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Comment by qntty | Hacker News Reader

The only trend that seems to really be growing to me is the willingness of people to sympathize with marginalized groups of people. This is not based on some out-there notions that all people should be comfortable all the time. An idea like that would never survive, except in the minds of a small number of extremeists. The overall trend, toward a society that is more willing to make accommodations for those who need them most, is actually positive. You won't see people who write these sorts of articles praising the big picture though. They are only interested in criticizing cases where it goes too far, but people taking an idea too far is not a new phenomenon. As people learn to grapple with changing social norms, I don't see any reason to think that cases like these will tend to go away, and we will be left with positive change.

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Exactly. I'm 30, and I'm heartened by the idea of the next generation coming up with a culture that's more compassionate towards people who are different from them in various ways. For people in the HN demographic, behaving with compassion is clearly an inconvenience.

That's a mighty broad brush you have there. I, for one, do not know the many people on HN nor do I claim to know their thoughts and feelings on different matters. I guess I'll refer to you when a question like that comes up in the future.

Anyway, I too like the idea of younger generations growing up with more compassion towards people that are different. I raise my children with that in mind, believe it or not. But what much of what we're seeing coming out of college campuses in the US is not something I want my children to learn. I won't raise them as perpetual victims offended at anything and everything and I sure won't raise them to be unable to deal with an opposing viewpoint without falling back on a shut down the discussion mentality. Which is what the author is actually complaining about in the article.

Some opinions aren't worth having a discussion about. If someone says that "all fags should be rounded up and shot" there's nothing discussion worthy there. A rape survivor is under no obligation to have a discussion with someone who says "all rape victims deserve it, or are liars, or both."

These are extreme examples to be sure, but the principle remains.

And nobody is saying "you can't say 'all fags should be shot.'" They're saying 'You can't say it _here_." Freedom of speech is not freedom to be heard.

Using extreme examples does not prove a point. Especially when one of them advocates criminal violence.

Saying I don't want to hear what you have to say and actively preventing speech are two completely different things. If a group of students don't want to hear a speaker, they have the right to not show up. They don't have the right to prevent the speech from happening. I don't know if you intended it, but your response is an effort to change the context of what I stated.

"Freedom of speech is not freedom to be heard" is what people actively preventing free speech fall back on to justify their actions against the speaker. Not that I'm lumping you in with that way of thinking, just pointing it out.

> If someone says that "all fags should be rounded up and shot" there's nothing discussion worthy there.

Actually, I believe that by discussing the statement you're much more likely to change the person's opinion or open up their empathic capabilities than by being an intolerant asshole and attacking them verbally.

I don't believe you can really know whats coming out of college campuses in the US, other than some opinions viewed through the lens of these few professors who are pointing out outliers. You're getting the same grossly unbalanced viewpoint that would tell you that murders and rapes and child molestations are rampant if you viewed it through the lens of local or national news. Colleges are much more diverse than that, and people learn all sorts of opinions. The "over-victimhood" issue is something they'll encounter but don't think for a second that its the majority viewpoint. People are simply more sensitive now towards other people's struggles, and a natural overextension of that is the protectionism of perceived victims by shutting out perceived perpetrators, which simply does not have legs long term.

Those few professors, the media, and the groups themselves say different. Thankfully colleges are very diverse. But like I said, this appears to be a growing trend that has affected real people beyond their feelings in college. I'm talking real long-term lasting effects that can ruin a person's life. I would say that this thing has been growing long enough that so far it seems to have quite strong legs in the long term since we've been dealing with political correctness since the early nineties at least.

I honestly disagree - to me it fits too cleanly into the narrative that millennials are all coddled children who whine about everything which has been pushed for the past 15 years. The problem is of course, that depending on where you stand in relation to the issue and the people involved you can get completely different perspectives than someone else and both be correct from a particular point of view.

I don't believe I said anything about people wanting to sympathize with and support marginalized groups. I say power to them.

Where I draw the line is groups of people deciding not just for themselves but for everyone else what free expression and free speech means. Which is the group I described. This is the growing trend that I'm speaking of, which you seem to think is something to dismiss. I say you should pay attention to them because history shows that this is the type of people who do the most harm to the previously mentioned marginalized groups under the guise of bettering humanity.

I understand where you're coming from, but I feel like the situation is basically how taurath described it. A lot of people buy into these narratives that make it seem like this is an issue of free speech vs. not being offended. In my own experience, as someone who recently graduated college, this is not what is happening in reality. I have never met someone who actually could be said to be against free speech in any meaningful way. I agree that there are specific cases of people getting way too carried away, but when you take these cases to be at all representative of the reasonable opinions of the other 99.9% of college students, then 99.9% of college students are going to get annoyed with you. I don't see any reason to believe that the people who take it too far are really being taken seriously by people (except by people who disagree with them), and so I don't really see why we should give them so much attention. The only function it serves is to misrepresent and distract from valid points raised by others. By all means tell me if you think I'm missing something.

I'm really hopeful that you are right. I admit I'm more of the type that will be willing to step up early, maybe too early, to prevent things I see as wrong. In the end, if you are right and my concern is not warranted then that's fine. It'll all work out in the end.

My concern is rooted in the thought we've been having to deal with this nonsense since the 90s and it only seems to be growing. Obviously it's a slow trend but most things spread slowly. The thought process at play has already made for hard times for people in and out of college.

By the way, your response has been the most reasonable I've received in this thread. Thank you.

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