Satire In Safe Space

In Greg Lukianoff and Jonathon Haidt’s “The Coddling of the American Mind” issued in 2015 in The Atlantic, they claim that the new wave of “vindictive protectiveness” is infantilizing college students, as certain words, subjects, and ideas are being deemed as offensive. Lukianoff and Haidt assert that if universities continually shield students from these distressing topics, students will leave universities “thin-skinned” thinking pathologically and unprepared for the workforce.

In the article “Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces and Free Speech, too” published in the New York Times by Sophie Downes, Downes argues in response to a letter sent out by the dean of the University of Chicago. The letter states that safe spaces and trigger warnings were an issue deterring students from having free speech and therefore would not be supported on the Chicago campus anymore. Downes argues that the letter was just a poor attempt to advert attention away from the real issues on the campus—ones that the dean will not meet with student council about and will not talk about at all. Sophie Downes argues that safe spaces and trigger warnings actually encourage free space and enhance support and community—two values that the dean said were deterred by the existence of them.

It is made clear that college students are quick to form an opinion which doesn’t expand knowledge and can show unintelligence. Many people, more specifically protesters, believe one side and won’t open up and listen to the other side. Frank Bruni, an Op-Ed Columnist for the New York Times and the author of 3 New York Times best sellers in 2015, 2009, and 2002, tells us that the college protesters are wrong. His argument states that the college students need to be educated more on the whole subject because lacking education can essentially lead to being biased or sticking with the one side you believe in. The students were protesting a guest speaker, Charles Murray, who is identified as anti-gay, racist, and sexist. Although the guest speaker’s beliefs are terrible, the students should hear what he has to say. Frank Bruni’s “The Dangerous Saftey of College” presents an effective logical appeal; however, it lacks clear and concise evidence along with not presenting an emotional appeal to connect with the audience.

Throughout the past few years people have started to become more cautious of what they say and do in public because everyone reacts differently to all kinds of things and it is not hard to offend someone. In the essay “Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, they discuss the rise of microaggression, which fosters a culture where young adults are sheltered from concepts that give offense. They focus on the idea of removing offensive words, ideas, and subjects from college campuses because they believe it is disastrous to protect the words and ideas that may cause “microaggression” from college students. In order to persuade the readers that colleges are distorting and coddling the minds of their students, Lukianoff and Haidt use modes of persuasion, examples, and definitions.

People often write off animated films as childish and lacking any depth. However, the movie, Wall-E, points a large microscope at our society and our potential future. In the movie Wall-E, it’s a robot name Wall-E and Ben Burtt’s play’ him. Also, there are other characters is Eve and Elissa Knight play’s her. There's a that they go on because the planet earth doesn’t have a living plant except one. They have to place the plant in the place that the plant will go so they can get to earth. The Captain is played by Jeff Garlin and, the Captain had a hard time to get the plant into the deposit that it’s supposed to go in. Satire is used for humor and poke fun at a thing that is happening like when the place is in the chair they are too lazy to get up and do their own things. Also, they have the robots bring them the food. It pokes fun at humans because humans are lazy and us humans what other people or robots to get are things cause the humans made robots so people wouldn’t have to get up. They also wanted to show what happens to the earth if we don’t take care of it and, it will turn all to trash and doesn’t look like a nice place to live. The director Andrew Stanton used the movie, Wall-E, and satire as a way to criticize and comment on technology and environment in our society.

“A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense” (Lukianoff and Haidt 44). Colleges are sheltering their students from words and ideas that students do not like or are found to be offensive. Affecting their education and cognitive skills, scientists are warning colleges to refrain from coddling the students and allowing other viewpoints to be spoken. People are speaking their minds, saying their own views; however, some people are over sensitive and take these viewpoints offensively. In the article “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt successfully argues using rhetorical questions, specific examples, and affective visuals that protecting college students from words and ideas deteriorates their education and mental health.

