The Revenge of the Coddled

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 12:27 pm

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstt ... than-haidt

vision · Post by **vision** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 2:40 pm

Jeez, that article is almost as bad as the original coddling one. You need to get out of your bubble. What a bunch of crap.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 6:53 pm

I haven't read much of it so far... but vision, why is it crap? what's wrong with it? can you be specific?

vision · Post by **vision** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 8:56 pm

Ferno wrote:can you be specific?

It's hard to write about this succinctly because of the many layers of garbage regarding this topic, but it comes down to (1) there is no workable definition of "coddling" when it comes to different forms of social discrimination and (2) there is no evidence of widespread coddling, regardless of the definition. So far it looks like a small bubble of older folks complaining about the complaints of a small bubble of younger folks, exaggerated by new media. The original coddling article was an eye-rolling, hysterical overstatement of a non-problem.

And that's all I'll say about this subject because I could write a book on the different ways this non-news falls apart.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 9:39 pm

well, instead of writing a book, how about a compact nuts-and-bolts pamphlet?

vision · Post by **vision** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 10:10 pm

Ferno wrote:well, instead of writing a book, how about a compact nuts-and-bolts pamphlet?

I could, but it just isn't interesting enough given my current lack of free time. This isn't a cop-out. I could write a couple thousand words on this, but then I would have to keep coming back to this thread endlessly to defend those words because, unfortunately, this topic occasionally veers into the left/right schism. But hey, everyone here is free to yell in the echo chamber, so have at it!

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Fri Nov 20, 2015 12:04 am

well, i wanted to see a few hundred.. but whatever.

I'll go back to reading the article, or having a laugh from rationalwiki's snarky take on the egregious stuff out there... or building more stuff.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Fri Nov 20, 2015 1:11 pm

For one, I didn't believe how bad it's gotten on college campuses until I heard shock comedian Kathy Griffin complain about those "trigger warnings" on one of the late night talk shows, specifically when she was at a venue in Florida. Other famous comedians have also started to decline performing at colleges around the country as well. I realize that Griffin can be pretty sarcastic and crude in her routines and that many people don't like her, but if college kids are too sensitive to take her comedy at face value and just laugh it off, how are young adults going to deal with an actual cold and cruel world?

http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/detr ... _kath.html

vision · Post by **vision** » Fri Nov 20, 2015 1:52 pm

tunnelcat wrote:...if college kids are too sensitive to take her comedy at face value and just laugh it off, how are young adults going to deal with an actual cold and cruel world?

False equivalence. For some reason, comedians seem to be the anecdotal barometer for this new non-problem. Ever think that maybe younger people have a different sense of humor? After all, there are lots of things people don't find funny anymore, like slapstick, black-face.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Fri Nov 20, 2015 2:13 pm

That's true. Modern kids have a different sense of humor. But why are these college kids even going to some comedian's concert if the first place if they think they are going to be offended or not entertained? All they have to do is watch some of her shtick online to get the gist. I mean, people booed her or walked out on her for doing Trump jokes of all things. If you go to a Griffin performance, you have to expect she's going to be doing leftie-based crude or rude personal jokes, because that's what she does. If you don't like that kind of humor, THEN DON'T PAY YOUR MONEY TO WATCH THE PERFORMANCE. Last I heard, making jokes at the expense of a politician is far game, but there are always those clueless conservatives who go, then get offended and stomp out trying to make some statement. People have even walked out because of her sex or female anatomy jokes. Don't these people know what she typically says during a performance, or are they that clueless? Research people, research! And if something offends you, don't pay money to encourage it.

vision · Post by **vision** » Fri Nov 20, 2015 2:49 pm

tunnelcat wrote:But why are these college kids even going to some comedian's concert if the first place if they think they are going to be offended or not entertained?

