on anxiety as the simplest explanation, both because it can flower in so many ways and because I can remember its bite.
"Every Generation has its own Existential Threat". I can't recall the author of this statement but I would be happy to grant him/her attribution. Draftees sent to Viet Nam did face an existential threat. Gaza does not pose an existential threat to today's US college students but it has proven to be a motivational event. Back to the current topic; I like this article's balance and analysis. It conveys the complexity and experiences required to fully cultivate a human prefrontal cortex. That is an attribute and endeavor that not all of us complete or acquire. May I also suggest that the statement regarding 1968's protests "Here administrative complacency played a role, as did the excitement of media coverage, and even more the vanity and colossal emotional and intellectual immaturity of many students, which led to bizarre position statements, replicating lists of “non-negotiable demands,” and to the depersonalization and demonization all perceived opponents." covers a lot of political impulses which should be considered in one's assessment of the current college campus. However, there may be one more issue which is hidden. Who are the malefactors driving this process? There are some seeking political leverage, perhaps of international geopolitical importance, who do not have our best interests in mind. I'm looking forward to the revelation.
Thanks for the comment. As to your last point, there is no question that today's protesters are networked in a way that would have been impossible in the 60s and , sure, they attract and/or use the assistance of assisted of professional agitators, just like the 'Black Lives Matter' protests did. But I can't assess the impact of this ingredient, or even begin to. I did notice, but can't confirm, claims that the majority of those arrested at Columbia and elsewhere the last few days were unrelated to the university in question.
"World Without Mind" by Franklin Foer comes to mind. And yes, once again I agree. It is difficult to assess the impact of the invisible ingredients, be they human or digital. However, it is imperative that we remain anticipatory as well as vigilant. Thoughtful attributes, vigilance and anticipation, are not among those which I associate with mindless vigilantes. An important distinction to be made.
Really interesting piece Tom and not just because it resonates with my own views. There is definitely something to growing precarity- not just for students but for older people like myself who are teachers at these institutions now too. Life has always been precarious to some extent but it does feel like precarity is creeping in at different angles and we now exist without the social safety net which was once there.
For younger people, who are college aged, my general feeling is that they're hyper-sensitive and require much more security than the world can currently provide for them. It's almost as it precarity is moving ever faster they're turning inwardly trying to stop or at least put the brakes on as the world moves in on them. Perhaps younger people were always like that, though, I don't remember my cohort (early 2010's) being quite this fearful.
Thanks, Sam. Your point about generally increasing precarity for teachers, with whole fields being given over to adjunct teachers and itinerant post-docs, is one that seemed to be getting some serious attention before the pandemic, then got shoved out of view.
And the issue certainly filters down to students. If you are a geek or a genial sales type, you can do what you love. if you are a wonk, you are facing the many-are-called, few-are-chosen realities of current elite production, or overproduction, as Peter Turchin would have it. This could account for a lot of anxiety and observed hyper-sensitivity, and Turchin goes farther to say it is a recipe for instability.
As the parent of a Kindergartner who’s starting to move out and about in social settings of his peers, I’ve wondered a lot about the time and place where my own identity formed. I think, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, skepticism was honored, and it conferred the benefit of being comfortable with being, if not alone, then with a smaller group of compatriots. And yet it also meant being understanding of differences (Smells, particularly. We geeks, particularly we boys, did not regard daily bathing as important enough to sacrifice additional sleep/game time). If there were a slogan, it would be from the title of Richard Feynman’s book “What Do You Care What Other People Think?”
I think that’s the “antifragility” that has been lost to younger generations, in exchange for, I would argue, shallow, insincere platitudes toward “safety of the community”. Perhaps I’m wrong, though? Did the ‘68 protestors presume support from the administration, the way those blockading a building do when they request to be fed while doing it?
Thanks for the comment. I think the current "fragility" discussion is relevant, or at least related, to the issues iI raise here, but I'm not aiming at that specifically. No one outwardly worried about "triggers" in the '60s. And I'm sure a substantial subset of students found effective identity paths, like the one you describe, despite all that was going on. But there was plenty of emotional pain, too.
I hope your friend is OK and come through this without regrets.
One things that has impressed me about the current round of protests is their professionalism. Somebody, beforehand, was asking "What about food?' along with other things. The 1968 occupations at Columbia were seemingly spontaneous, with the necessaries of life as an awkward afterthought. In the fracas I described where I got trampled, people were literally throwing wrapped deli sandwiches at the open windows of Low Library.
That was an extraordinary experience you had. Sounds like some of the larger protests I participated in - though the most we could hope for were some startlingly good brownies as we listened to the speakers. (yes, mostly what you’re thinking). We were very well behaved, and no wonder.
