In which the students of Ms Sandrine Schaefer, a winner of the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art’s Foster Prize, stagger beneath the knee-buckling weight of their own immense talents. From Ms Phoebe Warner, an aspiring educator of children, and her exercise in gratuitous, somewhat masochistic thigh abuse, to the cryptically-named Fatty Spice, a Twitter poet and graduate of the Montserrat College of Art, who “makes shrines to her failed relationships” and dazzles us today with a pink ensemble and a gripping exercise in drooling, doomed horticulture and radical fatness. All captured for posterity at the Zeitgeist Gallery and Studios, Beverly, Massachusetts, May 2014: 

Readers will of course recall Ms Schaefer’s own, even more staggering contributions to the culture. A body of work perhaps best summarised by this video of the artist gnawing at a lettuce while slouching in her underpants. 

Janice Fiamengo on complaints of “microaggression” and other recreational outrage:

Previously. And before that. 

Further to this, Juan Carlos Hidalgo on the vanity and horror of Venezuelan socialism: 

A couple of years ago, the then minister of education admitted that the aim of the regime’s policies was “not to take the people out of poverty so they become middle class and then turn into escuálidos” (a derogatory term to denote opposition members). In other words, the government wanted grateful, dependent voters, not prosperous Venezuelans.

As noted many times, the left’s self-imagined radicals have little to gain from successful, independent people. Because success and independence – independence of them – makes you the enemy.  

And Thomas Sowell on socialist thinking as sleight-of-hand: 

Free college of course has an appeal to the young, especially those who have never studied economics. But college cannot possibly be free. It would not be free even if there was no such thing as money… Those young people who understand this, whether clearly or vaguely, are not likely to be deterred from wanting socialism. Because what they really want is for somebody else to pay for their decision to go to college.

British readers may recall the student rioting of 2010, during which students took thuggish umbrage at the thought of being expected to pay for their own choices, like adults, albeit with generous credit, and while depicting themselves as “slaves.” A bold choice of words for people so engorged with entitlement that they assume an unassailable right to other people’s earnings. Stripped of its threats and theatrical pretensions, the students’ message was: “I don’t think the degree course I’ve chosen is worth paying for and yet I refuse to do without, therefore someone else should be forced to pay for it instead.”

And by happy coincidence, these little clownlings are currently ‘occupying’ a lecture hall at Sheffield University and demanding a “free, non-hierarchical” university education. Because choosing to take a degree course that they don’t want to pay for, and don’t think is worth paying for, is apparently “a radical act,” and because, being so fabulous, so incredibly radical, they have a “right” to the money that other people had to earn by doing something of value. According to the occupiers and their supporters, learning useful skills and thereby becoming employable “is exactly what education shouldn’t be [about].” Which suggests they probably aren’t the engineers and biochemists of tomorrow.

Feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments. It’s what these posts are for.

And so, breathless with anticipation, we return to the pages of Everyday Feminism, where questions of cosmic import are chewed over, and where Celia Edell, a self-described “24-year-old feminist philosopher interested in social justice,” shares the many things learned by her over many, many years. The great and pressing issues that weigh upon her mind:  

Does feminism require vegetarianism? This is something I am asked about often.

Often. Because, 

Vegetarians and vegans sometimes go around telling meat-eaters whether their eating habits are consistent with their feminist beliefs.

Imagine the parties. The time must fly.

The main argument you will likely hear in favour of feminist vegetarianism is that of linked oppression. Basically the idea is that women are consistently objectified in a morally problematic way that is very similar to the way animals are objectified.

You see, great feminist thinkers have insisted that “female animals are particularly oppressed” because “we consume animal products which must come from female bodies (i.e., milk and eggs)” and “this can be understood as a type of male domination of female bodies.” And so, obviously,

Many feminist theorists have therefore recommended that refraining from consuming animals and their products is a necessary step toward undercutting patriarchal power. It will not only benefit non-human animals, but also work to undermine the entire system [that] disadvantages women.

The mechanism here is, unsurprisingly, somewhat unclear. Possibly because enthusiasts of truck stop bacon butties rarely give much weight to the ponderings of “feminist theorists.” Even theorists who imagine that a liking for bacon or steak, or even the humble cheese sandwich, reinforces “the same system… which positions women as lesser than men.” However, Ms Edell is more temperate in her views, because,  

Animals and women are exploited quite differently in the patriarchy.

At which point, readers may wish to imagine a world in which feminist theorists are ascendant, patriarchy has been smashed and rendered unto dust, and womenfolk, being wise and inherently benign, shun the exploitation of animals altogether, living instead on a diet of compassion and self-righteousness. However, it turns out that on a practical level, building a meat-free, dairy-free utopia is fraught with agonising, due to the “many intersecting issues which complicate these decisions”:

Some people cannot eat a vegan or vegetarian diet as it is triggering for their eating disorder.

Lifted from the comments following this and somewhat pertinent, from the pages of the student newspaper of Brown University: 

“There are people breaking down, dropping out of classes and failing classes because of the activism work they are taking on,” said David, an undergraduate whose name has been changed to preserve anonymity. Throughout the year, he has worked to confront issues of racism and diversity on campus. His role as a student activist has taken a toll on his mental, physical and emotional health… David spent numerous hours organising demonstrations with fellow activists. Meanwhile, he struggled to balance his classes and social life with the activism to which he feels so dedicated. Stressors and triggers flooded his life constantly, he said.

Poor lamb. All those triggers. Perhaps someone should take our stressed-out little warrior to one side and explain to him, quite firmly, that neither his parents nor the taxpayer are forking out $60,000 a year for a narcissistic clown to piss about playing activist by railing against phantom “oppression” and non-existent “violence” in one of the most cosseting environments in human history.

Update:

Speaking of students who’d rather be acting out fantasies of oppression than preparing for exams, let’s not forget the Oberlin student activist Della Kurzer-Zlotnick, who was emotionally devastated by a two-letter word that was apparently unknown to her, and which she later described as “violent and triggering language.”

The word, by the way, was no.