Prof. Christakis story is particularly poignant. His belief students should decide what to wear for themselves was the ultimate supportive compliment. The belief Yale students were mature and capable of making reasonable decisions and defend or argue unpopular ones. Instead they behaved like a pack of wolves--lock-step (or goose-step) Leftwing fascists.
It is past time that Liberals stand up against this undemocratic riptide that is undermining free speech. Otherwise we are complicit in liberty's diminishment.
Thanks to Christakis for his courage and example.
1854
@Laurence Bachmann Many, many "liberals" (I use scare-quotes because it's not an easily-defined group, and the word probably doesn't mean what you think it means; but yes, in the sense of people who are generally center-left) are standing up for free speech every single day. The idea that "liberals" are somehow a bunch of triggered people cowering in their safe spaces and demanding that no one use mean words is pretty much a whole-cloth invention of the radical right (there's hardly any other kind nowadays.)
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@Jesse Larnerwell, undergraduates in our elite colleges have assumed the mantle of little Mussolinis of thought control--that is, when they're not running to their safe spaces to hug teddy bears because someone's idea upset them.
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@Laurence Bachmann To boil this down to a liberal or left wing "rip tide" is to be as small minded and intolerant as the students who besieged the Christakis family.
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As I look back at the terrible mistreatment this man and his wife received from those truly horrible students' screaming and vomit-laden virtue-signalling, I am all the more amazed.
I wish the New York times would do an article on those students. I would like to know what became of such terrible people.
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Why is it that one of the best, most satisfying things humans can do is help someone else? Why is there, indeed, competition to go into hurricane and other disaster zones to provide immediate assistance, so much so that people pulling boats drive 18 hours to get there? (I have seen it.)
One answer is that serving one's own needs seems like an empty exercise. Yes, we get the meals, the comfort and the rest of stuff we need, but then what? Where is our sense of purpose and value? It largely comes from helping others and this seems inherent in humans around the world.
I am an optimist about our nation save for a few nagging recent developments. We now have a "hate industrial complex" of talk radio, Fox News, rumor filled websites and more. Even the far right Christian ministries that have sold themselves and their religion to Trumpism spread hatred. Whatever happens after Trump, these sharpened instruments of division will be used to keep pushing their points and Trump, after Trump, will still be the point. They won't stop.
Long ago, I spent sometime in Portugal in the post revolutionary period. It was truly remarkable. People were willing to gather in the streets and, literally, talk for eight, ten even twelve hours coming to accommodation. We need such forbearance and patience here and each of us can start by trying to be better people ourselves.
Here is video of what one volunteer headed to the Virgin Islands taught me after hurricane Maria:
http://tinyurl.com/y2vscwmz
6
And even after reading about these triggered snowflakes' repugnant, entitled behavior, some readers (as evidenced by this comment section) still deny the existence of radical left social justice warriors and call it a right-wing myth. Unbelievable.
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@Kate, wow I just can’t believe how the Right takes any nuanced piece, where honest people are reflective and thoughtful, and turn it in to “those horrible liberals”. It’s pretty gratuitous to be lecturing liberals on anything, given the man-child who is wrecking havoc on our country every day. I know it’s tough to be nice, but give it a try, it might work.
1
I remember being appalled when I first saw this video of this incident.
Jerelyn Luther is the name of the screaming girl, a senior at Yale at the time. It would be interesting to know where and what she is doing now.
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@American
In my experience, the college experience tends to create a hothouse environment in which some immature students inevitably get way too emotionally charged up over some set of ideas. These are the things we think about years later and --most of us-- cringe. I don't think this is something that can be eliminated from college life.
The occurrence of unpleasant events like the Yale encounter shows the college is making the students actually engage with ideas. That shouldn't be eliminated. But, on the other hand, it shouldn't result in punishing faculty members.
1
It gives me some measure of calmness to know that that ugly video will be an albatross hung around the neck of that young animal for the rest of her life.
4
I suspect from this characterization "a university edict against culturally insensitive Halloween costumes" that Bruni, whom I admire, did not take the time to look at the original letter to which Erika Christakis was responding. I was surprised no journalist covering the story when it originally broke bothered to look at the original letter from the Yale Cultural Houses, but rather took at face value Erika Christake's characterization (and republished it and quoted from it) - which was bizarre if you actually read the letter. There was no "edict." Take the time to go back to the start of the story if you want to tell it accurately.
53
I am disappointed by the nearly unanimous support for the Christakises and the piling on the "snowflake" students.
There seems little question that many students were rude - or worse. I don't write to defend that behavior. But there is a troubling tone to this discussion.
The so-called "political correctness" that fueled this incident is not the hyper-sensitivity of a generation of spoiled brats. It is the inevitable boiling over of years of lived experience in a racist society. Places like Yale are more diverse than a generation ago, but I know from years of experience in education that students of color in majority white institutions are subject to overt and invisible discomfort every day.
Many well-intentioned white people intellectualize the visceral experiences of racism. Certainly young adults should be free to make decisions about Halloween costumes, shouldn't they? Those who might be offended are overreacting, aren't they? Shouldn't this play out in an environment of free discourse?
I say, "No." The response to institutional racism in America remains too late and too little. When young women and men of color and their allies react with pent-up emotion, we must be tolerant of their justifiable concerns, not dismiss it with cool logic or lofty allusions to freedom of all kinds of expression. There was no need for Erika Christakis to write her letter. While she and her husband may be fine people, it is not entitled white kids who need protection.
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@Barking Doggerel Everyone has a right to be treated with respect and dignity. It is true that people don't all start out on an even playing field and we need to figure out how to give everyone equal opportunities to succeed. But people don't have a right to not feel any "discomfort". After all we are responsible for how we feel not others and our "discomfort" usually says more about us than the others around us.
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@Barking Doggerel
Another adherent of the theory that racism is always one-sided, & justifies almost any kind of acting out. I say. 'No.' I won't go into allegations of institutional racism, or what kind of response to it is justifiable, but will point out that supposedly college is supposed to contribute to students' social development, as well as their intellectual development. Surely the ability to communicate disagreement in a civil manner would be a good thing for anyone to know, particularly in a place with the pretensions of Yale. I would think that those who advocate for diversity would at least acknowledge that minority students can benefit & learn from their majority peers & mentors, as well as the other way around.
29
@Barking Doggerel No need for Erika Christakis to write her letter? how about her RIGHT to write that letter? Saying that students can police themselves from err is wrong? Do we need overseers to police us all the time? Odd giving students the power to do it themselves and she is attacked? My generation, the 60s, was built on leave us alone and let us do our own stuff and our own policing not let larger bodies like universities and government control us. Yep we made mistakes. Its called being human and trying to correct to them. Where is this couple asking for white kids to be protected? They are asking for those Yale students to be allowed to protect themselves and not let overseers be their guardians against making errors and living. Thankfully MLK didn't wait for overseers to free his people.
17
Apparently the shrieking woman has not apologized.
31
Kavanaugh cried, screamed and angrily denied his drunken behavior. Lindsay Graham shouted the room down. They triumphed. Trump rode birtherism to political prominence. He lied, shouted, bullied, traded in racism, Islamophobia, sexism and indecency unworthy of a president. 60 million people voted for him anyway.
2015 was an awful year for anyone who valued black lives. Videos of young, unarmed black people being killed by the police were regular fare. Black youth rose up in a movement that intentionally rejected respectability politics. As a middle aged African American I did not agree with some of their tactics but I felt their pain.
When the Halloween debacle at Yale happened I rolled my eyes and thought these young people were playing into the hands of the right. But as I watched the video again, with the exhausted perspective of two years of Trumpism, I saw and heard something different, a young black teenager screaming and crying about her powerlessness to change any of it. Kaepernick was polite when he took a knee and the NFL and POTUS couldn't abide the provocation.
It is easy enough to find photos online of white college students dressing "ghetto" for the thrill of it, not to mention nooses, swastikas and other campus provocations. As a professor myself I don't condone shouting at someone with whom you disagree. But many of the comments to this article are rich, comparing a teenager to jackboots. I want to be optimistic about this country, I will read the book.
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@Sheryll Cashin
In my opinion Colin Kaepernick was passive-aggressive, not polite.
11
@John He made the one move that not only allowed him to demonstrate his opposition to police violence, but allowed him to show respect in his own way towards the best traditions of our country.
Because to take a knee has NEVER, in any other context, been marked as a disrespectful gesture, but rather the opposite, as the ultimate sign of humility and respect.
Had literally anyone else done the same act, and cited different reasons for it, there would have been no controversy. But because he and others did it in protest of racism, police violence, and the politics of this administration, the response was both quick and vitriolic.
And in so doing, Colin proved his point: It's not really the imaginary "disrespect" towards the flag these people are angry about. It's that he dared to show his independence from their narrow definition of patriotism, that he dared to express his love for more than just country and flag.
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@John
Well, it was a protest. He found a very respectful way to make his concerns visible and people still chose to be offended.
Out of interest, what do you think a polite, yet effective, protest look a like?
45
Suppose those Yale students had instead dressed in full Nazi uniforms, swastikas and all, for Halloween, and the Christakises had taken the same position. Would we have the same outpouring of sympathy for the couple here?
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@Gregory Yes, I would. The issue is how we learn. Erika promoted the belief that students should be allowed to succeed or fail in their decision making. If they chose the wrong costume wouldn't they suffer the consequences? By asking society (or the school) to censor before the fact how can individuals learn from their mistakes?
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@Gregory
Yes. Again: Students policing themselves. Mr. Christakis is not responsible for what students put on at Halloween any more than Thomas Jefferson is responsible for anything that anybody says when exercising their 1st Amendment rights.
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@Gregory, the kids in that example would learn a hard, hard lesson, and would suffer the consequences. Filtering that possibility out before it could happen doesn't teach anything or protect anyone.
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Wow, it's all here.
Humans are social animals. Actions which help the society are deemed good and the contrary deemed evil. Humans are compelled to be good for our survival, health and well-being.
Wealth accumulation is anti-social and places the individual above all others. People may suffer or die but that is acceptable to this minority. Because of their wealth and, with it, power they have worked to make their anti-social behavior acceptable so that they may maintain and expand their wealth. They have found weaknesses in our psyche and exploited them to gain control of our government. They have sown division and fed tribalism so we remain stupefied and compliant.
A case in point, decency has been just another casualty in the manipulation of our country. You can't argue against decency so you convert it to "political correctness" which can be attacked because it is placed it in an us/them structure. Decency was sacrificing one's small ability for another's comfort - for example not using a term that another person found objectionable. Both could benefit from this action and the society benefited as well. But the perversion of this interaction (and others) has left us resentful, hyper-sensitive and blind.
I believe most strive to be a positive force in others' lives but it is those among us who find themselves superior that has perverted our natures turning our generosity into foolishness and cooperation into ignorance. To this end the good have been suckers.
149
Wow! Somebody had the guts to make a statement in defense of the idea that political correctness is a good thing and that submission to the constraints on speech and thought imposed by political correctness would be beneficial to humanity. Oh, and building wealth is anti-social. It’s refreshing to see someone openly oppose the most basic and core values that this country was founded on.
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@Lucas Lynch:
“You can't argue against decency so you convert it to ‘political correctness’”: That misunderstands the insidious nature of political correctness.
Political correctness is passive-aggressive use of one’s (usually liberal) moral stances to impose them on others. It is a form of social. mind control – not of legitimate moral suasion.
I say this as one who considers his own views to be liberal, but independent-minded.
2
@Lucas Lynch "Wealth accumulation is anti-social and places the individual above all others." Nope. We're ALL worse off when individuals have neither the power nor the incentive to invent and improve our material condition.