Thanks for all the replies! The way I read it, the protestors today *didn’t* think ahead and added this demand. I think I’d have more respect for them getting food snuck in by their compatriots than proclaiming a “humanitarian crisis” steps away from a dining hall.
"and even more the vanity and colossal emotional and intellectual immaturity of many students" Kids these days, and every day... I wish media would stop asking our future generations what should be done... What a cop-out for the adults in the room.
What was the anxiety and sense of precarity that you saw in the 1968 students? It came as a surprise to me to read that: those of us born in later generations often think of your generation as having very high levels of material privilege in comparison to us, when we hear the stories they tell us about how easily they fell into jobs (and when they somehow seem to actually believe the phrase "do what you love and the money will follow"). But you were there and I wasn't. Was it mainly about the fear of being drafted to Vietnam, or was there something else as well?
It was the fear of being drafted, yes, along with many others. I would not hesitate say that Columbia classes of that time were from wealthier backgrounds than those since. I was from a very un-wealthy background, so added to my anxieties was the fear fo blowing a chance I didn't really understand how to grasp.
I'd have to say that what you've been taught is just more revisionist history. No, things were not peaches and cream then. Besides Vietnam, there was the civil rights movement. The turmoil was greater than what we're seeing today. No, minorities are nowhere near as disadvantaged today as they were then. And nobody today is sweating the draft. It was a very real thing in the 60s. I know, because I came very close to being shipped off to Vietnam. The younger among you, as you complain of how you are mistreated, try to imagine being forced to go fight in Vietnam. There is nothing like that today.
And, no, employers were not eagerly offering jobs to unqualified applicants any more then they do today. Then as now, they don't want to hire if you have no experience, and you can't get experience if they don't hire.
Two terms that are well known today didn't exist in the 60s: Nanny State, and helicopter parent. There's entire books on those subjects, and I won't try to examine them here. But it's worth thinking about how those two terms largely explain the difference between then and now.
I wasn’t at Columbia - but I was out protesting in the streets of nyc against the Vietnam war. I was 19, between transferring from one college to another. I personally knew at least four highschool classmates who were in Vietnam. Later many more. One had been my steady in my junior year and my prom date. An overgrown goofball who could dance. In 1969 He’d already been shot up and shipped home to his parents, completely disabled (at 19 years old).
No one believed in the abstract principles of the domino theory highschool. The kids who went were from military families - or drafted (as my future husband was).
It was a mess. No one in Vietnam had damaged us - except in the field - and if you want disfunction all you needed was a good look at the Nixon administration clown criminals.
That’s the war we weren’t supporting while no one in Washington was listening to the kids who were shipped there to get killed.Then shunned. No one wanted to hire a Vietnam vet. No one.
Yes. By the time I went home for my first Christmas vacation, I had lost classmates or friends from earlier classes to Vietnam, and others had come home with almost unspeakably horrible memories. And there was a stigma attached to it. Not so much perhaps in the Midwest, where i was from, but certainly in the cultural centers.
In NYC it felt as if people were embarrassed about it once they knew. But these kids hated the war too, that’s the irony of it. His best friend was a conscientious objector. Still close.
I never heard the term ‘baby killer’ used. But I think there might have been a weird kind of survivors guilt in those who avoided these young men.
“No one wanted to hire a Vietnam vet. No one.”
I was born in ‘71 and remember hearing this, but now I’m wondering why that would be the case? Because we “lost”? Because employers thought they were “baby killers”? (Seems unlikely that business owners then, much less now, would think that way)
Just really curious!
People hated the soldiers for carrying out an unjust war. Wearing a uniform around the general public might ger you mocked.
I presume because people were not interested in being drafted so they might die in a rice paddy in Southeast Asia, the war had to be considered unjust and the soldiers carrying out the war had to be denigrated, lest the objectors be considered cowards.
I was draft age then, and just missed getting my ticket punched for Vietnam. I knew the feeling of being pushed into something I didn't want to be part of. There is no way in hell I would blame any of the guys who were sent there, very few of whom wanted to be there, for anything that happened.
But you are right. Young guys in uniform were treated like crap by 'civilians', as if any of it was their fault. I don't remember it very well, but there is the movie, "Coming Home", that some might want to watch. I remember it as being very one-sided and preachy. But it gives some perspective on what we're talking about.
My father was instructed to exit his airbase in civvies during 'nam.. unfortunately, you couldn't as easily hide the shave and haircut.
When my husband left the Army he was told that to his face, repeatedly.
Employment agents told him that it was too widely known that most vets used drugs. Employers told them they didn’t want ‘junkies’ working for them. I went for a job interview in Manhattan which was going well until I was asked if I was married (we were young) and then what work was my husband doing. When I said he’d just got out of the Army, that interview ended. The employment agency told me never to mention it again at an interview.
This has to violate so many discrimination laws, right?
