[jccalhoun]

> I often see people on hn saying this is all blown out of proportion and a small vocal minority but when you talk to undergrads these days, you will realize these beliefs are not just a handful of people but carry weight across the student population.

This may have to do with the student population because I teach undergrads at a community college and I have recently taught at a liberal arts college and find this really is blown out of proportion. When I try to talk to them about media literacy most (not all of course but most) say they never read the news and don't follow current events.

>They find no apparent contradiction at being the most privileged of their generation (speaking of Harvard, Oxbridge, Stanford here), yet the smaller and local the cause, the more vicious the activism. Someone they disagree with dare speak on campus? Violence, trauma, discrimination, hate.

>Getting arrested for taking off a veil in Iran? Genocide? Consumerism destroying the planet? Yawn.

This is probably because they feel they can have an impact on local causes but can't do anything about international issues. What are they supposed to do about genocide in another country?

[high_derivative]

This is a fair point - the local cause is the one more accessible. Here is a counterpoint:

If you exalt a local event like the one in the original post (an arrest for a theft), or a speaker from the opposite political spectrum to terms like 'violence, hate speech, traumatizing' (words you will find in student newspapers and activism here), what is left for real events of actual drastic impact to society and the lives of others?

This kind of activism is a concept inflation that is tearing societies apart from both ends. An interesting article on this:

https://quillette.com/2019/02/14/the-boy-who-inflated-the-co...

[ryanobjc]

Quillette isn't a reputable source. Particularly in this area they specifically are well known to be advancing a "leftwing colleges are terrible" narrative.

[darkpuma]

It seems to be proportional to class in my experience. The more privileged a student is, the more outspoken they are when criticizing what they perceive to be injustices holding them back.

If we are being charitable, perhaps this is because the more privileged students have fewer repercussions from society to fear?