1
Although I do not "accept this belief that human beings are [predominantly] evil or violent or selfish or overly tribal," I do accept that these destructive elements lurk perpetually just beneath the calm surface of civility, that they push incessantly and insistently to seize the agenda of the human spirit, and that the endless task of human decency is to struggle for the ascendence of our better angels.
Just as Pandora cannot explain the evidence of progressive social good, nor can Pollyanna explain Nazism or the wanton evils that have blighted the community of humankind throughout history.
Complacency awards the victory laurel to evil. The struggle against it never ends. At this moment, human decency is snoozing through a losing slump. It's past time to wake up.
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@John lebaron ...with you on the wake up needed bit.
What is getting lost is that "woke" represents a requirement of assumed guilt but without offering any redemption. And guilt without redemption has no way out. Defense follows..
6
Most comments focus on how "rude" the students were. May I remind everyone that these students have a First Amendment right to protest, just as the professor's wife used the same right to make her opinion known. No one here has stated that no one put a gun to her head, forcing her to protest Yale's guidelines re: Halloween attire. To me, she is insensitive as to how racial minorities feel when they are forced to encounter racist stereotypes of themselves by Whites. I don't think she should have left Yale, but instead should have discussed with racial minorities how they feel. A University's goal is to educate, and this includes educating members of different races re: how others feel.
111
@Resharpen: Sure but it was certainly appropriate for her, as a member of the Yale community, to think about whether Yale ought to be exerting authority over that. Is it necessarily insensitive toward X if I don't think that there should be a law against Y's doing something that causes harm or distress to X? That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or condone Y's action; it just means that I don't support its being policed by the state. I can think that adultery is wrong but shouldn't be illegal. I don't see how that makes me insensitive to people whose spouses have cheated on them. It just means that I don't think it would be good public policy to make it a crime. Similarly, if I understand correctly, with Erika Christakis's view of whether Yale ought to exert control over students' Halloween attire.
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The freedom of speech is not to produce a mob at someone’s door Be thankful they were not angry gun owners. The freedom is to address address the government peaceably and it sounds like the Professor behaved in a way that we could strive for ourselves.
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The first amendment doesn't shield them from other people's first amendment right to call them rude or worse; it shields them from the government. Isn't the benefit of living in a society in which angry mobs are not considered acceptable part of the point of this?
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I am White. My son, adopted, is a racial minority. It is easy to believe society is basically "good" if, like the professor, you are White, Male, and so intelligent that you teach at Yale, which also means you have a decent income. I see what my son goes through on a day-to-day basis, and this has taught me a profound lesson: White privilege exists, and my son deals with ignorant White people stereotyping him a lot. NOTHING in this article shows how being White has influenced the professor, or his wife, as to their ideas.
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@Resharpen I think that's an interesting place to go because it does seem like he is a person well-aware of his privilege and was absolutely pilloried for not denouncing something his wife wrote. The theme of this peace tends very strongly toward the gentle optimism about societal conflict rather than exploring the justified sources of anger that generate it - and I think White privilege is one such source of anger. So I think it works well without such a discussion.
29
@Resharpen I'm always dismayed and mystified when seemingly smart and well-meaning people miss the point entirely, but you've surely missed the point of this column, and off this man's book.
30
@Resharpen Perhaps you should read the book to find out? According to the article, the author offers a rich erudite explanation for why people are basically good, despite the evil that he fully admits does exist, so perhaps reading it will give you some insight and understanding. I can't wait for my copy!
26
I'd only heard faint rumblings from right wing media and djt about college leftist and free speech.
After watching the video I was struck with embarrassment and familiarity. An acquaintance of mine who is arquably a right wing extremist, frequently goes off the rails and rants at me and other more liberal aquaintances.
The girl is an embarrassment to herself, her family, and the university. She doesn't deserve to be at a great university where intellectual and genuine debate is expected.
Thanks NYTs for this piece and to the many rational comments.
14
This article shows how a controversial figure was able to "move on" by writing a book about human goodness, but in doing so it omits any consideration of how those students who were subject to reproach and harassment might also have struggled yet nonetheless been able to move on.
Many students who were involved in this incident, including myself, were villainized by publications such as Breitbart, while others required constant security on campus because of threats to their lives. The fact that a highly-credentialed professor was unsurprisingly able to publish a book of academic pontifications on human nature does not in itself merit full-blown victimization and revisionism at the cost of acknowledging the minority students' plight on campus amidst that ugly imbroglio.
We students have also "moved on" and grown in our continued disavowal of misconstrued interpretations of free expression. Why do we not have a voice here?
170
@Kyle R., the Times provides 1,500 words to make your case here. By choosing not to use any of those alloted words to explain how students were victimized by an email criticizing the university's policy on halloween costumes...well that omission might explain the lack of greater publicity of your case.
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@Kyle R.
We all have our voice. You just used yours.
Not every statement by the professor has to acknowledge all the injustice in the world. Nor did the professor mainly write a book about that incident.
In the end, I don't think free expression is as nuanced as all that. It's often binary. In this country we are screaming at each other a lot and missing the chance to have deeper discussions about what is wrong, what is offensive, what constitutes insult or abuse, and so forth. I get the impression (I wasn't there-you were) that the professor's position was that having rules for every expression on campus creates a problem potentially as bad as the one you were trying to solve. If we've moved from saying that having an opinion about how to resolve potential instances of racism is the same as racism itself, then there's very little room for giving people a chance to improve.
205
@Kyle R.Do you not have a voice? The linked video provides ample evidence of a voice - loud and clear, unnecessarily scathing and insulting. I saw a gentle human being quietly receiving a vicious and uncivilized attack. There is a profound difference between expressing one’s discontent and difference of opinion versus personally attacking another human being. Shame on the Yale students involved in this charade.
What strikes me is the emphasis on shrieking for a safe “home,” as if one’s time at Yale should be time in a bubble, free from unwanted outside influences. This is not reality. This is exactly what the professor was intimating. My advice: Proceed with firm intention, clear voice, but, always, with integrity. There is no integrity in the shameful display on that video.
236
Through this column, the professor appears incapable of understanding what living with the consequences of prejudice have done to people historically and is doing now. I am not a protestor by nature, I always try to be civil and polite, but this professor appears to lack a general empathy which is peculiar considering the work he is credited for.
I am sorry the professor was yelled at, but the professor should have apologized for the hurt he and his wife caused.
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@Nancy he suggests that he wanted to engage the students, to hear their side. If they were hurt by that kind of civility, I'm not sure he's the one who owes them the apology.
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@Nancy
I just now watched the video of the Yale students screaming at him. He is calm and just stands there and lets these students get in his face, mock him, scream at him, tell him he's disgusting. it's a pack of bullies on one man and if you are looking for people to apologize for causing harm, I think the students that surrounded him have their work cut out for them. I watched a video of harm, and the harm was caused by these students. No person can be berated like that and walk away without sustaining real damage.
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@Nancy
Especially because it wasn't the first time he was criticized for racially insensitive remarks. He seems unwilling to consider the possibility that he was in fact in the wrong.
13
It used to be ok to say the “N” word - now it is not. It used to be considered funny to wear black face - now no longer so. The “me too” movement is moving us forward even more.
Demanding a safe place and respect is not a reason for ridicule. The student’s explosive anger and frustrations might be excessive - but it was out of pain.
We should all be grateful that the world is moving slowly towards a safer place for everyone. I am grateful to the “radicals” who recognize the pain inflicted and fight against injustice where others cannot see - who demand change and not accept things as they are.
106
And in this particular issue and so called misdeeds, what exactly was so painful to the suffering students at Harvard?
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@Sarah Crane
Just because a student attends an Ivy League school does not mean they do not either share experiences with those that they attempt to represent, the voiceless and marginalized, or through education become conscious of the pain and humiliation suffered each day by the voiceless and marginalized.
Just because each of these students may not "be" one of the marginalized, does not remove their capacity for identifying what some may deem a micro aggression but is actually a tiny effect of a massive power inequity.
From a two-decade perspective as a white, male, Southern born, heterosexual, disabled but privileged professor, I believe these students were not yelling so much at this particular professor, but instead at what he represented.
His seemingly casual dismissal of their concerns about how even small cultural appropriations indicate the intractability of large tensions and power inequities (who gets to appropriate, who gets appropriated, and who gets to define the appropriation), opened up a space for these students to publicly identify how these power inequities function within our "white supremist" culture (and I do not say that flippantly. Much nuance and historical reasoning behind that phrase).
I also believe Christakis handled the actual moment with aplomb and dignity.
Simply, both parties were correct. When power chooses to listen, we all win. When the voiceless and marginalized stand and demand to be heard, we all win. Maybe there is hope.
9
@EPJP No, it wasn't out of 'pain,' it was out of groupthink and intolerance.
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This has some of the same echoes as Tom Friedman's epic piece devoting his praise to MbS: two columnists waxing poetic about shady figures. I'm a former Yale alumni who was at the scene of the disturbance in Silliman college. Christakis didn't seem one bit sorry and this article won't convince me otherwise.
6
Wow. I hadn't seen that video before. Kudos to the professor that he remained so calm and civil while facing an obviously unhinged student. I gotta wonder if this student was admitted under a diversity quota or something? She obviously lacks critical thinking skills as well as self-control.
It pains me that the university likely did nothing to further the education of this student in terms of how to engage in civil discourse and how to accept that someone else has a different opinion than you. I'm sadly not at all surprised to see this as a total intolerance and unwillingness to hear the viewpoint of others seems to be the hallmark of many(most) of today's leftist students. Speaking "truth to power" is seen only to apply if it's "your own truth" these days.
I'm definitely interested in reading his new book.
73
Yes, by all means, let’s celebrate the White man who, like his wife, believes we should have the strength to face offense. The culturally insensitive costumes are merely errors of youth, and not examples of the history of oppression of those groups depicted in these costumes.
By extension, Blacks should have the strength to face all the discrimination and oppression they experience (there hasn’t been an armed uprising, I call that extreme strength), Latinxs the strength to see Whites mocking them with big hats and mustaches. All without any accolades.
But this guy is confronted about his comments and he gets an opinion piece about him in the NYT. And a book deal. THAT’s White privilege. Should all minorities be so lucky.
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@A.L. GROSSI
Might I suggest you listen to the Areva Martin - David Webb interview from several weeks ago.
8
@A.L. GROSSI
Weren’t Christakis’ comments about how Yale as an institution should not be policing Halloween costumes but rather the students should have the freedom and maturity to have those discussions themselves?
Is there something about that you disagree with?
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@A.L. GROSSI all they said was that students should be free to dress as they like for Halloween for the sake of free expression. Hardly something that deserves being shouted and spat at. The scandal here is that his wife was forced by the angry mob to leave Yale.
61
"Intellectual rock star." Boy, there's an oxymoron for the books.
13
None of us really knows if humans are inherently good or evil. Certainly at a minimum it varies with the individual.
Yes, Mother Teresa was good and Stalin was not. Jeckyl and Hyde in some proportion likely exist in each of us. If you believe you have a friend without a dark side, guess again. All the scholarship in the world will never prove or disprove this prof's perspective. Nice try Prof.
4
“You should not sleep at night!” one of them screeched, as he miraculously kept his cool, a mute punching bag. “You are disgusting!”
Immature, passionate and idealistic students go over the top in protesting an attitude they wrongly believe condones bigotry. Their conduct isn't excusable. But the professors should have realized that their writing could be mistaken for excusing bigotry, and taken pains to carefully explain that this isn't what they were saying. The history of bigotry in this country is long and painful. It is not surprising that it should excite passionate reactions.
22
The problem with oral confrontations, even by the best educated people, is that you start out planning to go in like Cato, and end up sounding like someone getting thrown out of a club.