I assume that's why the Veteran preference laws were passed and they ask you if you are a veteran when you apply for all kinds of jobs.
Thanks, all. I am realizing that "Vietnam" is a plenty sufficient answer to my question. I would have been pretty terrified at the prospect of being drafted too. I think it feels less obvious to me because I'm Canadian; the baby boomers I grew up with didn't have those anxieties.
Yes Tom, I think you are correct in pinpointing a desire for "identity" as the source of the anxiety driving the discontent. I would link this loss of identity to the surge of electronic media replacing much of the one-to-one interpersonal connections before the advent of the internet.
I lived through the turmoil of the 60's and 70's dodging the draft by enlisting in the Air Force spending four years in Germany rather than Vietnam like some of my high school classmates. It was that war that broke the trust of American citizens with their government. The blatant use of lies and misinformation to "sell" the war to the public and then topping off with assassinations, race riots, and criminal behavior by Nixon shattered the illusion that the U.S. government was "for the people" and not "for the corporations."
After three and a half years in Europe, I returned to the U.S. to find a profoundly changed society with a strong desire to shift direction toward a Counterculture free of war, greed, and deceit of those volatile years. We then were hungry for a new identity and the baby boom bulge had the momentum and sheer numbers to be formidable. I remember a lot of confusion, but it was offset by a euphoria of excitement and hope so absent in the protests today.
We were also fighting a domestic problem against our own government with an achievable goal of ending a senseless foreign war. Ever sense, we vow to not get involved in another Vietnam yet somehow we allowed ourselves to be dragged into a series of endless Middle Eastern and Asian wars since then with predictable results.
I returned to college in the mid 70's and got a degree in journalism. There was no internet at the time and I was trained to be a newspaper journalist indoctrinated in the importance of the job of being the "fourth estate" - the watchdog of protecting democracy. It was more important to check facts than to make unrelenting deadlines that the digital "fifth estate" ravenous monster requiring 24/7 feedings.
The internet and social media has dehumanized society to being "avatars" rather than flesh and blood humans. "Quantum media" means that we are drowning in ungrounded, unverified, irrelevant information while thirsting for individual meaning and relevance. Endless wars for nebulous reasons in far corners of the world sap energy away from connection to local social connections and human interactions. "Compassion fatigue" is a real thing and we cope by either obsessing on some safely distant crisis or by simply going numb and angry.
We burned out before we could establish our new counterculture. I don't sense the enthusiasm or focus we had back in the 70's and my hindsight predicts the current student protests will quickly fade into despair and impotence. In my time, I witnessed a hard shift to the right with Regan and the GOP conservatives to follow. I fear the hope of the Obama years will drown in the rage that is feeding the Neo-conservatives and far right Neo-fascists.
Since WWII, the world has looked to the U.S. to provide leadership in modeling democratic humanism. We are failing now just as the world needs the focus we once provided. Let's hope we can prove Winston Churchill right: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
John, this is fascinating. I, of course, was talking "identity" in the developmental psychology sense. You're taking the other track: finding and then relating to cultural identity - or failing in these. Much more ambitious!
Yes, I see it from a cultural psychology point of view. You are probably correct that being online since infancy many college students may be stunted in a variety of identity developmental stages. There seems to be an urgent yearning to find focus and purpose in a wildly fragmented and technologically turbulent world. Our rate of change is far out stripping the pace of our sociological and psychological adaptations.
https://johnhardman.substack.com/p/megatons-of-technology
To me it seems more like ennui; there’s a group in need of an outlet and all this protesting and counterprotesting is simply a convenient release valve.
I’m also following the protests in Tbilisi (Georgia) against the government’s ‘Russian law’ and that seems much more ‘real’ in so many ways. Might be my own sympathies that affect my perceptions here, but the Georgian protests seem to lack this sense of self-pity that pervades modern western protests. Where it not for their oligarchic regime and the threat of Russian invasion, I’d almost envy them.
Yes, and boredom, in turn, could be suppressed anxiety, so yours can be considered a friendly amendment. :-)
To your second point, I did mention "vanity," which might be taken to include self-importance, self-pity, personal and generational impatience, and frustrated ambition and/or entitlement, all of which were present in me or my cohort in one way or another and maybe are just a different way of decomposing "immature." But young people are easy targets of analysis and our language for psychologizing is almost too rich - so I settled on anxiety as the simplest explanation, both because it can flower in so many ways and because I can remember its bite.