I don't understand your point. Comedians should never get booed? Kids shouldn't go out and see a comedy show without doing research first? Her management should have done a better job booking her with other comedians of her style? I have no idea who this woman is, but looking at her influences on her Wikipedia page I'm guessing she might be a little off the pulse of pop culture for today's kids. Dick Cavett and Rhoda? Don't get me wrong, I used to love watching the Dick Cavett show when I was younger but damn, it's been off the air for well over 30 years.

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Fri Nov 20, 2015 3:24 pm

The fact that college students are expressing their disdain for Kathy Griffin's material (I hear it on occasion on my local comedy radio station; it's horrifically unfunny stuff, completely self-centric and otherwise full of "stereotype humor") is actually a good sign, in my book.

But back on topic... I honestly don't see a number of the negative attributes that the author of this (and the original "Coddling" article) ascribe to the younger generation. In certain cases, I do, but not any more than in other generations. [Yes, it's an anecdotal thing limited to my own experience, but it's enough to give me some hesitation about the conclusions.]

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Fri Nov 20, 2015 5:54 pm

vision wrote:
tunnelcat wrote:But why are these college kids even going to some comedian's concert if the first place if they think they are going to be offended or not entertained?
I don't understand your point. Comedians should never get booed? Kids shouldn't go out and see a comedy show without doing research first? Her management should have done a better job booking her with other comedians of her style? I have no idea who this woman is, but looking at her influences on her Wikipedia page I'm guessing she might be a little off the pulse of pop culture for today's kids. Dick Cavett and Rhoda? Don't get me wrong, I used to love watching the Dick Cavett show when I was younger but damn, it's been off the air for well over 30 years.

My point is, why pay good money to listen to someone you don't like or who's material you find objectionable? Stay away. Just don't demand censorship, ie., trigger warnings, because you find something objectionable or intentionally interrupt a performance if most of the people there are enjoying it. There are others who may take exception. I gave Griffin as an example because she specifically made note of "trigger warnings". That's the first time I'd heard that particular phrase too, even before Lothar had made his other post.

Foil wrote:The fact that college students are expressing their disdain for Kathy Griffin's material (I hear it on occasion on my local comedy radio station; it's horrifically unfunny stuff, completely self-centric and otherwise full of "stereotype humor") is actually a good sign, in my book.

Personally, I find some of her stuff funny. I also like Lewis Black and Bill Maher. So, what do young people find funny nowadays? I'd like to know? Jackass, Ridiculousness or some of the other junk I've seen on MTV, Comedy Central or even the Cartoon Network? It's all about people getting hurt doing stupid stuff or scatological humor. I must be too old for what youngsters like today because I don't know about it or understand it. Griffin looks downright tame compared to the stuff on either of those networks.

vision · Post by **vision** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 12:06 am

tunnelcat wrote:My point is, why pay good money to listen to someone you don't like or who's material you find objectionable?

Do you have anything concrete to offer? This story about the comedian would need some context like, was she the only person on the bill? Where was the event and what is the history of that area? Again, this sounds more like having a shitty manager than your alleged calls for censorship.

tunnelcat wrote:So, what do young people find funny nowadays? I'd like to know? Jackass, Ridiculousness or some of the other junk I've seen on MTV, Comedy Central or even the Cartoon Network?

Jesus, you really are old. Jackass and anything MTV was for the people who graduated college over a decade ago. Kids today still enjoy humor about stereotypes, sex, drugs, whatever, but the approach is different. I don't give any weight to guys like Seinfeld who had their heyday in the 90s when they say kids are different. No ★■◆●, Sherlock. Comedy changes along with culture. That's why were not listening to Jack Benny anymore (aside from the fact he's dead).

Vander · Post by **Vander** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 12:19 am

George Carlin is timeless, though.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 12:42 am

tunnelcat wrote:That's true. Modern kids have a different sense of humor. But why are these college kids even going to some comedian's concert if the first place if they think they are going to be offended or not entertained? All they have to do is watch some of her shtick online to get the gist. I mean, people booed her or walked out on her for doing Trump jokes of all things. If you go to a Griffin performance, you have to expect she's going to be doing leftie-based crude or rude personal jokes, because that's what she does. If you don't like that kind of humor, THEN DON'T PAY YOUR MONEY TO WATCH THE PERFORMANCE. Last I heard, making jokes at the expense of a politician is far game, but there are always those clueless conservatives who go, then get offended and stomp out trying to make some statement. People have even walked out because of her sex or female anatomy jokes. Don't these people know what she typically says during a performance, or are they that clueless? Research people, research! And if something offends you, don't pay money to encourage it.

