Sometime in mid-October I noticed that the neighbors who live below me put “Cease Fire Now” and “Save Gaza, Free Palestine” posters in their windows. They’re significantly younger than I am but they’re nice and I like them, so after permitting myself an exaggerated eye roll, I went about my day. Later that week while walking home from work I saw a poster on a telephone pole off in the distance. Being in Vancouver I assumed that it was of the “missing person” variety but as I got closer, I noticed there was a big red banner at the top saying “kidnapped.” “Wow,” I thought, “that’s unusual” and hurried my pace to see the details. However, as I got close enough to read the details, I saw that it was a poster of one of the Hamas kidnap victims from Oct 7. A tragic crime, no doubt, but what did the person who put it up want from me? Should I be on the lookout for Hamas? Was there credible evidence that the victims had been secreted away to Vancouver? I sighed and made my way home. Not to be outdone, the other side (pro-Palestine? Pro-Hamas? Anti-Israel? Anti-Zionism?) is now putting up posters highlighting children that have been killed since Israel attacked Gaza. Since then, another neighbour has papered their fence with posters of the kidnap victims demanding they be brought home while more and more people in the news and on the streets have begun to pick sides in a war fought on the other side of the world. What does this mean?
I have been open about my disdain for progressive policies. Abolish Prisons, Defund the Police, and separate legal systems based on race have little basis in reality much less a chance to succeed. They share a world view that fundamentally misunderstands human nature and thus argues that crime is driven by systems, not people. I referred to this in a previous piece as “alien thinking.” However, the on-going poster battles, the use of flags in Twitter bios to demonstrate who one backs, and marches in the street have caused me to rethink how I view these people. I was wrong to label it alien thinking, it isn’t. It is in fact a form of thinking that most of us have experienced, it is short-term, self-centered, and simplistic. It is, in a word, childish. Who but a child would think that putting a poster up or adding a flag to their bio would have an impact on the larger world? Who but a child would believe that their opinion, founded on emotion, based on ignorance, and neither sought out nor influential, would matter outside of their family and circle of friends (if it even matters to them)?
When I think of little children, I often find myself smiling. This is because in my mind children are “little bundles of joy.” However, that is the part of me that has forgotten (repressed) many of my memories of fatherhood, specifically the other side of the coin, the temper tantrums, the inability to think things through, the frequent cries of “it’s not fair.” There is a reason why “childish” is an insult, not a compliment. There is also a reason children do not possess the same rights as adults, they lack the education, experience, and maturity to make rational decisions on their own. They are more than “bundles of joy,” they are bundles of joy, rage, impatience, and impulsive behavior bundled into a package incapable of long-term thinking and possessing a singularly self-centered world view. Remind you of anyone?
The Extension of Childhood
The argument that length of childhood has been increasing is not a new one. Academics and the media have been noting for at least 30 years the inability or reluctance of many young adults to leave the nest and start their own lives. The stock market bubble in 2000, the financial crisis of 2007-08, and the COVID pandemic and resulting economic troubles no doubt plays a part in the creation of the “Boomerang Generation.” Returning or remaining at home provided many young adults with financial stability while they began careers or returned to school. Financial stability is not the only explanation of course, comfort and/or laziness may play a part as well as portrayed in the 2006 movie “Failure to Launch.”
Returning or remaining home however, need not signal an extension of childhood. Afterall, multi-generational living has been a fixture of society for hundreds of years. While it is not uncommon to hear parents lament that “children grow up too fast,” research indicates that the opposite may in fact be happening and that childhood is being extended. According to researchers 18-year-olds today now exhibit the behavior of 15-year-olds in the 1990s. More importantly, for an analysis of recent events, it is important to understand that twenty-five is the “new 18.” But there is more at play than staying at home longer and delaying adult behaviours, there is the reality of lengthier educations.
Lengthening Education
The extent to which childhood has been extended by economics or the delayed development of adolescents is open to debate, the lengthening of the education process is not. Since 1990 the average length of education has increased by approximately 2 years while those attaining a college degree or higher has increased by 77%.
In addition to extending a student’s period of “dependency,” extended periods of time in university, especially in the humanities and social sciences, exposes students to ideas which promote a simplistic (childish) world view thereby extending their childhood. These include:
All disparities in society are caused by racism, sexism, homophobia or the like.
Race is a social construct and thus not real however all decisions must take race into account.
It is impossible to be racist against white people as racism is dependent on power disparities and white people have all the power.
White supremacy is the leading threat to America.
Violence is not only excusable but justified for the “oppressed.” “Oppression” is determined by an intersection of race, gender, sexual orientation, and history. History however can be jettisoned if it threatens the desired outcome.
The living are responsible for the actions of the dead and historical “wrongs” must be atoned for by the living. Guilt is based on history and appearance.
Words are violence, free speech is dangerous, and safe spaces are necessary to protect people from “real” harm.
The world is divided into “good” and “bad” people. You can tell which is which based on skin color, gender, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status.
Bias is acceptable provided it’s the right kind of bias.
Capitalism is the cause of all the world’s problems, and the solution is communism which has never been tried.