“A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense” (Lukianoff and Haidt 44). Some colleges shelter their students from words and ideas that students do not like or are offensive to them. However, unless colleges want to affect their education and mental health, colleges need to refrain from cocooning the students and support students to speak and hear different viewpoints freely. Most people speak their minds, saying their views; however, some people are oversensitive and take these viewpoints offensively. In the article “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt successfully persuade their audience

The implication was that students who support trigger warnings and safe spaces are narrow-minded, oversensitive and opposed to dialogue. The letter betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of what the terms “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” mean, and came across as an embarrassing attempt to deflect attention from serious issues on campus.

Lately, the term 'safe spaces' are callously thrown around and mocked in debates and in newspaper op-eds. To many people, the concept of safe spaces has contributed to the oversensitivity of American youth and even a serious threat to free speech, especially in college campuses. A recent example of this negative rhetoric is the University of Chicago's notice to incoming freshman, stating that they “do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own." While many people are applauding Chicago's move and praise the letter as a positive impact on campus life, it actually does the complete opposite. Policies like these puts many students in the uncomfortable position of entering a discussion or forum that may not be safe for them to learn, interact or share. This why I believe a new normal twenty five years from now will be the availability of safe spaces on every college campus in the United States.

The issues discussed in class: safe space and trigger warnings, coddling of the American mind are relevant to the generational group of Millennials. The media tends to showcases us, the millennials, in a negative light and describes us as overly sensitive. Our generation wants a warning towards hate words or topics that deal with abuse. Conversely the people that are against trigger warnings can be described as insensitive.

In his editorial, “The Year of the Imaginary College Student,” Hua Hsu asserts that “alarm about offense-seeking college students say[s] more about critics than the actual state of affairs.” Hsu begins his article by discussing James O’Keefe’s attempt at Vassar College to depict that college students are as politically sensitive as they appear. He goes on to demonstrate that college students are getting increasingly more “hypersensitive.” Hsu then questions the “surge of interest in campus life,” wondering why people who are not in college are questioning the behavior of those in college. Next, Hsu states that this panic about “offense-seeking college students” says more about the people criticizing rather than the system. Elucidating, he

An Ideal Husband, written by the brilliant Oscar Wilde, intrigues the reader into a comedic play that regards political corruption, blackmail, social status, and of course—marriage. As Wilde writes this play in the year 1895, he largely incorporates several satirical elements to deliver his intended message. In this play, Wilde heavily relies on irony, exaggeration, and sarcasm to successfully convey his underlying message to his audience.

In several ways, the satire is a quite easy to grasp one in this case: The Yahoos are meant to characterize the general condition of the human race. As Gulliver comes to understand, those beings are extremely selfish and so driven with filthy, disgusting behavior, that any time they gain an advantage or discover a way to find more resources, they immediately turn that gain or advance into a further journey into vice, or wicked and immoral behavior. Gulliver actually describes them as “abominable” and he is taken aback by seeing the resemblance between them and his own race. By contrast, though, he makes it clear that the Houyhnhnms are unbelievably sensible and rational, and they really lead an orderly life. So much of what they do actually

From the historic “Love Trump Hate” march spanning across college campuses to the atrocious repercussion from Milo Yiannopoulos UC Berkeley appearance, I was intrigued by the underlying notion of political correctness culture spanning across college campuses. Especially since the 2016 election created more pressure for universities to protect their students from harmfully opposing viewpoints. With colleges offering safe space, trigger warnings, and microaggression hearings, it is creating a safe bubble everybody. However, offering social order restricts freedom of expression from certain individuals, and suppresses controversially raw viewpoints from being heard. For example, Milo Yiannopoulos and Ben Shapiro are less

As teenagers grow older and head off to college, they must face new challenges, make new friends, and embark on their plans for the future. To some this may prove too much, so they need a place to revert to their childlike states to escape their challenges. These places are self-proclaimed safe spaces. Intended to shelter those from opposing or self-defined, “micro-aggressions”, safe spaces have facilitated the coddling of the American college student. The culture of safe spaces is not only a threat to the people around them, but also the people in them. They project a sense of entitlement and use this entitlement to push around the students, professors, and deans of many American colleges and universities.