That raises a pretty good point -- this is the day of youtube, of smartphones, of internet television. A student would have to be willfully ignorant to not look up her performance before she attends. To be offended at or to show disdain towards her humor is to advertise their ignorance.

She's not an unknown and the billing isn't hidden.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 8:43 am

Vander wrote:George Carlin is timeless, though.

Yea, he was never funny to begin with...

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 10:48 am

while it's true that every generation seems to think the next generation sucks at things like "hard work" and "socializing" (because every generation has a new take on how those things look), this is an entirely different type of observation. The claim that people are seeing it "in a bubble" reminds me of the joke about the mathematician putting a fence around himself, and then declaring that he'd fenced in the largest area -- "I define my location as "outside". I contend that if you haven't seen this phenomenon, there's a bubble separating you from it; your claims as to which side of the bubble is "inside" are irrelevant.

This is a real phenomenon being observed on a broad scale by a lot of people: dissent and disagreement are being treated as personal attacks, as violations of peoples' character, as a form of discrimination and hostility, and are therefore simply not allowed. And it's enabled by a lot of people -- not just today's college students, but the parents and teachers who taught them to be this way, and the administrators who enacted over-reaching anti-discrimination policies, and the politicians who have fanned the flames of outrage based on out-of-context sound bites by opposing politicians that could potentially be interpreted as discriminatory if they're twisted badly enough. I've seen the same sort of "how DARE you disagree with me?" attitude on facebook, from people much older than college aged -- I have a handful of ex-friends who literally ended our friendship over the first time I disagreed with them on facebook. Not like, at the end of a long and heated argument. More like, after the first sentence of disagreement, I was blocked. (Why pick on college students? Because colleges are where this phenomenon is at critical mass, enabled by the factors noted above, which are both the fault of the coddled and the coddlers. If you have that one oversensitive friend, you can just stop interacting with them; if you have what amounts to an entire mini-city with its own 5-digit population and the entire place is oversensitive, it has a broader chilling effect.)

I don't know if the one comedian is funny or not, nor do I care; that's a tangential issue. But IMO there's a big difference between informally, off-handedly complaining about someone who is unfunny (walking out of their show, writing a short complaint for the student newspaper, telling your friend "I won't go to the show, she isn't funny"), and launching a formal complaint or participating in a protest to try to have someone kept off of campus. The former is ordinary self-expression; the latter is oppressive. The former is totally appropriate for college students -- you SHOULD be saying things like "Seinfeld isn't funny" if you don't find him funny. But the latter is where the problem is -- this idea that if you find something offensive, you need to pull out all the stops to block that person from being able to set foot on campus, you need to hurt their career (comment via Chris Rock), you need to bring them to ruin. While colleges are by no means unique in this sort of "intolerance of perceived offensiveness", they're one of the biggest hotbeds of it, at precisely a life stage where people should be learning to deal with disagreement and dissent and even offensiveness instead of trying to crush it.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 11:54 am

When I was growing up, we had a simpler way of dealing with that. It was called: "stop your whining."

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 1:40 pm

The internet used to be so much cooler when only the cool kids could use it.

vision · Post by **vision** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 1:57 pm

A non-problem. This is just more of the same echo chamber. Like I said, I could write thousands of words on how this is an imaginary problem, but I don't have the time. I'm hoping I'll come across an author who has saved me the trouble and link to them.