Whereas the best way to confront objectionable writing is to object to it in your own writing. But the problem with that is the way that writing is taught by the various Gradgrinds--I'm sorry, Advanced Placement courses. Students seem to be drilled into most banal, joyless form of written communication possible. The idea of writing as a pleasure in and of itself seems never to be touched upon. And no writing is more pleasurable than vituperative writing.
Consider Alexander Pope's "The Dunciad", or the letters and journalism of Evelyn Waugh, George Jean Nathan, Dorothy Parker and Gore Vidal. If you think it's a pleasure to read, imagine the pleasure it gave to the writers.
And if it's good enough, like "The Dunciad", your subjects will be remembered solely for the words you used to mock them.
14
With respect to Halloween costumes: we're talking about Yale University, right? Not ... Yale Primary School? Or Yale Early Learning Center?
66
I am still trying to get my head around “culturally insensitive Halloween costumes.”
44
Hello Mr Bruni. I think your columns are great. I wish tho that the title of this article was not so negative. There is too much negativity out there and the title is about his detractors use of inflammatory words, not about him. Hie is exrraordinary and I wish that could have been alluded ot in the title.
7
Many commenters here are VERY CONCERNED about the supposedly fascistic tendencies of the modern student. One assumes these commenters share Erika Christakis' view that young people should be free to make "transgressive" and "obnoxious" choices with their Halloween costumes, and that everyone else should just suck it up. They're just kids, right?
And yet no one seems to think the students who confronted Nicholas Christakis might have been making a mistakes of their own. No one wonders if these students may have been reacting to the Christakis email "not wisely, but too well." (That's Othello. You're welcome.)
It's an interesting double standard: A white Ivy Leaguer dressing in blackface for Halloween? Youthful transgression! A person of color heatedly protesting against a defense of the right to choose blackface? Creeping fascism! Leftwing political correctness gone mad!
To be clear: I don't think anyone should dress as a racial stereotype in the name of fun. I believe Yale is within its rights to ask its students not to do it. (One Halloween I saw a white guy dressed as a "Mexican" boarding a bus. A young Latina mom and her excited young kids, adorned with beautiful Day of the Dead makeup, were also on the bus. Imagine their faces when they saw him.)
I ALSO don't think confrontational tactics are the best response to every slight. But if we're being asked to be lenient on students in blackface, we should also try to understand the outrage of offended.
34
I am continually struck by the grand irony that mobs never realize they embody the very thing they claim to hate.
The professional victims become the victimizers.
48
I guess I can't celebrate St. Patrick's Day by wearing green and getting drunk. That might seem to some of Irish descent to be cultural appropriation. They might also view it as a micro-aggression.
I am as liberal and left-wing as they come, but the Yale students come off as spoiled kids who expect the real world to be just like the cocoon they left when they went off to college. They need to grow up.
The typical Yale and indeed, Ivy League student, is from an affluent if not wealthy family. They had private tutors, private standardized test coaches, went to elite high schools, and probably never even knew someone from the bottom 90% of American society. They will graduate from Yale and feel entitled to a prestigious and high-paying job. They're entitled.
But that's what you get with rich kids' schools.
40
My late husband went to Yale - class of '62. He would be shocked and so disappointed to see what Yale has become today. I read about the incident and was appalled. Yale students (they ARE privileged - they're at Yale!), screaming and spitting and saying appalling things at Prof Christakis. All the hullabaloo about Calhoun College - name now changed. Students saying they felt "subservient" with the college Master being called "master" (it has NOTHING to do with "masta" on a plantation - it came from Oxford and Cambridge and means someone who has mastered a great deal of knowledge). So no more College Masters.
And then Yale's wimpy President missed a wonderful teaching moment when they came to his house at midnight. He could have come outside and said that at Yale, one does not take to the barricades - one sits down for civil discourse. He should have said that he'd be delighted to clear his calendar the next morning and meet with 2-3 representatives of this group - their choice of who. He should have added that he makes it a practice to never discuss school policy while wearing pajamas and a robe.
When one of our elite universities allows itself to be influenced by "mob rule", we have truly fallen and so has that institution. The young woman who was screaming actually came from a rather privileged family who live in CT. She was not a "ghetto girl" at all. Her outrage is false - she has and was living a privileged life. Attending Yale IS a great privilege.
67
This idea of a summation to get a final grade of plus or minus is quite silly. People are capable of incredible levels of kindness and of cruelty. To look up the history of genocide, slavery, and domination is to realize that the yelling of angry students is not anywhere near the depths of human depravity. And the evolutionary argument is bogus: part of out evolutionary history is the eradication of other primate life forms, and we do not know at this point whether the violent tendencies of the human race, combined with newer technology, will wipe us all out. So this "kindness is proven by the existence of society" is pure wishful thinking, and a bit dangerous at that. It leads to complacency, an attitude that
the evolutionary process will work it all out for us. A carefull reading of history will remove this pleasant fantasy.
6
i saw the video at the time and my first thoughts were basically how can a student treat a professor with such disrespect. It is one thing to have a different opinion but the language used was not intended for a discussion it was intended to intimidate. The young student who was leading the attack is not from a disadvantaged
family that has suffered from the sins of the past......she is a student in one of the most expensive universities in the US....not a victim.
it was disgusting.....similar to the student that punched a Trump supporter in Berkeley a couple of weeks ago. there does the rage come from?
it should not be tolerated.
29
His main idea calls to mind the work of Teilhard de Chardin, who felt that evolution was a god-like force and that gregariousness and a love force was a universal law, like gravity.
6
The most important question implied but not answered in this column is: how did we get to this point? These mobs on our college campuses are a small minority. But the spineless appeasement of University officials only encourages them; their intellectual abdication invites them to take over & cause havoc. They don't respect our most cherished rights: freedom of speech. Freedom of speech means freedom from interference, suppression or punitive action by student protesters. Students can't use physical force or coercion; they can't censor or suppress anyone’s views or publications. Freedom of speech includes the freedom not to agree, not to listen and not to support one’s own antagonists. It doesn't give these SJW the right to threaten a professor, occupy the college President's office or shut down an entire school. There should be zero tolerance for these actions & there needs to be consequences for those that break the law. Permanent expulsion would be a good start. Criminal & civil prosecution if they violate laws. It's outrageous that we've allowed a minority of progressive fanatics to bring us to this point. It's time to push back. This entire movement will collapse overnight if someone would simply enforce the rules. There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues, on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction. These entitled wanna be fascists are out of control. It's the adults job to set boundaries.
23
The memo was inconsiderate of the suffering of colored students but the students’ public outrage/yelling was even worse.
8
Uber-privileged, best-of-the-best, much-smarter-than-anyone Yale students screaming about Halloween costumes? Wow. The embodiment of everything Trump voters hate about "the elite." Embarrassing.
31
May tolerance and goodness prevail.
6
Reposting another commenter:
In 2017, of Yale’s graduating class, two of the students yelling in Professor Nicholas Christakis' face were deemed most deserving of the Yale Nakanishi Prize for “enhancing race and/or ethnic relations” on campus: Alexandra Zina Barlowe and Abdul-Razak Mohammed Zachariah.
The unconscious irony of Yale is a force to behold
20
For another view, read my NYT op-ed on the controversy here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/opinion/at-yale-the-issue-is-not-free-speech-but-judgment.html
7
Here is a link to an independent view of the context in which this egregious event occurred. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.courant.com/opinion/editorials/hc-ed-yale-racial-sensitivity-20151111-story.html?outputType=amp
1
That sounds like an excellent book; he is particularly admirable when contrasted with those who cling to incidents such as what he was subjected to as an excuse to become bitter and hateful and to not listen to others or actually think about things. I hope that people watch that video and are inspired by his honest engagement with the screechers rather than sinking to their level.
14
Thanks for this Frank. Great article. I think the mentioned episode at Yale is quite shocking. American youth are lost.
Of course I can't be sure until I read his book but it seems to me Nicholas has missed several elephants in the room.
We are not just human beings - but also persons.
As human beings we are not clones of each other. Our "common humanity" only counts for so much. We are individuals.
Human nature is obviously very good but imperfect. We have flaws. But as human beings that can also become persons, evidently we are things of potential not just actuality. We can overcome our flaws. We can become civilised. We are a "self-civilising" species.
Becoming civilised doesn't just happen as a matter of course. It requires effort by others and ourselves. It's not happening sufficiently has consequences. This is a major cause of our potential for ill.
As persons we are unavoidably "signs of our place and time" and more accurately "signs of our specific places and times in the past". Experience moulds us for good and for ill. It unites us to some others and divides us from other others but it also individualises us more.
People can radically differ as persons and hence bring radically different resources to their present experience from their prior experience. Particularly, education matters for good and ill.
Experience can produce physical psychic wounds which can distort our behaviour and really differentiate us from others for good and ill.
Thanks again.
4
The Yale controversy was further evidence of a cultural revolution mentality taking root at many colleges, where a sort of ideological purity is expected of anyone who sets foot on campus. As this article shows, Professor Christakis is really a pretty decent guy.
26
A brilliant review of a brilliant man and his seminal work! Kudos to both!!
10
Can the author tell us which books the professor read “about equanimity in the face of injustice” - I could stand to read them right now as well. Thanks.
14
I'm happy that he reached this conclusion, long held by Buddhist teachings, teachers and students. Good good, yes, we are not humans who carry original sin, but rather people with inherent basic goodness. He's come to this and may it bring him substantial happiness and peace.
9
"It’s an argument that we’re transcendently and inherently good...."
That argument is demonstrably false. We are a mix of good and evil. Always have been. Always will be.
7
This is a wonderful article -- thank you!
Nicholas Christakis is an extraordinarily lovely person. It is hard to imagine how the students at his residential college could not see that, how they refused to see it, and choose instead to vent their anger at a person who, probably more than 99% of the population, would have been on their side. Rather than try to engage and educate, and perhaps be educated in turn by this extraordinary professor in their midst, they choose to see the false caricature they wanted to see, and to wrongly disparage his character, and the character of his also extraordinary wife. The whole incident was horrible. I'm so happy to read that he has moved on to more important things, and that he has used the bad treatment he received as inspiration to look for good.
26
I had heard about this controversy, but never watched the videos until now. I'm stunned.
As a white man, I empathize with the image of Christakis confronted by those students. I feel that way a lot these days; unable to have a dialogue because the people around you are only interested in venting their rage and humiliating you. All in defiance of what should be a mutually respectful relationship of students to teacher, people to person.
This is beyond sad, and Mr. Christakis's book tour zen calm about the incident seems more like avoidance to me.
The dedication to his wife, however, is beautiful, and reveals to the pain that the incident caused them both. What must have gone through their heads; being treated so shabbily and selfishly for appealing to their students' own maturity. They're lucky to have each other.
27
Inherent goodness as a philosophical construct is as useless as the idea of inherent evil. The closer human beings are to us, socially, psychologically, emotionally, geographically, the better we tend to treat them. Once a human being is seen as distant, the other, alien, different, the enemy, the easier it is to inflict suffering upon them. Reread the Milgram experiments where perfectly nice students were willing to inflict pain on helpless victims if they could not see or hear them - not to mention unspeakable cases of genocide and mass slaughter. The answer is to make our social circles wider and wider - so that even the suffering of a stranger is unacceptable.
6
What an elegant, gracious man. Thank you for this beautifully written article.
Yale is lucky to have him, and I am ordering his book as soon as I hit *submit*.
7
Yep, the best and worst are right here in the comments section. Can't wait to read this book.
7
What on earth is going on at Yale?