If you think these points sound absurd, you are correct. So too is a belief in Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. The only difference is that universities do not insist on a belief in imaginary personifications of Christian holidays. While it is unlikely, though not impossible, that you will find anyone subscribing to every belief on the list, believing anything on the list would condemn the believer to a simplistic thinking and a simplistic world view. As a simplistic view of the world is a characteristic of children, this list explains in some part why so many students today behave like children.
Where are all the adults?
The first part of the answer is “well, not in the universities.” We see a childish world view amongst academics as well and there’s a good reason for it. Academics for the most part spend their lives as dependents, shielded from the harshness of the world and the ideas of those who see the world differently. Their parents look after them until they are old enough to go to college at which point the school and their parents shared much of the responsibility of taking care of them. Few if any work their way through school anymore and the proof is in the rise in student loans. Upon obtaining an undergraduate degree the academics continue on the path of dependency moving onto post-grad and while their personal responsibilities may grow as they get married and have children, the socio-economic and political bubbles they live in remain unchanged ensuring that none of their pre-conceived beliefs are questioned, much less threatened. There is a reason it’s referred to as “the Ivory tower” after all. To the extent that they engage with the working class, it is always with a certain amount of condescension. Afterall, who knows better what the working-class need? The poor slob with the “lived experience” or someone with 20+ years’ education and an understanding of Marxist economic theory? Conservatives fair even worse than the working class. At least the working class are viewed with some sympathy, even if it is based on pity. Conservatives warrant no such understanding. Having lived their adult lives in an environment where less than 10% of the faculty consider themselves to be conservative, conservatives are looked upon at best as possessing wrong-headed ideas, at worst, as being outright evil.
Academics have also become enamored with activism, actively encourage their students to be biased (provided it’s the right kind) and faculty members take pride in being activists themselves even though it is tantamount to a confession that they already know why events happen (ex. racism) and now just need the handpicked facts to back it up. Activism, no matter what the cause, promotes a single-minded view of the world. It categorizes people into believers and non-believers. A simplistic and childish worldview that discourages if not forbids compromise. What besides childishness can explain throwing soup at Van Gogh painting or lying down in the road to disrupt traffic. If this isn’t the activist version of holding your breath until you get your way, what is?
An activist and academic view of the world promotes a simplistic good vs evil way of looking at the world, it promotes a way of thinking highlighted by this meme:
It is a common, and not inaccurate, representation of how progressives and others on the far-left view the world. Put into words it is often voiced as “no enemy to the left of me.” There is of course a similar and equally absurd viewpoint on the far-right that, as far as I know, does not exist in meme form likely because the media actively attacks the far-right while giving the far-left a pass – usually because that’s where members of the media sit. Nobody defends nazis but every progressive member of the media has a soft spot for a communist.
It is an exaggeration to say that we live in a society of children. Clearly there are many people who have a nuanced view of the world and who understand such concepts as “unintended consequences” and “the lesser of two evils.” So where are these people? The simple answer is that they are out there living their lives, raising their families, going to work, and minding their business. They are, for the most part, centrists and moderates residing politically somewhere between the Center-Left and the Center-Right, between full on authoritarians and fanatical libertarians. Their absence, if that is the right word, can be explained by the peculiarities of our political process and the incentives of our media landscape. Both politics and the media encourage extremism. Extremists see the world as hopelessly oppressive and headed to the abyss and the media is all too happy to put them in front of a camera and watch the money flow in. Fanaticism drives politics and brings in the viewers and, to put it simply, there is no such thing as a fanatical moderate.
Conclusion
As the conflict in Gaza progresses you will likely see continued protests and the posting and tearing down of posters. You’ll see selfish, self-centered, and simplistic thinking resulting in impulsive behavior that seem ignorant of the consequences. You’ll hear protesters, ignorant of history, describing events as a battle between good and evil people, categorizing Israelis and Palestinians as oppressors and the oppressed. The “well spoken” and “educated” leaders of these instances of civil disorder may quote Crenshaw, Foucault, Marx, Said, and Wolfe to “justify” the righteousness of their actions and causes. They will hope to convince you that the explanation, the justification, for their behavior is to be found in these dry and tedious philosophies. It isn’t. If you really want to understand why progressives, students, academics, and activists are marching in the streets, putting up posters that have no impact on the world, and resurrecting 1930s rhetoric from Nazi Germany, the only writer that really matters is J.M. Barrie.
The author write "Bias is acceptable provided it’s the right kind of bias."
I think everyone will agree with this. If you have some employees who do their job well and other who can't do the job at all, won't you be tempted to give raises to the former and let go of the latter? That's a bias in favor of competence and against incompetence. Most people would say this is a right kind of bias.
Also written is "Race is a social construct and thus not real however all decisions must take race into account."
I don't think this is the way they think. Race is a social construct. Capitalism is a social construct. Both are real things. If race was not real, then why would it need to be taken into account in all decisions?
That race be so considered is an extreme radical view prevalent in many places that I believe is a manifestation of our current CPP.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/cycles-of-radicalization
Thanks Joan. You're not the first person to suggest I make that change. The black has a more "piratey" feel to it in my opinion, but pale blue would be close enough to the color of the sea that I could live with it. I'll likely be making the change soon rather than later.