Until then have fun with the self-reinforcement.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 5:14 pm

vision wrote:
tunnelcat wrote:My point is, why pay good money to listen to someone you don't like or who's material you find objectionable?
Do you have anything concrete to offer? This story about the comedian would need some context like, was she the only person on the bill? Where was the event and what is the history of that area? Again, this sounds more like having a **** manager than your alleged calls for censorship.

She was at a Florida College and was specifically given "trigger warnings" by the local promoters to watch out for when doing her shtick. She was the single performer at the venue. So being the shock comedian she is, she promptly ignored those trigger warnings, and got booed. But it not like these college kids didn't know what they were going to hear. Like Ferno said, the kids nowadays all use the net, and they can certainly look up what they're going to listen to beforehand. Wussies. They can't handle the comedy.

vision wrote:
tunnelcat wrote:So, what do young people find funny nowadays? I'd like to know? Jackass, Ridiculousness or some of the other junk I've seen on MTV, Comedy Central or even the Cartoon Network?
Jesus, you really are old. Jackass and anything MTV was for the people who graduated college over a decade ago. Kids today still enjoy humor about stereotypes, sex, drugs, whatever, but the approach is different. I don't give any weight to guys like Seinfeld who had their heyday in the 90s when they say kids are different. No ****, Sherlock. Comedy changes along with culture. That's why were not listening to Jack Benny anymore (aside from the fact he's dead).

Yeah, I'm almost 60 now, so I'm technically old. Sure, comedy and entertainment change with the generations. I'm not clueless. My dad loved Red Skelton and Milton Berle, which I found a little contrite and lame. My grandfather liked Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges and other slapstick comedy, which I absolutely abhor. However, my dad and I both loved Johnny Carson, Don Rickles, George Carlin and Laugh-In, of all things. But who's watching MTV and Comedy Central then?

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 6:30 pm

Krom wrote:The internet used to be so much cooler when only the cool kids could use it.

yeah, it had the unintended (or maybe it was intended?) consequence of scaring off the stupid.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 8:22 pm

tunnelcat wrote:Abhors Laurel and Hardy.

Get off my forum!

/me goes to watch huge collection of Laurel and Hardy videos.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 9:11 pm

Including this one?

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Sun Nov 22, 2015 6:49 am

I still have a old poster for "Babes In Toyland"

vision · Post by **vision** » Sun Nov 22, 2015 2:22 pm

Lothar wrote:Chris Rock)

Jesus, more with the old, has-been comedians... Chris Rock had his heyday when today's college kid's were in diapers. In that interview it even shows he has no place running the college circuit. None of these old cats do.

Dude, I’m getting old. It’s WhoSay,5 which allows you to tweet, Facebook, and Instagram simultaneously. It’s perfect for someone that’s not 25.

"Do you sit around and read other people’s Tumblr accounts, or their tweets, or follow them on Facebook?"

A little. I follow a couple people on Instagram. You’ve got to follow all that stuff. You have to understand it, because if you don’t, then you’re going to sound like an old guy.

News flash Chis: You already sound like an old guy.

This is evidence of nothing.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Sun Nov 22, 2015 3:01 pm

woodchip wrote:I still have a old poster for "Babes In Toyland"

What? Still got the hots for Annette Funicello?

vision wrote:Jesus, more with the old, has-been comedians... Chris Rock had his heyday when today's college kid's were in diapers. In that interview it even shows he has no place running the college circuit. None of these old cats do.

vision, how about Gallagher? Is he funny to you? If he isn't, (you can't beat the Sledge-O-Matic and his other props for laughs), who the hell is?

Back on topic, how about this story as an example of campus coddling? At Smith College, they don't want any media outlets covering their protests unless that media supports their side of the issue. I guess they don't want to hear anything different about their protests that might negatively impact their opinions of the situation, or shed a negative light on their protests.

http://www.vox.com/2015/11/22/9778376/s ... ree-speech

vision · Post by **vision** » Sun Nov 22, 2015 5:29 pm

tunnelcat wrote:vision, how about Gallagher? Is he funny to you? If he isn't, (you can't beat the Sledge-O-Matic and his other props for laughs), who the hell is?