11
The most significant outcome of the disproportionately rude, overreactive displays like the unwarranted abuse (the manner, not the fact of disagreement) to which some students subjected these eminent professors is to provide strident voices from the right self-righteous justification for berating all Democrats, tarring us all with this feculent brush, however inappropriately. They claim this proves "Democrats/the Left/[some less polite term] are extremists who oppose free speech," or something similar.
Conspicuous aggressive behavior of this sort makes it more difficult for the rest of us to mount a credible argument about equal consideration for all. Of course all races, ethnicities, religions, & cultures, deserve respect & consideration, but any basically good idea can be carried too far.
I personally think the Halloween costume issue has gotten really out of hand. As much as I support treating other cultures & traditions with respect, I don't think emulating another culture for fashion or fun is necessarily offensive (& I'm not talking about blackface, which has historical associations). I think it's important to use reasonable care in such decisions, asking myself if I'd be offended if someone dressed up like my culture; in general,I wouldn't, unless the offense was clearly intentional. I'm supposedly on the same side of the political fence as these students, but those professors could have been me. Is there a place for us in the Democratic party anymore?
13
Frank, you and Arthur Brooks appeared at my undergrad for "Talking Face to Face When We Don't See Eye to Eye," one of a series of events designed to shame liberal college students for living in "bubbles" when out there -- in the real world -- there were Real People, who had Real Beliefs we were apparently refusing to engage with.
The fact that you would write this article, and talk about Yale students in this way, makes it all the more laughable that you were chosen to represent the "left" to Brooks' "right." Perhaps the Overton window is much further to the right in this country than you might like to think. Perhaps those events were, actually, just two center-right "thinkers," the sages on stage shaming college students without getting to know them.
7
Not mentioned in this article, and not apparent to me when the episode originally occurred, is that Christakis is also working physician who originally worked with palliative care for the elderly which can be very emotionally draining.
Worthy of reading is his wife's article about her reason for feeling she could no longer teach at Yale, "My Halloween email led to a campus firestorm — and a troubling lesson about self-censorship." [1]
Parents pay large a large tuition to Yale and other universities and they rightly expect the faculty and administration to *properly educate* their children *which means discussing ideas uncomfortable to some.*
A part of airline safety is "Crew Resource Management" where even the most junior crew member is *obligated* to interrupt the most senior member if they feel there is a problem.
Cockpit safety is based on the "Anglo" culture. The French have a different cockpit culture as do Koreans, for example.
A major Korean airlines accident occurred because of "authority gradient" issues where the junior team members did not interrupt the pilot and a plane flew into a mountain.
Observers might say that Koreans and "authority gradient" feeds into stereotypes, but does that mean we don't discuss them?
[1]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/my-halloween-email-led-to-a-campus-firestorm--and-a-troubling-lesson-about-self-censorship/2016/10/28/70e55732-9b97-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html
5
In this context, "Disgusting" should be taken as a compliment.
11
When a portion of the Yale student body throws the kind of fit they did over a published competing opinion on the university's own halloween garb advisement you know that we may be in for far worse things than 4 more years of Trump. These are our future business leaders & policy makers. With civility now a quaint notion of the past & the Schadenfreude way permeating all areas of our social environment, it's no wonder that Americans are continuing to be classified as an unhappy lot.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2018-03-14/world-happiness-report-finland-lands-no-1-united-states-falls-again
9
I remember being appalled by the hateful aggressopm of the Yale students. I am glad this professor has not allowed bitterness to ruin him and hope his wife is doing fine.
17
If the video represents "pleas for an atmosphere in which they feel fully respected and safe," it's a par with "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room!"
6
Yale administration policy seems like, "Never wear a Halloween costume that might offend anyone anywhere. But, we're OK with an Insulting in-your-face meltdown on campus."
35
The headline of this article is unfortunate. At first glance, I missed the quotation marks around “disgraced” and interpreted the headline as meaning a disgraced professor leaves the school.
4
It boggles the mind that Yale students are incapable of self-policing their own Halloween costumes. This professor shows just how immature those students are.
19
I once got in a NYC cab with an agitated cabdriver. He immediately started ranting about how you can't trust anybody, the world is full of thieves, liars, and crooks, He was so angry. I asked what happened?
He told me that his last fare told him he forgot his wallet, and if he would wait, he'd run inside his building, go to his apartment to retrieve his wallet, and come back down to immediately pay him. So he agreed . . . but 20 minutes went by, the guy never came down, he felt like an idiot for trusting him, and was out $30.
I did my best to calm him down as he drove, he stopped ranting, and I even got him to laugh about it a little. As we neared my destination and I was rummaging through my purse for money I said, in what I thought was a mock-dramatic voice, "Oh, by the way, I, too, forgot my wallet, so give me your address and I promise to mail the fare to you just as soon as I get home."
When I finally got the right amount of money to put in that metal cradle between the front and back seat, I saw that there was a business card in it, with something scrawled on the back -- I alerted the driver -- "Hey, maybe that guy left his business card for you! Maybe you misunderstood!"
"No, it's my address -- you mail me the fare when you can."
Angry as he had been for being cheated, he didn't realize I was joking, and was ready to trust again.
Maybe Nicholas Christakis is on to something.
19
Mr. Bruni, I was informed by your peace and really enjoyed it. Thank you. However, I think that you could have used an editor who would have told you to lose the extended "buffet" metaphor. ;)
1
Perhaps you should fix that headline.
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, the part about "moving on" from Yale.
Encouragingly, it never fell; either my misreading or poor headline wordsmithing or a little of both that had me thinking Yale had booted the professor.
4
Watched the "Ted Talk". Impressive. The emphasis on goodness is much needed today in our social networks.
The student that verbally attacked Professor Christakis on the video was cruel for the sake of cruelty, not for the sake of enlightenment.
Everyone deserves their opinion. Before you go public with it, though, you should consider whether it is an educated opinion or just hot air. Or abusive vitriol.
Professor Christakis has, with years of study and teaching, earned his right to voice his opinion in public. The student was just rude.
Mouthing off to a respected professor is bad form. The student needs to earn the respect that the professor gained with years of hard work.
10
I think his perspective of the good side of mankind is very overlooked. Media put up a human interest story art the end
of a time slot because bad things rivet us . We can be glad that
it did not happen to me. If we took some time to think about the Sermon on the Mount we would know that doing good is part of our nature.
The students reaction was very emotional and I feel bad that she was made to feel unsafe. Maybe should think on her good side and how she will make that work to make the world safer for everyone. If Halloween scares she better not ride a NY Subway.
Isn't it a little punching downward for an international paper of record to publicly shame a bunch of twenty year olds for some campus rhetorical excesses from the past?
College kids sometimes go too far in trying to find their political voices and work out their social values. Does that really require us to wag our fingers at them two years later?
8
If human beings are genetically programmed to transcendentally and inherently good, then various other species of plants and animals must also be genetically programmed to be transcendentally inherently good,
Are bees better than human beings because they are programmed through natural selection to give us honey?
It sounds to me like Frank Bruni and/or Nicholas Christakis
are creationists, and are enmeshed in a God-centered, world view which is antithetical to modern biological science,
.
1
When I was seven years old we would play football in the street. One day we walked down to Lee Abbots house. Lee was an "Indian" (as we used to say in those days) and new to the neighborhood. I remember being excited to meet my first real Indian. I'd seen Indians before on the television (this was 1970), whooping and hollering with their guns and bows and arrows and tomahawks. They were something special, this primal people.
Lee met us at the door. He was a couple years older than us -- taller. He had a quiet face and thin, black hair draped across his shoulder blades. He said we could play football in his back yard with him, which was great because there wasn't much grass in the neighborhood and the jr.-sized leather football I owned was getting torn up on the asphalt of the street.
We decided to play tackle football because Lee's grass was soft. It was a great game. Lee was fast; and quick. I sprained my thumb badly at at the bottom of one of the tackle piles, an injury that would recur for the next quarter century. Finally it got dark so we all had to leave. There had been no hooting , hollering, guns, bows or arrows. Except for his long hair, Lee seemed ordinary.
Now, 46 years later, I think that then, even at the age of seven, I understood that the adult world of television had delivered to me false information about the nature of "Indians." The TV was not to be trusted. Later I learned that it's the adults -- not the TV -- who lie.
10
Humans are not inherently good. Of this, I am absolutely certain.
Humans are not inherently evil either.
No, almost all humans are quite simply cowards.
6
Our choices of words matter too. For a NYT columnist, writing about the brilliance of another academic, both of them with the benefit of the wisdom and (hopefully) some equanimity that age and experience brings, to talk about a college freshman who loses it and refer to them disparagingly as "screeching" is not quite helpful either. Which of us at 19 had the same emotional balance as at 39, or 59? Or, to turn it around, if at 59 I can't grant some space to the emotionalism of a 19 year old with more understanding and less dismissal, I'm not doing too good.
7
Professor Christakis's willing endurance of the students' anger, mostly because they did not understand the point being made, is inspiring. This was no doubt even more difficult than Mr. Bruni says.
I lived in the New Haven area and sometimes worked for organizations with links to Yale, so I would like to think I have some special understanding of the mentality there. I probably don't.
But I know that if given a chance, most people are good and caring and kind most of the time. I'm glad that Mr. Christakis still believes that.
4
The more civilized a society, the greater its appreciation of Beauty, the greater its demand for Beauty, the greater its preservation of Beauty.
Look at all truly great Civilizations: Roman, Greek, Chinese, Persian, Byzantine, Western European, etc. What do you observe? A deep appreciation of art, music, literature, all that makes life tolerable, humane and beautiful.
What is Beauty? All Beauty, true beauty has a certain harmony, a most exquisite one formed by Structure and Symmetry.
The very pinnacles of current research in Neuroscience inform us that empathy, true empathy occurs when mirror neurons in at least two people are firing exactly the same way. Empathy is Beautiful, and in Empathy we witness a Harmony of Structure and Symmetry.
Virtue is beautiful, because the tender and heroic acts of virtue, even in their little ways, such as someone being humble and kind in the face of virulence (as in Christakis' case at Yale), allows humanity to forsake the mindless eye for an eye law of justice, which ultimately results in its destruction. Virtue is beautiful because it allows the Beautiful: arts, music, literature, civil discourse, learning, etc., to endure.
I wish everyone well on their quest for a deeper appreciation of Beauty in their lives.
May we all grow more appreciative of our own fragile, beautiful presence as human beings, and the power and promise of a Beautiful Life: one of little acts of reaching reaching up to Transcendent Beauty, now and forever.
7
This is a very lovely comment with positive emotions. To clarify the eye for an eye justice which inevitably refers to the Torah, the statement is that you should take an eye for an eye, I am the Lord your God. That reflects that more is not yours to take. The application to this situation is also beautiful. Should a thoughtful man condemn his wife for as fair statement be confronted by an angry mob? That’s a face for an eye.
3
It is our inalienable right as humans to freely express our beliefs and ideas, the moment we lose this right we transition from living in a democracy to living in a dictatorship.
Millions o people died in order to protect our freedom, we cannot allow a new form of dictatorship to arise.
Ideas should be freely expressed whether we agree with them or not.
2
@G. Mimassi
there is no such thing as an "inalienable right"...all "rights" are transitory and require constant struggle to achieve and maintain.
“At the banquet table of nature, there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take, and you keep what you can hold. If you can't take anything, you won't get anything, and if you can't hold anything, you won't keep anything. And you can't take anything without organization.”
― A. Philip Randolph
As an aside, in the safe refuge of my home, and in my own thoughts, it seems to me that Black and Native peoples have had our cultures stolen and systematically degraded. And our efforts to rebuild a culture are systematically appropriated by society at large. Jazz, anyone? Blues?
