Students today, eh? What an insufferable bunch of prigs – always taking stands on things they know
nothing about and trying to silence people whose views offend their delicate sensibilities. But here’s
the thing, says Jenny Hjul. It was ever thus. I cringe to recall my own role as an “undergraduate
agitator” in the early days of Thatcherism, throwing eggs at then education minister Rhodes Boyson
when he came to speak at my university, and going on “every rent-a-mob coach” to every demo. I
cheered a “Zionism is racism” motion in a student union debate “without understanding what it
meant; I had even less clue about other hot topics”. But the difference back then was that as we
didn’t have social media, our antics went unnoticed by the country at large. By contrast, today’s
firebrands, unlike their equally shrill forebears, can force universities to cave in to their idiotic
demands because they are armed with the power of mass online petitions. The good news,
however, is that soon students stop being students and grow up.
No comments:
Post a Comment