I see you are trying to make a joke and this is a great example of how comedy evolves with media. The Sledge-O-Matic was a deconstructionist take on an advertising trend popular at the time. Through the magic of the Internet that same humor transformed into Billy Mays parodies done by Jaboody Dubs. Same joke, new audience, new spin. But just like evolution in the biological world, some jokes go extinct (thankfully). I'm glad that comedians are having a harder time because a lot of comedy happens at the expense of others.

I love Louis CK. I've doubled over laughing at some of his bits. Not really a surprise since he's roughly my demographic. He's making no attempt to market his humor to college kids. Even his bit on smoking weed with young people works because his age is the butt of the joke. As on old person I can relate and that's why it's funny to me. That said, some of his jokes bother me terribly. Whenever he does a joke involving racial or homosexual stereotypes it completely pulls me out of his comedy because I don't find anything funny about that. I can't relate. This is not oversensitivity on my part, but rather a reaction to a cheap, easy, played-out form of comedy. There is nothing "edgy" about making fun of gays or blacks or countless other stereotypes. That form of comedy needs to go extinct, so kudos to kids who don't respond to it.

tunnelcat wrote:...how about this story as an example of campus coddling?

Did you actually read the article or just the headline? It doesn't support the idea of campus coddling at all. The point of the article is to show that current media and it's consumers are waaaaay too hostile for the nuance of sensitive topics like race and sex. Every headline is click-bait, every article echoes what readers want to see, and every reader passes judgment without critical thought (if they have even read it at all).

Kind of like this thread and the myth of the coddled kid.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Mon Nov 23, 2015 4:03 pm

vision wrote:
tunnelcat wrote:vision, how about Gallagher? Is he funny to you? If he isn't, (you can't beat the Sledge-O-Matic and his other props for laughs), who the hell is?
I see you are trying to make a joke and this is a great example of how comedy evolves with media. The Sledge-O-Matic was a deconstructionist take on an advertising trend popular at the time. Through the magic of the Internet that same humor transformed into Billy Mays parodies done by Jaboody Dubs. Same joke, new audience, new spin. But just like evolution in the biological world, some jokes go extinct (thankfully). I'm glad that comedians are having a harder time because a lot of comedy happens at the expense of others.

You've obviously never had to sit through the old lame Veg-O-Matic commercials to appreciate Gallagher's humor. I warped our young minds it ran on TV so much back then.

[youtube]zK2p5TAhd0s[/youtube]

vision wrote:I love Louis CK. I've doubled over laughing at some of his bits. Not really a surprise since he's roughly my demographic. He's making no attempt to market his humor to college kids. Even his bit on smoking weed with young people works because his age is the butt of the joke. As on old person I can relate and that's why it's funny to me. That said, some of his jokes bother me terribly. Whenever he does a joke involving racial or homosexual stereotypes it completely pulls me out of his comedy because I don't find anything funny about that. I can't relate. This is not oversensitivity on my part, but rather a reaction to a cheap, easy, played-out form of comedy. There is nothing "edgy" about making fun of gays or blacks or countless other stereotypes. That form of comedy needs to go extinct, so kudos to kids who don't respond to it.

Actually, he's funny to me too.

vision wrote:
tunnelcat wrote:...how about this story as an example of campus coddling?
Did you actually read the article or just the headline? It doesn't support the idea of campus coddling at all. The point of the article is to show that current media and it's consumers are waaaaay too hostile for the nuance of sensitive topics like race and sex. Every headline is click-bait, every article echoes what readers want to see, and every reader passes judgment without critical thought (if they have even read it at all).

Kind of like this thread and the myth of the coddled kid.