That has made us more sensitive than maybe we should be of those that emulate cultural icons. Part of the problem is that Elvis got rich singing songs, and singing in a style, that Black people (and Native--don't forget Charlie Patton) had cultivated for decades. Same with the Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc. on down to today.
Does that mean that artists should not be influenced by other cultures? I think that would be a sad result--and might hasten the demise of those cultures. But is would be nice if Chuck Berry or Big Mama Thornton could earn some Beatles money.
6
Wonderful to hear that Professor Christakis has published an uplifting book on the goodness in humanity, and how we can and should embrace ideals of community, decency, kindness and mutual respect. He and his wife were treated like garbage by their Yale students. The students' behavior was shameful, and too many cowardly people--including the Yale administration--stood by and let this happen without ever once admonishing the students (who are adults, by the way) for their horrible behavior. What these very "privileged" people should know is that you can disagree with someone without insulting and screaming at them.
16
Sadly, the misplaced compassion and sympathy of Yale students and faculty are nothing new. (And are surely not unique to that university.) Just look up "The Yale Murder," which describes the wave of sympathy shown by the school for a student who bashed in his fellow student girlfriend's head with a hammer while she slept -- in 1977.
5
I got so upset when I read this that I delved into its origin. The thugery displayed by the self-indulgent, narcissistic students in the videos confronting Prof. Christakis made me sick. Several were probably at Yale benefiting from programs reserving special slots for them, arguably by rejecting more deserving applicants. To silence free speech is tantamount to tyranny by the mob. It's especially disgusting to me considering that I, a lifelong Democrat, is having to deal with a pseudo-leftist, materialistic throng pretending to be concerned about democracy while practicing fascism.
13
Your depiction of the Yale students who could not abide a dissenting voice suggests that either these students were admitted through the water polo slots, or that the Admissions committee at Yale has not, in fact, identified the best and the brightest, or that having admitted the best and brightest, these students chose to go elsewhere.
If this is a profile of an elite institution, perhaps those state colleges have nothing to fear from the competition.
15
Erika Christakis taught a couple of courses at Yale, but she was not a Yale faculty member -- there was no "academic freedom" issue at stake in her case.
She was an Assistant Master, accountable to the Yale College dean's office, and in that role her email was out of line.
As Yale faculty member Glenda Gilmore wrote in the NYT after the incident:
"No one — students or faculty members — protested Ms. Christakis’s right to teach or speak; instead, they urged her to fulfill her job responsibilities as associate master.
Yale students exercised their free speech to question the behavior and judgment as residential college masters of Erika Christakis and her husband, Nicholas, particularly after learning that they had created a similar firestorm at Harvard in 2012 when they wrote in Time: “Is a satirical flyer distributed a few days ago at Harvard with joking references to anti-Semitism, ‘coloreds,’ and sexual assault worth defending? We think so.”
After the incident at Yale, the Christakises continue to promote it in the national media at the expense of student privacy and to fan the flames of ill-informed public sympathy while portraying themselves as victims. Who is being coddled here?"
**
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/opinion/at-yale-the-issue-is-not-free-speech-but-judgment.html
6
@jb_in_nyc
How did her email prevent her from fulfilling her work obligations as an Assistant Master?
12
As a "liberal" I do not approve of lowering the voting age to 16.
I also believe that young people of "immature brains" are still old enough to know the difference between right and wrong and are, therefore, accountable for their actions. That holds for 18-yr-olds and 16-yr-olds. I hate to bring up the Nazis of Germany and the Nazi-wannabes of America and Europe - but they were and are older and more "mature" - but they ignored the principles of right and wrong and deserve punishment eventually. The fact that the younger crowd of teenagers may make impulsive wrong decisions does not excuse them from responsibility. I don't give them a "pass".
4
I am no intellectual or honored human. The professor and his wife are without question the kind of human beings those of us who are prone to “ goodness” will embrace.
MBS, Duterte, Erdogan, Trump, Yemen, South Sudan, the rohingya genocide, muslim detention camps in China, human rights abuses in Kasmir and Jammu and to end this list the sexual abuse of children and nuns all going on as I scribble this comment, nullifies any “newness” or “awakening” in the professor’s soon to be published book.
1
The video in which professor Christakis expressed sangfroid in the face of a logic-free, vitriolic indictment by a handful of Yale students for the utter audacity of his credo to err on the side of bad taste in favor of freedom of expression proves that not every Yale student is a genius, which flies in the face that Yale is a perfect arbiter on merit in this country. Unfortunately, the reality of legacy students, technical and nontechnical bribery, and affirmative action has watered down their prestigious image for being an institution of meritocracy.
7
Funny, and, I suppose, ironic, you should mention Jane Goodall. Getting on 20 years ago, one of her colleagues, Michael Ghiglieri, wrote a book arguing exactly the opposite of what Christakis contends. "The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence" makes a strong case that we're "born to be bad," as Ghiglieri puts it. Considering the premise of Christakis's book, Ghiglieri's could an enlightening read, not withstanding some of its errors and its mild datedness.
The idea that human beings are either good or bad "fundamentally" strikes me as a tad fatuous.
But, overall, given the violence inherent in our evolutionary origins and given our record on this planet to date, I think it's very hard to stand firmly on the sunny side and state that people are good. My own view is far more what Ghiglieri's is, and that in the imaginary "state of nature," humans are pretty terrible, and that it is only civilization that makes them mildly tolerable. The cooperative aspects of humanity are not ignored by Ghiglieri, but in manifest ways -- which he shows -- those too lead to conflict. Having not read his book, nor even heard of it, I feel comfortable saying that Christakis has a tall task ahead of him if he's going to change my perspective on this, which is not to say it's impossible.
4
What he and his wife were REALLY saying was that black people need to suck it up and take whatever aggression or abuse comes their way: If you're called the N-word, get over it. If you're called low IQ by the "president," get over it. If you're qualified and credentialed but are continually denied promotions, get over it.
Yale professorship do not erase racist ideology. This couple has been protected by their privilege, and we know what color that is.
4
I'll just put it out there................Why are college students still playing dress-up?
I stopped dressing up for Halloween when I hit 4th grade. I'm well passed that now.
Hey parents this is what you're paying top dollar for. Hope it'll be worth it in the end.
11
Without criticizing the article, I’d like to point out that modern biology has come to a very different view of “the evolutionary origins of virtue” — expressed more dispassionately/quantifiably as “cooperation.” Biologists recognize that “mutualisms” — symbiotic interactions in which both/all partners benefit from association — are ubiquitous (e.g., humans and their microbiomes); whereas evolutionary theory demands that “cheaters” — individual members who take but don’t give — are both inevitable and always hold an advantage over “cooperators.” As such, real mutualism should be impossible over the long term.
To square the ubiquity of mutualism in the biosphere with it’s theoretical impossibility, biologists now regard mutualism not as “cooperation” but instead as “reciprocal exploitation” — associations driven completely by the bottom lines of selfish players. Every player accrues both debits and credits; if an individual’s credits trump its debits, that player stays “in.” In other words, mutualisms are actually “marriages of convenience,” no virtue involved.
The anthropological parallel to this thinking would re-write the clause “Complex societies are possible and durable only when people are emotionally invested in, and help, one another” as something like “Complex societies are possible and durable only when people are paid enough for the effort required.” Of course, if you don’t believe in evolution, you can believe anything else.
1
Except current evolutionary biology says no such thing; as started about 150 years ago, you’re projecting the logic of capitalism (and b3hind that, patriarchy) onto ohysical realities.
1
@Robert, Uh, yes it does. Just google "reciprocal exploitation" and start reading. And reading, and reading, and reading...
(You're entitled to your own beliefs, but not to your own facts.)
"Good" people have more behavioral lines they will not cross than do "bad" people. This leaves the bad with a larger range of tactics available to them. Taking advantage of this allows the bad, in general, to dominate.
6
While I now look forward to reading his book and getting to know his and Erika Christakis' work better, and remain open to a more optimistic view of human society, actions have consequences. Yale's failure to support the Christakises in the incident, and its other actions, taken and not taken, have led me to lose my respect for Yale's academic integrity. If my children for some reason insisted on going there and ended up being admitted, they would have to pay their own way. Yale University is, to my mind, a disgraced institution.
14
I think it's a little disingenuous not to mention that Yale was not the first college where the professor was criticized for comments that were at best insensitive and at worst demeaning and offensive. He (and his wife) have a documented pattern of behavior that suggests they would benefit from reflecting on their biases.
6
Mr. Bruni, I have actually never commented before, but I feel I must, as unfortunately you have gotten this so horribly wrong. Unwittingly and honestly and with the best of intentions, I'm sure. But this isn't what happened. I always enjoy your columns and opinions, but I am afraid you have been suckered this time. My daughter was one of the students living in the residential college, for which Professor Christakis was the head. Forty odd years before, I had been a student in the same college, the same Yale. And I am very familiar with the events you report. The story has been so poorly reported as to be laughable. The truth of it is so much more complex and unfortunate and way too long to go into here. As you are a journalist with integrity, I strongly suggest you speak to some of the students who "swarmed and screeched." Their side of things deserves to be heard calmly and without prejudice. I pray you consider a follow up to this piece because this version of things is pure fantasy.
7
If they wanted their side of the story to be heard calmly, they shouldn't have swarmed and screeched. They aren't entitled to a second chance if people don't want to give them one. They act far too entitled already. These aren't people of no power. They are Yale students. Elites.
18
I'm completely supportive of policing what costumes students where. Racism is a painful thing, does exist in campus life, and we should safeguard against it. But I'm equally not impressed by the way the students involved chose to protest. Respect should always be given in civil disagreement, and discourse then can be open and free. Becoming an oppressor never leads to a positive conclusion, no matter how relevant your issue.
2
*wear
@Una
But, could you then see your way to adopting that same mode of disagreement with things that would offend you? For example, indeed, confronting the racist behavior in another with open engagement and expression of disapproval? I thought that was the position that Erika Christakis proffered in the controversial email. Part of me says, if on college campuses we can't figure out how to engage and change minds of people we strongly disagree with, what hope do we have of achieving this in open society?
4
I can’t help but think about Professor Christakis. That is, Ms. Christakis. And not just about the apparent sexism involved in this case. I’m thinking about her personal security, her peace of mind and body. Isn’t the 21st-century university campus supposed to be one of the safest places—if not THE safest place—to express an unpopular opinion?
Isn’t Yale supposed to provide a safe environment for all opinions, whether those opinions are expressed by students or faculty? Indeed, doesn’t Yale’s Mission Statement proclaim that its mission will be carried out through “the free exchange of ideas in an ethical, interdependent, and diverse community of faculty, staff, students, and alumni”?
Did Ms. Christakis feel free to express her point of view? Did she feel safe doing so? And perhaps the million-dollar question, What is Yale University currently doing to ensure that no faculty member, or student, is treated like Ms. Christakis ever again?
13
After "Varsity Blue", I question how many of the Yale students that protested Professor Christakis truly felt umbrage towards him or were merely beefing up their social credit scores for grad school and other post-college pursuits.
4
Maybe Robert Frost said it best in "Fire and Ice:"
Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great and will suffice.
2
I wish college students would use their energy to solve real problems. How many that enjoyed the thrill of self-righteous indignation while attacking the professor didn't bother to vote in the last national election?