"Every Generation has its own Existential Threat". I can't recall the author of this statement but I would be happy to grant him/her attribution. Draftees sent to Viet Nam did face an existential threat. Gaza does not pose an existential threat to today's US college students but it has proven to be a motivational event. Back to the current topic; I like this article's balance and analysis. It conveys the complexity and experiences required to fully cultivate a human prefrontal cortex. That is an attribute and endeavor that not all of us complete or acquire. May I also suggest that the statement regarding 1968's protests "Here administrative complacency played a role, as did the excitement of media coverage, and even more the vanity and colossal emotional and intellectual immaturity of many students, which led to bizarre position statements, replicating lists of “non-negotiable demands,” and to the depersonalization and demonization all perceived opponents." covers a lot of political impulses which should be considered in one's assessment of the current college campus. However, there may be one more issue which is hidden. Who are the malefactors driving this process? There are some seeking political leverage, perhaps of international geopolitical importance, who do not have our best interests in mind. I'm looking forward to the revelation.
Thanks for the comment. As to your last point, there is no question that today's protesters are networked in a way that would have been impossible in the 60s and , sure, they attract and/or use the assistance of assisted of professional agitators, just like the 'Black Lives Matter' protests did. But I can't assess the impact of this ingredient, or even begin to. I did notice, but can't confirm, claims that the majority of those arrested at Columbia and elsewhere the last few days were unrelated to the university in question.
"World Without Mind" by Franklin Foer comes to mind. And yes, once again I agree. It is difficult to assess the impact of the invisible ingredients, be they human or digital. However, it is imperative that we remain anticipatory as well as vigilant. Thoughtful attributes, vigilance and anticipation, are not among those which I associate with mindless vigilantes. An important distinction to be made.
Really interesting piece Tom and not just because it resonates with my own views. There is definitely something to growing precarity- not just for students but for older people like myself who are teachers at these institutions now too. Life has always been precarious to some extent but it does feel like precarity is creeping in at different angles and we now exist without the social safety net which was once there.
For younger people, who are college aged, my general feeling is that they're hyper-sensitive and require much more security than the world can currently provide for them. It's almost as it precarity is moving ever faster they're turning inwardly trying to stop or at least put the brakes on as the world moves in on them. Perhaps younger people were always like that, though, I don't remember my cohort (early 2010's) being quite this fearful.
Thanks, Sam. Your point about generally increasing precarity for teachers, with whole fields being given over to adjunct teachers and itinerant post-docs, is one that seemed to be getting some serious attention before the pandemic, then got shoved out of view.
And the issue certainly filters down to students. If you are a geek or a genial sales type, you can do what you love. if you are a wonk, you are facing the many-are-called, few-are-chosen realities of current elite production, or overproduction, as Peter Turchin would have it. This could account for a lot of anxiety and observed hyper-sensitivity, and Turchin goes farther to say it is a recipe for instability.
Definitely Tom! I'm actually writing about this for an online platform soon :)
Ping me when it drops!
I'll make sure to do so! :)
As the parent of a Kindergartner who’s starting to move out and about in social settings of his peers, I’ve wondered a lot about the time and place where my own identity formed. I think, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, skepticism was honored, and it conferred the benefit of being comfortable with being, if not alone, then with a smaller group of compatriots. And yet it also meant being understanding of differences (Smells, particularly. We geeks, particularly we boys, did not regard daily bathing as important enough to sacrifice additional sleep/game time). If there were a slogan, it would be from the title of Richard Feynman’s book “What Do You Care What Other People Think?”
I think that’s the “antifragility” that has been lost to younger generations, in exchange for, I would argue, shallow, insincere platitudes toward “safety of the community”. Perhaps I’m wrong, though? Did the ‘68 protestors presume support from the administration, the way those blockading a building do when they request to be fed while doing it?
Thanks for the comment. I think the current "fragility" discussion is relevant, or at least related, to the issues iI raise here, but I'm not aiming at that specifically. No one outwardly worried about "triggers" in the '60s. And I'm sure a substantial subset of students found effective identity paths, like the one you describe, despite all that was going on. But there was plenty of emotional pain, too.
Much different. My friend was arrested at his college protest. No expectations of catering.
I hope your friend is OK and come through this without regrets.
One things that has impressed me about the current round of protests is their professionalism. Somebody, beforehand, was asking "What about food?' along with other things. The 1968 occupations at Columbia were seemingly spontaneous, with the necessaries of life as an awkward afterthought. In the fracas I described where I got trampled, people were literally throwing wrapped deli sandwiches at the open windows of Low Library.
That was an extraordinary experience you had. Sounds like some of the larger protests I participated in - though the most we could hope for were some startlingly good brownies as we listened to the speakers. (yes, mostly what you’re thinking). We were very well behaved, and no wonder.
Thanks for all the replies! The way I read it, the protestors today *didn’t* think ahead and added this demand. I think I’d have more respect for them getting food snuck in by their compatriots than proclaiming a “humanitarian crisis” steps away from a dining hall.
"and even more the vanity and colossal emotional and intellectual immaturity of many students" Kids these days, and every day... I wish media would stop asking our future generations what should be done... What a cop-out for the adults in the room.