the world is my kindergarden
I find myself a co-subject of controversy right now, as a few of us, boys and girls, were looking at porn together on the office computer (gasp!), and apparently a bunch of people (who never mentioned anything at the time) got really upset and feel that "the office isn't a safe space for them anymore", and we're driving new people away.
Oy Vey! I'm looking forward to going back to my own planet, populated by mature adults -- not a bunch of kindergarden babies who expect the entire world to be their babysitter.
This attitude is endemic here. People expect to be shielded from anything that upsets them. Anything a tiny bit daring, a tiny bit different, and they retreat to their outraged virtue, holding their wounded purity before them, as they march down to the Dean's office to protest.
It used to be that people aspired to sexual sophistication, saw it as a sign of maturity and adulthood. Now they seem proud of being innocent, easily shocked at the mere hint of sexuality.
The establishment here always sides with them. Oh -- I'm all for tolerance. I've tolerated a lot in my time here. I've never been approached by so many churches, suject to so many anti-choice propaganda, and put up with so much prudery, than in my years at Waterloo. Some of it I simply don't like, but some of it -- like evangelicalism -- goes against my deeply held values. Yet I don't see the university asking Campus Crusade for Christ to stop asking me if I would like to attend a church service.
And yet I still believe that in a diverse society, they are to be tolerated. But I see little evidence of their efforts to tolerate me. Why are liberals always asked to yield? Why is it always us who are told not to mention drinking or drugs or not to smoke in front of the frosh, to not watch porn, to not write good articles about sexual techniques, to not say anything that could possible offend anyone in this place where everyone is so easily offended? Why isn't it ever these neo-puritans who are told to grow up a little -- the world isn't your kindergarden?
Oy Vey! I'm looking forward to going back to my own planet, populated by mature adults -- not a bunch of kindergarden babies who expect the entire world to be their babysitter.
This attitude is endemic here. People expect to be shielded from anything that upsets them. Anything a tiny bit daring, a tiny bit different, and they retreat to their outraged virtue, holding their wounded purity before them, as they march down to the Dean's office to protest.
It used to be that people aspired to sexual sophistication, saw it as a sign of maturity and adulthood. Now they seem proud of being innocent, easily shocked at the mere hint of sexuality.
The establishment here always sides with them. Oh -- I'm all for tolerance. I've tolerated a lot in my time here. I've never been approached by so many churches, suject to so many anti-choice propaganda, and put up with so much prudery, than in my years at Waterloo. Some of it I simply don't like, but some of it -- like evangelicalism -- goes against my deeply held values. Yet I don't see the university asking Campus Crusade for Christ to stop asking me if I would like to attend a church service.
And yet I still believe that in a diverse society, they are to be tolerated. But I see little evidence of their efforts to tolerate me. Why are liberals always asked to yield? Why is it always us who are told not to mention drinking or drugs or not to smoke in front of the frosh, to not watch porn, to not write good articles about sexual techniques, to not say anything that could possible offend anyone in this place where everyone is so easily offended? Why isn't it ever these neo-puritans who are told to grow up a little -- the world isn't your kindergarden?