16
One wonders why Bruni at this moment resurrected this particular incident at Yale as a way of lionizing a professor of immense privilege and influence. Surely the Brett Kavanaugh hearings have given us a view of the theatrics of white male privilege in its natural habitat--puking it up in the halls of power at Yale and reacting in outrage, outrage, at the mere suggestion that his behavior might have been life effacing for others. If blackface until recently was not only tolerated but commemorated in yearbooks in prominent universities and medical schools, why wouldn't Erika Christakis's soft pedalling of the university's own directives be suspect for students of color? Let's not forget the first African American dean at Yale was confronted just as emotionally as Christakis and resigned within the year. Student outrage is easy to ridicule and deplore; tracing the sources of it demands a sense of history and a sensitivity towards subtle machinations of power. I'm a white NYC parent whose kids went to private school and one of whom went to Yale. The racism and resentment I heard expressed towards students of color by liberal white Democrats at my children's progressive school during the college process shocked me to the core, but it made me understand all the better what a black student might face at an elite institution. Maybe Bruni should be lunching with students of color so he might better understand their refusal to be silenced by noblesse oblige.
11
But surely all students should be civil.
7
@Peeking Through The Fence - as a person who has enjoyed white privilege for over seven decades I am always astonished that there is not more rage. The rules of civility can only hold if we live in a world of true social justice. Much better in Canada, but there also not so much if one is Native American.
4
I watched the video which I had not seen at the time. I was disgusted by the treatment of the professor. The child who stood there and screamed obscenities at him should have been expelled. I use the word child deliberately as her actions said clearly that she wan't an adult. It is one thing to disagree with a professor, I often did. But we had discussions resulting in thoughtful sessions on both sides, not screaming infantile meltdowns.
23
@Jennifer So, to summarize - you say, expel student from college for not being an adult. Thank you
3
Mr. Christakis does have a point. Too much of our attention is on the ugly side of life: murder, violent crime, fraud, theft, wars, Trump. We have grown as a species by our communities.
I don't believe people are fully innately good. I believe we are complicated, with warring impulses and drives. I have not read his book, so I do not know where he comes down on those. He's not wrong to say that we don't focus enough on the good things, though.
85
@Jacob Sommer
It's interesting that Mr. Christakis is highlighting virtue and our capacity for it, yet it is the angry manifestation of the students' mistaken virtue that produced his encounter with them in the first place. Being righteous does not mean you are right. And claiming victimhood does not mean you are a victim. In his dialogue he apparently was calm and kind, perhaps he should not have been.
10
Also, those students who decided to be racially offensive under the guise of Halloween should have apologized to every person at Yale.
2
She and he were very right - and the pupae were wrong.
In two or three decades they will realize that, and will understand how their "PC pendulum" had oscillated way too far.
10
I agree with Mrs. (also Professor) Christakis, and I am surprised by the outrage her memo evoked. I wonder whether we focused so much on political correctness in the 90s and 00s that our children feel it is their duty to be enforcers of it now. If revelers at Halloween wore Nazi costumes, I trust enough of their peers would have expressed disgust and a lesson would be learned. Distinguish this from MAGA hats which are meant to provoke antagonism. Professor Christakis is right, and I applaud his bravery at allowing dialogue to prevail over the mob. I hope those students learned a lesson.
12
Wow, the 2015 Yale video is quite disturbing, and I give Mr. Christakis much credit for his apparent restraint.
As a facilitative mediator I watch things like this and wish I could have a 30 minute dialog with the woman doing the yelling (as long as she didn't start yelling insults at me!). I'd explore things like what her goal was, what was she trying to accomplish. If trying to persuade, or win hearts and minds, does she think her approach achieved that? If not, why not, and what might be a more effective approach?
I assume she was just venting and wanted her target (which is what she made him) to feel her anger. But she likely accomplished nothing constructive, and made some of us progressives hang our heads in embarrassment that we all get lumped into that type.
16
Thanks Frank. Wonderful piece.
6
Could someone please explain what defines "cultural appropriation," for I truly do not understand. I would love for everyone and anyone in the world to dress up in Indian ethnic wear. That's nice, no?
In India, we wear clothes that are traditionally not those of our community all the time. For instance, I wear North Indian salwar kameez, despite being South Indian. You like something, you wear it. Why's that bad?
389
@NK
The Iranian government hates the West, but its leaders dress in suits and ties.
24
@NK 10 minutes on the internet will answer your question with more depth. But here goes. Generally when people complain about cultural appropriation, it comes out of the context of colonialism. When one culture has a tradition of subjugating another culture, then their appropriation of the dress / music / symbols of that culture just feels like another form of theft. It also can feel like a trivialization, because these things are often taken without regard for their deeper social significance. Sacred symbols become mere fashion for the colonialists. At worse, the whole enterprise can imply mockery. As in minstrelsy.
65
@NK Cultural appropriation is the idiotic idea that no one can do anything outside of their own culture. People in Italy cannot eat pasta, because that is from China. Black people cannot read books, because books were invented in Europe. No one except Peruvians can eat potatoes. I once had someone tell me that non-Indians cannot buy Indian stuff. It is a repulsive and stupid part of the SJW insanity of today.
129
The people like the ones who attacked this man are what sent trump voters to the polls in droves. And they will likely get him re-elected in ,2020.
15
The shabby, mindless, mean-spirited treatment of Nicholas Christakis and his wife by Yale students will be an enduring blot on that University. It makes one wonder about the competence of Yale’s Admissions Office that it admitted and nurtured so many students who demonstrated such questionable judgment and bad behavior.
23
Halloween costumes? At Yale? Considering the tuition and supposed caliber of students attending such an esteemed institution, this is a bit sophomoric. Perhaps instead of sporting costumes and yelling at professors these students should grow up.
12
Being good it's a lot of work.
But as the namesake "Chistakis" provides the roadway to being good. Religion provide the moral foundation for the consideration of other people well being. The name is irrelevant, I could have easily been Mohamanis for Abrahamanis that matter. It is not about the faith one's practice, it is about practicing any faith limiting our impulses enhancing our selfishness.
It's easy to be bad, just give in to your impulses and there you have it, any current university campus atmosphere. Self absorbed and inmmature
Please don't be lazy and misinterpret selfishness with Capitalism. Self interest is humane! A person does not hurt him or herself because it would hurt those around us too. People care about others. Hence the foundation of religion.
If there is a better tool to modify one's impulses, I am listening.
2
Not long ago I was to attend a costume party. Not having a clue, I improvised, deciding to lampoon the seemigly mandatory, clone-like, all black (except for one element!) uniform of the Art Professionals who had been the bane of my career aspirations.
I bought a knockoff pair of trendy glasses; I crested my hair; I donned an exotic scarf, over my stretch knit top; stuffed my fat rump into an approximation of skinny jeans, bottoms rolled to give a tease of my scarlet socks (this was ten years ago). To carry it to the extreme, I tossed green Mardi Gras beads around my neck.
Stopping to buy beer along the way, in a working class neighborhood, nobody looked at me twice. At the party, actual Art Professionals, assuming I was one of them, and was therefore exempt from the mandatory costume, hovered and stared, trying to place me. Every other young art student "hit" on me for future career support, refusing to believe that I was just in an adopted persona.
This is my backhanded way of relating to the Through-The-Looking-Glass feeling that Prof. Christakis must have had with his Yale debacle. Even though he didn't write the memo, and didn't run from the crowd, he got torpedoed; In my case, since my usual garb is t-shirt and jeans with uncombed hair, I thought I was sort of writing the memo and baiting the mob.
For me it was satire; but everyone just thought I was a gay Art dealer --including the gay Art dealers.
10
The students in the video look utterly ridiculous, screaming about Halloween costumes. That level of fragility and self-righteousness is an embarrassment for any university. Does Yale bother to reflect on the criteria it is using to admit students beyond their test scores (or ability to buy their way in through bribes)? It's also notable that most of the students shouting at Dr. Christakis were women. Had the genders been reversed, and a group of men had been screaming at a lone female professor, I suspect there would have been all kinds of implications drawn about sexism, angry (white) males, and the patriarchy (see article in today's times, "How the Patriarchy Got in Our Heads" by Salam). Is it possible Dr. Christakis was treated unfairly on the campus of Yale by screaming female students because he's a man? Let's hold everyone accountable on equal terms. These women screaming obscenities and hostile threats at a man do not get a pass. Let's stop with the hypocrisy. In order to achieve true equality and an elimination of patriarchal power, which is desperately needed, women will need to stop assuming the victim is always female and own those situations in which women, too, have abused power.
19
Good luck on that one with the current Democratic presidential candidates.
We are on track to get Trump re-elected.
That’s enough to make me feel nauseous.
6
Personally, I decided against attempting to build a career in academia a few decades back and went into one of the traditional professions. I made that decision after attending a couple of faculty-student social events at which I sensed that there might be some nastiness in the academic infighting that I saw a slice of.
This story out of Yale will I am sure do the same thing for many young people making career choices today. Life is too short for this nonsense!
8
I think Frank, for the Democrats. dichotomy is the problem. Too many opinions, so too many choices. Not to be cliche-ish but I am, “ too many chefs spoil the soup “. -dP
2
The crux of the issue is that we (Americans, westerners, young people, millennials, etc.) don't have good EQ. It's not our faults, really. We were just never taught how to feel our emotions and communicate them in non-aggressive ways. Instead, we unconsciously project them outwards and onto others ("a grievance looking for a cause.")
We see this dynamic playing out across all of western society - in hyper-PC culture on social media, at Trump rallies, at the voting booth, in viral videos of two people of different political makeups yelling at each other, in the 2015 incident referenced in this article.
It's a scourge, and it is killing us.
11
When Peter Singer was hired by Princeton, and addressed the pragmatic concern of unlimited need vs. limited resources in regard to medical care, students and community literally chained themselves to the gate at Nassau Hall. The chant of "death panels" was heard far and wide from people who had never read his academic thesis. Sound familiar?
In a civil society, no Trumpworld, good people "discuss" controversial issues in order to arrive at a just and equitable solution. They do not senselessly pillars or riot or hate-monger. They do not Tweet like ignorant, racist, imperial Trump.
The art of discussion and compromise is rapidly being lost to the knee-jerk of blind partisanship and uninformed prejudice. I challenge Americans to seek their better angels (if they have them) and to stop this destructive war before it becomes armed street fighting. Not holding my breath as long as Trump and the Trumplicans are in office.
12
Shades of another Yale product - 'The Greening of America' by Charles A. Reich. Nearly 50 years ago and we are not going in the right direction ! But I read it with hope then.
I will read this book and likely be sparked. Hope over experience . But the only thing I remember in detail from Professor Reich's book was that we would all be wearing Levi's all the time soon. Tim Cook got the message but still most men my age look better in a pair of khakis or grey flannels.
For those that can remember that era 'Greening' was a minor bible. Sadly most who read it went on to embrace Mammon with more fervor than we have cared for our fellow man.
Feels like chickens are coming home to roost - and they are not friendly - but maybe Christakis is right. It would be swell to see Yale apply this attitude to their home field of the City of New Haven.
1
The point that has been missed here is the idea of young people policing themselves, having self control and knowing a racist, bigoted act from one who is not. To believe young people do not know right from wrong does them a great disservice. That's what the Yale professor was getting at. Not that racist statements should be allowed as free speech, but that the young people themselves know when they are being racists, and also have the power granted by free speech in themselves to refrain from those acts. More laws sometimes just makes more criminals. That you cannot legislate morality is the point.
10
If the "insensitive" costumes had been offensive to Jews or evangelical Christians -- it's not hard to think of possible examples -- would we be hearing this same scandalized outrage at student behavior, from presumed defenders of free speech?
Consider that mere expressions of support of Palestinians, and criticism of Israel, is enough to end an academic career in the U.S -- which doesn't appear to trouble this chorus in the slightest.
8
Exactly.
All these people in the chorus really want to do is silence speech they don’t want to hear.
She published a memo that she knew was going to be controversial and put her husband’s imprimatur on it. Who needs to toughen up??
