“It is clear that they are not motivated by legitimate concern for Arab and Muslim lives, whatever the rhetoric. If they were, then Israel would hardly be the only, or even primary, target. The death toll from over a decade of government-led bloodshed in Syria is catastrophic but has not gripped the imagination of campus activists.”
(Carl Trueman – First Things) The recent pro-Palestinian student protests on elite university campuses across the country offer fascinating, if somewhat depressing, insights into the state of modern American culture. It is not so much that the lunatics have taken over the asylum as the kindergartners have taken over the nursery.
First, society takes the attitudes and antics of the young far too seriously. In an era when we are reliably informed that adolescence persists well into the twenties, it is strange that we deem the views of anyone under the age of thirty to have any real significance or merit. Yet it seems to be an unspoken assumption that young people, especially young, angry, and opinionated people, are to be indulged as important. World leaders were clamoring to have cringeworthy photo ops with Greta Thunberg when she first rose to prominence. Thunberg types now abound on the left and right of the political spectrum. They often combine their ill-informed opinions with a confident youthful extremism that should be summarily dismissed or mocked without mercy rather than featured on the news.