This is disconcerting. Generation Eggshell Psyche has arrived, and they don’t want to hear your thoughts on the matter:
When asked whether the government should intervene if citizens say something that might be considered offensive to minorities, 40% of millennials agreed. This is, of course, still a minority of respondents, but when compared to those of the previous generations (even just the last), it is still an incredibly significant figure.
Only 27% of Gen Xers, 24% of Baby Boomers, and 12% of Silent Generation respondents agreed that the state should control and limit potentially offensive speech, so the comparative increase among the youth of disregard for the 1st Amendment should be a major cause for concern.
This is simply the result of what most journalists on the right have been saying for years. Freedom of speech is under attack, not by direct legislation, but by erasing the value of freedom of expression in schools and colleges. Just 10 to 20 years ago, college campuses were places defined by their open debates, easy access to learn new things, and free student discussion. College campuses are now defined by “safe spaces,” authoritarian student unions, and bourgeoisie middle-class-but-I’m-down-with-the-poor protesters. Students of today do not want a free discussion if anything said could hurt someone’s feelings (unless you’re straight, male, and white; then fire away).
The study also revealed that nearly twice as many Democrats were in favor of limiting free speech (35%) in comparison to Republicans (18%).
Perhaps these are the wages of prosperity. A society that’s become so wealthy and healthy that the only thing kids have to fear is being offended. It’s easy to laugh at sometimes, but it seems to have reached a fever pitch, where students at our top universities are begging administrators to coddle them and speak to them as if they’re invalids. A society without a university system that supports the robust debate of controversial political and cultural ideas is not a society that produces the best and brightest people or the soundest ideas. Our only hope is that the rest of the world is even sicker, and that’s not much hope at all.
AAN Staff
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