2
Wow was this blown out of proportion. It started out as, hey kids please think about what you are doing, and snowballed into admin/faculty being accused of condoning open racist expression. Given what is going on in VA right now, a real world sidestep would have been, hey kids you all have bright futures and the internet is a thing so I'm not telling you what to do with your costumes because you are grownups but 1) do you really want to be called on to resign from an important job because of it someday and 2) do you really want some campus student groups on your tail over it. As an employer I'm very tired of being asked to police other people being sensible and respectful in their interactions, and think there is something to the idea that if colleges keep policing this stuff people will never learn to police themselves (or suffer the real consequences).
3
I am a liberal, in fact I'm very liberal, but I have found that there is no group more self-serving, self-righteous and vicious than the these far-left groups of young people. They consider themselves superior to all other human beings and they are absolutely right about everything. You cannot talk them because any thing you say, even when you are agreeing with them, will be torn to pieces and not only deemed wrong, but inferior. It is best to simply say nothing to them. They are beyond redemption.
19
The abhorrent behavior should not be tolerated on any campus or other places for that matter. No one should stomach vulgarity and insult in the name of freedom of expression. It is hurtful and uncivilized. And it is not okay.
6
" culturally insensitive Halloween costumes, "
Anyone insulted by a Halloween costume should dress as a snowflake. Year round.
10
I intend to read this book as I tend to have the same optimism about humanities basic humanity.
I must have forgotten some of the Halloween story at Yale. It is hard to believe that we have become such a Nation of whiners.
On the right t rump encourages his brave independent macho tough guys to whine about their loss of privilege and that emotional sting. On the left we see whining about being insulted about costumes?
4
I can't see how these social justice warriors are going to walk themselves back to civility without feeling like they've compromised their morals or succumbed to oppression by the white / male / hetero /whatever power structure. Having worked in an environment so SJW / PC that it drove me out in 10 months, I feel that these people will group up, narrow up, alienate everyone else and possibly even lose elections for causes they love in order to stoke their purity.
9
As long as you have, both religious fanaticism of any kind, any group, or individual ruling over another, without basic rights to freedom of speech, freedom from governments that would arrest, assault, kill, or imprison an individual, for no reason, you will never have peace of any kind. It is the nature of human beings to be tribal, but being tribal assures that it will keep the peace, over the truth. The age of the internet has just made it worse, in that those who can go online and commiserate their anger, misery, and goad each other to commit hideous acts of violence, whether directed at individuals, groups of one kind or another, or in the workplace, school, church, mosque, synagogue, on a train, etc., are making it a dangerous place to be for any individual. The suppression of people by authoritarian governments, which have increased among countries, and the fact that there are many millions killed each year, by civil wars, and the starvation that goes along with them, gang, and drug wars, and the average everyday killing of individuals by spouses, boyfriends, road rage, neighbors, doesn't mean things are getting better. They are not, they are worse. In America each year, 1 million females are raped, and over 20,000 people are murdered. We are not moral, nor do we have an evolved ability to self control, as the digital age gives almost everyone 5 minutes of fame, and too many want it to be about them, and violence.
3
@Gregory ... Halloween is not a school-sanctioned event. If a student organization were to host or incite a racist, homophobic, xenophobic, etc... event, then yes, the school would be wrong not to defend the opposed/belittled, and would be wrong not to severely punish the aggressors. This incident was no where near that situation. Neither teacher was advocating for proactively offending another person. All they were arguing, correctly IMO, was that restricting freedom of expression - whether tasteless, hurtful, crass...whatever... is in fact a very slippery slope specifically when it is not in the direct purview of the University (in this case).
3
Maybe we should have a National Outrage Day. Oh, wait. That's everyday in twitter America. Outrage is our national emotion.
6
A mob is a mob, no matter the skin color of the participants or their socioeconomic background. Having a brown or black skin doesn't automatically confer righteousness, nor does being poor confer nobleness.
8
These kids attending these colleges who have to be sheltered from everything apparently will never be prepared for life in the real world. I pity them. I blame the parents who dropped the ball on this. These snowflakes should collectively form a country where everything will be perfect until it isn't. Good luck in life you will need it.
3
Kropotkin already made this point in his book, Mutual Aid.
3
He read books about equanimity in the face of injustice. “I did not want to become a different person,” he said. “I certainly did not want to become embittered.”
------
Everyone endures a certain amount of injustice, of course. In my case (and of many others I know) it was getting a disease from a drug/medication that's pushed on almost a third of all Americans, but in most cases, like my own, with no proof of benefit. Then the denial that the disease was caused by the drug, then acknowledgement that it was, but the drug continuing to be pushed on others, then years of diminished strength, pain, and a certain degree of unavoidable isolation. At the end comes death, as it does to us all, but more slowly, and yet sooner.
I've identified most clearly with people who've been unjustly imprisoned: first a wrongful taking away of years of life; then incredulity, sometimes even from formerly close friends and family. Many variations on the theme, but little variation in the constant pain, fatigue and sense of loss.
So...what books did you read to avoid or diminish embitterment and to maintain, insofar as possible, equanimity?
1
Pursuit of intellectual honesty is the best revenge. Professor Christakis is a man of honor and integrity. What he espouses is sorely missing from the extremes -- whether that takes the form of a Fox viewer or a social justice warrior, both of whom have no use or understanding of nuance. How comforting to know that an educator is interested in education and not politicizing every aspect of life. Rather, with an open mind and years of interdisciplinary curiosity, he is able to see the good in people, even when confronted with the most miserable reactions. I plan to read Blueprint and wish for a better future - I hope the shameful, angry, aggrieved mob do the same.
1
College kids have been trying out their political voices since time immemorial. These kids have always gone to excesses in their philosophies, their sensitivities, their demands, and their tactics. It's nothing new and it is healthy for them to figure out the limits of advocacy and rhetoric by sometimes stepping over the line, much in a way an infant learns to yell before it learns to speak. This is just how children develop into young citizens and its a good thing that we should nurture; it is certainly nothing new to this generation.
What is new to this generation is the internet and the ability for their excesses to be transmitted worldwide. In the past, silliness like this could be contained to the campus and quickly forgotten, save perhaps with a wistful giggle looking over a dusted-off college newspaper years later. Today's college kids can have their political oversteps published worldwide instantaneously and recorded and accessible to everyone in the world for the rest of their lives. They also can have opponents and opportunists from across the political spectrum jump on every misstep to wag their fingers in an act of global public shaming (and for that matter continue to wag their fingers years later).
If there was a bad actor in the story, it wasn't the kids or the professors or the university; it was the media and commentariat (including the commentary we just read).
5
I wasn't aware of the controversy of this professor, but looking online of the email details that his wife penned, it sounds almost benign:
“Nicholas says, if you don’t like a costume someone is wearing, look away, or tell them you are offended. Talk to each other. Free speech and the ability to tolerate offense are the hallmarks of a free and open society.”
She assumes young adults should have the agency to deal with offensive subject matters since, god forbids, they are in college now, and in Yale, no less. I somehow don't see the red-meat issue here. Am I missing something here?
23
@tiddle I think you are assuming that the student would be coming from a place of equal footing in starting that dialogue, and the professors perhaps also failed to realize that many students of color may have already felt that they were seen as interlopers, less likely to be believed by campus security or people in authority if a conflict arose, already on edge from an awareness of being one of a minority of black students, and being aware of how incredibly privileged some of the white students are, as we've seen in recent admissions scandals.
2
There is no word moved overused than "privilege" in identity politics. I automatically stop listening when I hear it now. It's catch-all nonsense.
8
@AverageJane, There will ALWAYS be things in life that are intolerable and offensive. (Does anyone seriously think the one in our highest office - the one in White House - is not offensive and insufferable?) The best way to go about it, is to expose the offenders (those in the offensive costume). His wife has it right. If you feel offended, call them out, expose them, and social media has made it so easily exposed. The blame game to the professor and his wife is really just "shoot the messenger."
2
As a long-time ACLU member, longtime activist and feminist from the 70's, I could not believe that students who claim to be for justice would lower themselves to abuse anyone and deny them an opportunity to err. This is why we now have Trump and people who instead of using their intellect can only act as victims of mass hysteria. Kudos to the Professor and Erika who can still give others the benefit of doubt and their right to err.
29
While free speech is important and college students can be criticized for sometimes going overboard in their reaction to offensive words/imagery,
*the most egregious violations of free speech - for example the removal of anti-war voices from the corridors of power and national discourse, the grudging acknowledgement of racism and sexism that kept whole populations out of academia for centuries*
are only beginning to be spoken about.
So let's keep things in perspective.
When an issue is finally allowed to be raised after centuries of suppression, some voices may come across as shrill. But the issues and voices remain legitimate, nevertheless.
8
The original story that brought Nicholas Christakis into the limelight was a watershed moment for me, a student of the late '60s and '70s. It took me more than a head-spinning moment or two to understand the moral: Here were students fighting for *less* free expression, not more. Most of the rest of the country may have been ahead of me or it may have been behind; but soon everyone would understand: these kids wanted "safe spaces." My blog conveyed my amazement: https://kcroes.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/yale-students-are-poorer-than-their-parents-poorer-sense-of-humor-poorer-tolerance-poorer-judgment/. Most of us now also understand how it happened. And the recent exposure of "bulldozer parents" is the perfect denouement.
10
I guess Yale is not what it used to be.
Now, it is just another second-tier school, largely because of gerrymandered admissions.
16
"It is not he, she, them, or it that you belong to."
Bob Dylan, Verse 9, "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" Album Bringing It All Back Home.
When discussing "community" I mention the above line from Bob Dylan's song. People don't seem to know of the song or the refrain.
This is one NYTIMES book endorsement which will push me to read it. Thank you Nicholas Christakis for taking up the bright side, and reasoning that it is at least not them, that I belong to.
3
I used to believe in the inherent goodness of people then Trump won with a minority, based on racism and hatred, winning by colluding with our hostile enemy, encouraging everything that is wrong with the human spirit.
The world order is rapidly flipping to authoritarianism, gaining traction by encouraging popular hatred of immigrants from "everywhere else" and there seems to be nothing anyone can do.
There is no more balance of power in the U.S., no balance of power in the world, no balance of power among the superpowers, and no more generosity of spirit in too many human hearts.
Religion is contributing more hostility and conflict to the world than ever; hating others in the name of a mythological god is the new cult.
I'm supposed to believe we're basically good? We might survive, but it won't be easy, and it won't be "nice".
5
I remain deeply troubled by this paradigm. Yes, to say humans are good is a start. (Maybe this is a story of his personal survival? I could understand that. Most in the weird YouTube spotlight need compassionate healing.) But here here! If this is about a teachable moment: adult leaders (especially those at the dais, a mic, or a publisher), the proclamation of goodness alone is absolutely insufficient. Sadly that is how this professional arc appears, at least as Bruni (a hero of mine) characterizes it. Like Jonathan Haidt's tag on the first amendment, this kind of stand-your-ground & aim to 'move on' (in society's privilege) is a pretense of deeper understanding and new practices. Back up for a second: human interactions change people. Two hours speaking to these students did change Christakis. Hence moments ripe for transformation call on leaders to invite youth, in a growth mindset, to truth and reconciliation (& it may take a career). Today college students are appropriately demanding transformation. It's been 400 years since Jamestown was founded. Decade after decade, it's been about time. Maybe Christakis wasn't up to the work (I will read the book to find out!), but adult leaders - actors and witnesses alike - who simply 'move on' leave but a wake of tragic loss of opportunity. The only Springtime hope here is that the wake does again lay bare the path for the next. I sincerely hope that the hopeful who, who's got next, opens that new road, and we all actually see it.
