Heather Mac Donald mingles with the protestors in Zuccotti Park, New York:

Henry, a delicate, doe-eyed anthropology and interdisciplinary-studies major from the University of Alabama, came up to New York a week ago with the blessings of his professors, who are undoubtedly celebrating the long-hoped-for revival of 1960s student activism. The chance that his courses are so demanding that his open-ended leave of absence will jeopardise his grades is zero. “It’s obvious that the good guys are fighting the bad guys,” he said. “It’s a question of good v. evil. Bad guys serve themselves, seeking individual gain; they’ve forgotten what it means to be a good guy. You can be rich, but you shouldn’t try to get richer, because you make people poor by getting richer.”

Remember, Henry is a student, one of tomorrow’s intellectuals.

Lexington Green visits a similar gathering in Chicago:

One young man got up and said the group needed to occupy “a field or warehouse” and create their “own space.” This was discussed seriously. I left after two hours, with the meeting still ongoing. […] 

I was struck by how this movement is replicating note for note the Left movements of the 1960s, but recreating it all over again from scratch. Rambling, poorly organised meetings, a requirement of unanimity to do anything, a repudiation of politics as usual, a vague call for some kind of deep social transformation, a desire for immersion in mass activity, a call for communal living. It is as if the last 50 years never happened and the past has no lessons at all.

And not entirely unrelated, Evan Maloney explains the story behind his film Indoctrinate U:

Academia today is focussed only on diversity of appearance… In an odd way, conservatives get a better education than anyone left of centre because their views are getting challenged. If I were a left of centre student, I could spend four years in a college and not once have any of my most basic assumptions challenged. 

As usual, feel free to add your own.

















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