It's an example of campus coddling. They obviously only want press coverage that's in their favor. How can any topic be discussed fairly if only one point of view is being represented? These kids don't know how to actually do a protest anyway. They' don't want their feelings hurt or something. They want only to push their point of view and make sure it's pushed out as a one-sided propaganda piece in the media. They want to control the bully pulpit. That's not free speech or promoting a free media. Things never change without some give and take and a little work and effort to actually change minds.

callmeslick · Post by **callmeslick** » Mon Nov 23, 2015 4:13 pm

the academic output of the American school system(well before college) tends to turn out students with little or no ability to handle critical thinking, and thus no ability to tolerate pushback, as TC notes above. She isn't far off in saying that they really don't even understand how protest works. Sad, for those of us old cats, because these folks are who we are supposed to trust to carry the load in the coming decades.

The above is not, by any means, a suggestion that ALL students have minds of mush, but the percentages(from what I saw in my later career, and recent contacts with younger people)of mindless drones is significant.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Mon Nov 23, 2015 4:39 pm

Critical thinking has little on no real value without objectivity, which I personally believe is just as important or even more so.

I tend to see a lot of political zealots claiming to use critical thinking, but only as it applies to “the other side” and often gives “their own side” the pass.

Anyway, with that being said, I see very little of either.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Tue Nov 24, 2015 7:18 pm

Looks like vision was right.

The idea of coddled college kids is bull★■◆●.

callmeslick · Post by **callmeslick** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 7:49 am

Spidey wrote:Critical thinking has little on no real value without objectivity, which I personally believe is just as important or even more so.

I'd consider critical thinking as INCLUDING objectivity, or the ability to step back and see all sides.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 8:29 am

I would probably agree, but like some people who practice a religion, but not all of its tenets, or choose to ignore them when it’s inconvenient.

And yea, that flies in the face of the concept, but we are only human, and have human weakness.

vision · Post by **vision** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 11:07 am

Ferno wrote:Looks like vision was right.

The idea of coddled college kids is bull★■◆●.

Word.

I have read about a dozen other articles that expose this nonsense for what it is, but none of them go into as much detail as I would like, which makes me think I really should write a book (if someone would pay me).

Last night my friend's 84 year old Jewish father brought the topic up for discussion. He's a really smart guy and a hugely successful, self-described conservative republican. I've always loved talking to him about politics and such so I was more than thrilled when he wanted to talk about "the situation in the Universities" as he phrased it. We went on for over 30 minutes and I offered dozens of skeptically-minded questions and perspectives for which he had no answer to most. To him it all came down to "these kids need to just suck it up." Typical crotchety response. He literally quoted all the catch-phrases from a WSJ opinion piece he clipped from paper and handed me this morning to read. Garbage in, garbage out. It was disappointing to say the least.

callmeslick · Post by **callmeslick** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 12:40 pm

personally, I try really hard not to sound the part of the crotchety aging guy, be it about music, clothing or whatever. I am, still, alarmed at what passes for education in this day and age, but don't so much blame it on coddling, but on a society that looks for the easy way to fix everything, and the glorification of shallow cultural and ethical examples.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Thu Nov 26, 2015 12:04 am

Anyone remember the stories we were told, where our parents and grandparents had to walk five miles to school, uphill, both ways, in a blizzard nine months out of the year with no shoes... and how we have it so much easier?

Well... It's not that we have it easier. It's that we have it different. And so much so for the generation in college right now. Yet... the OP article is shouting at them that they have it easy.

vision · Post by **vision** » Thu Nov 26, 2015 11:30 am

tunnelcat wrote:It's an example of campus coddling. They obviously only want press coverage that's in their favor. How can any topic be discussed fairly if only one point of view is being represented?

No. You are still not understanding the point of the article. As it states, any discussion about race on a college campus gets immediately spun into click-bait national headlines. The protesters points of view are not being represented and we get propaganda like the coddled kid myth. This also isn't a free speech issue.

And, this thread is pretty much done so I'm off to more interesting things.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 7:29 am

Well at least one college president gets it right:

An Oklahoma university president has an incendiary message to politically correct students: Grow up or get out.

"This is not a day care," Everett Piper, president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, wrote in a fiery blog post on the school’s website last week.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2450165

Seems some kid felt victimized by a sermon about love.