3
Everything is harder to see through prejudiced hostility. Listening with open minds to someone who has thought things through for 40 years rather than 1 or less is a good start. I think Yale students are up to it. We should not defend their actions because they see a problem, and very incompletely. Listening can help. Trying to find value in another’s thoughts, religion, culture should be emphasized in those places where people can change the world. A liberal arts education should teach people more than anything else how to think through problems in different rigorous ways.
2
I'm thrilled that Yale gave him a Sterling Chair, which tells us the university is not so whipsawed by radical students or PC. But I'm not sure I agree with the thesis of his book. What we call "tribalism" may be the most powerful force in human society whether in a band of a few hundred neolithic people or a sprawling modern industrial nation like our own. The trick is to promote and sustain rules and norms that channel loyalty to the "tribe" into positive behaviors. And that ain't easy.
7
The students were wrong, the professors were wrong. The professors should have apologized for any anguish they caused students, the students should have complained as they wished but been polite or civil. That the professors could not apologize for the needless anguish they caused is saddening to me.
The needless anguish the professors caused should be remembered, since they have not apologized. Specific student incivility should be remembered and apologized for.
6
@Nancy
Needless anguish? Professor Christakis's wife encouraged students to have a good time on Halloween, to use their own best judgment as to the appropriateness of their costume choices, acknowledging the transgressive, mischievous quality of the holiday, and to civilly address any offense to their sensibilities with the offending student. It is very, very difficult to imagine how such an unremarkable bit of advice would leave anyone anguished. The temple shooting in Pittsburgh last autumn inspired anguish for many; what happened in Christchurch last week is the kind of gut-wrenching horror about which we should all be anguished. An email from a faculty advisor concerning Halloween costumes--that's nothing. The students engaged in profanity-laced tirades against Professor Christakis should have been expelled--and he should have, by rights, read them the riot act. If anything, what Mr. Bruni characterizes as the professor's "keeping his cool" struck me as an embarrassing capitulation to behavior roundly deserving of swift and stern condemnation. I am delighted that Professor Christakis has now been honored with a Sterling Professorship, which confirms that Yale itself understands that this man has no business apologizing to anyone.
19
@Nancy
I totally disagree that the professors should have apologized, and if the students' feelings were hurt, well, that's life. The professors were entirely within the bounds of civil discourse in an academic setting, and hoping to initiate a productive dialog on a contentious issue. They deserved a lot more consideration and respect than they got from those students (and from Yale). Just because the students' point of view was passionate does not make it correct. And if "Your opinion offends me, therefore you must apologize and be fired" becomes a valid argument, heaven help us.
13
@Bob M "Heaven help us" is far from overstated. As a college instructor myself, I couldn't sympathize more with your remarks. I'm less inclined to say of hurt feelings, well, that's life--although it can't be denied that the world won't cater to our sensibilities, and part of what college, in particular, should do is prepare people for participation in the marketplace of ideas--which isn't always gentle or solicitous. But the thing is this: There was nothing in Erika Christakis's email that should have been hurtful to students, and there was certainly no cause for anyone to take offense at Mr. Christakis's handling of that infamous confrontation. The students in question could scarcely have been treated with more patience, kindness and benevolence. It's the hair-trigger will to take offense that has made spirited discussion of controversial topics from a range of perspectives effectively impossible on many college campuses. Heaven help us, indeed.
3
Mr. Bruni, thank you for daylighting the trend to quash all debate of so-calledd sensitive topics. I’m glad most ot my education took place before the boundaries of “us” versus “them” hadn’t been shored up and set in concrete.
So I was NOT prepared to toe the line of political correctness when I returned to do graduate work more recently. Ha! I expressed a perspective on the death penalty in one class and was promptly pigeonholed as a pariah. I was really just asking, just curious to hear others views, to have a heathy debate. Oops. I quickly learned that there was only one view, and no one was willing to even discuss it. I was nonplussed. This was a good university. It hurt.
Since my program was clinical psychology, I tried to unpack what drove this narrowmindedness. I think it’s fear, and the unwillingness of people to confront that which they fear.
In the context of the Yale story and of students in university today, it seems that many overprotected young people haven’t had the opportunity to honestly acknowledge what makes them afraid, let alone build the muscle to grapple with it. It drives them into little identity or tribal groups. I’m sad for them.
21
You hit the nail on the head. Maybe every angry statement could be responded to by “What are you afraid of”
2
The mystery of the intolerance on college campuses in recent years might have just been solved by another college scandal. We have snowplow (or is it bulldozer) parenting to thank. They raise kids who have never been crossed, and who probably listen to way too much NPR.
I don’t share the professor’s bright-siding of human nature. Sure, we have our beautiful, fun, loving aspects, but I don’t see them extending further than a high school clique.
The relevant red flags are: why we are such shills for consumer capitalism; why we are falling into performative workaholism; we do we not vote when our organizational agreement is to do so?
We do just enough so that our collective life doesn’t fall apart. So far. The professor needs Positivism. I’ve been done with it for decades. It is not necessary for a decent life. But this book of his is smart from a marketing perspective, given what he and his wife have been through.
Did Erika get her job back? That would be a real happy ending.
6
The good in human nature is overlooked because our societies have outgrown the conditions that created it. We developed as small bands, living together in close communities where it was possible to know everyone and feel responsible for each person there.
The evil in human nature comes from a countervailing trait to the good that was baked into our natures. We loved those within our community, but hated those in other communities. They were dangerous. They were evil. They needed to be feared. They deserved to be attacked.
Now we live in vast communities, not small, intimate ones. We often don’t know the people around us, which makes us more prone to fear and anger. Because we don’t know so many of the people around us, that negative, fearful dimension of our natures has more room to assert itself. This is even further exaggerated in cases where individuals, for any number of reasons, are socially isolated. This isolation allows alienation to grow and create fear of the other, that evil twin built into our natures, creating individuals who are prone to strike out and attempt to, in their warped view, protect themselves.
Fear is also amplified in vast communities as it is aimed at those within us who seem different, only amplifying the isolation already present, and raising the potential for anger.
We aren’t meant to live like this, so we have to work remember to allow our better natures to prevail.
7
I agree that human beings as a whole must be "good" to allow functional large scale economic and social units. Most of us must agree with the overall vision of our society. At the very least most of us must pay our taxes most of the time and be relatively lawful.Most of us must agree to treat our fellow citizens relatively equally.
But I disagree that this means we are "good" at the core. We must be educated to do these things. We must be "civilized".
In primitive hunter-gatherer societies, both remote and recent, approximately 40% of males died though violence. Thats what human beings do when following their genetic heritage.
1
@bobw If what you say is correct, that 40% of males died through violence and if those were disproportionately young (with few offspring) and if that propensity is carried in our genetic inheritance, then we would expect this tendency toward violence would become weakened over time. That is, males with less of a tendency to violence would out-reproduce those with more.
This is an elite male loved by elite males. The history of the predations by this group on the rest of us and Earth biome doesn't suggest they are possessed of transcendent goodness, although what the rest of us have had to endure and do to survive at all was due to goodness and the ability to look the other way as we were being abused and enslaved. True to form though, this one is claiming goodness is inherent, but which of us is it inherent in?
7
Wow.
"Piloried"? He was criminally assaulted and the New Haven Police should press charges. I hope they do.
Amazing that he found a positive take on the experience.
9
Society has reached a point where we're debating what Halloween costumes are allowed? This is nuts.
22
Why are college students even dressing up for Halloween? It’s time to row up. Do you think Santa still brings them presents? I wouldn’t be surprised.
12
@MAS: Because some people still have a zest for life and believe in having fun. Others are perpetually on the lookout for microagressions and live to rip people apart for the slightest perceived slip that (supposedly) causes them anguish. Never mind that these phonies are anguished 24/7 to begin with.
9
How is it that there are still people who respect an Ivy League degree?
6
The title of this article is a bit misleading, unless you are aware of the incident and his relationship to it. Before reading it, I thought it a given that he was 'disgusting' and that he was leaving his job.
2
I did not grow up in this country, so sometimes I feel perplexed at the action and reaction of these things. Here is a video showing exactly how to harness free speech to explain things from a minority perspective in a light-hearted manner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZkphjQUvzc
Question: if white people dressed in blackface and "Indian" garb is free speech, will black/native-american people dressing in whiteface and mocking white cultural traditions be equally tolerated? If not, then this is not a free speech issue but a minority oppression issue and to test this, all minority students have to do is provide the counter-examples on a regular basis, with witnesses and cameras involved to protect themselves legally and physically. It forces the hand of school administration on what is at the heart of objecting to reasonable recommendations for not being racist.
2
Two thoughts: thinking about Northram and some of those other Virginia politicians, some students really did need some reminders about culturally insensitive costumes - though that’s a pretty mild description for kkk and blackface.
Also I expect most of that group of students is pretty ashamed of their behavior by now. Maybe they understand more about mob psychology now and how to interpret some of the trump rally participants. I hope so.
8
There are inherently good people. There are inherently evil people. Rules keep the former group in control.
Reread Lord of the Flies.
2
Frank et al: Racism in America is as old as the country itself, enriched and built up by slave labor. In the age of MAGA, Yale was right to tell students to watch it. This couple was wrong to make light of other people’s oppression. Some ivy students live with near-constant police harassment. Wasn’t it at Yale that someone called the cops because a black student was in the dorm? Incarceration rates, harassment, and violence are the norm, not the exception. How about costumes of child molesters at the professor’s daycare? Oh, it’s not funny any more, is it.
6
There was very little difference between the way Yale students assaulted Christakis and his wife and how the Trump supporters yell at the press and about Mrs. Clinton at Trump's rallies. Christakis was subjected to thuggish mob violence and out-of-control political correctness. "I disagree with you. I am offended. Therefore you must be chastised and fired. My offended feelings outweigh your right to hold your opinion and your right to hold your job." Shame on both out-of-control mobs.
21
I had not seen the video until today. I was appalled. The students’ lack of good manners obscured whatever points they were making. If the good professor had shouted, told the students to SHUT UP, and used their foul language, the mob would have lynched him.
9
@Amy Apparently Free Speech is allowable for only a certain few. Pity these students who when they graduate must now face a world where people will occasionally disagree with them or a boss who tells them NO. They are in for a very rude awakening.
3
So she wrote a memo that basically said each student should be responsible for the choices they make regarding Halloween costumes.
And they accost her husband for THAT?
Colleges today truly are LEFT WING Snowflake factories!
10
You skipped the part about the sexism and misogyny attributed to him and his wife.
7
It’s a norm. It’s not that important and the proof is that Trymp is still in the Oval Office.
Kudos to Yale for making amends for their Cancel Culture edict ("If your mom orders you to clean your room, that's an order. If the king asks you to do it, that's an edict") politicizing and racializing Halloween.
I wonder how many of the students who protested have ever attended a toga party, or worn a green shirt on St. Patrick's Day as they got falling-down drunk. But I guess since Romans and the Irish are white, they're OK to stereotype as lushes.
7
@Charles As someone stated earlier, why are they still playing dress-up/ Perhaps that's the crux of the problem. They still think they are children and in a way they are. Their parents didn't prepare them for life.
3
Under the whining guise of "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings," freedom of expression, and civilized debate in academia is being destroyed.
11
This is moral relativism and identity politics combining with a bunch of kids who weren’t loved enough by their civics teacher. I hope our liberalism can outlast the Liberals. I’ve got kids that I am raising confident enough to withstand insult and to whom I’d like to pass along the First Amendment.
4
@Ed Fontleroy
Then your kids should be fine, it's a shame the parents of these tender children didn't do the same. Kudos to you!
The video shows an ad hominem attack. It is verbal abuse, verbal violence, verbal aggression. Psychological rule of thumb is to stay inside your own skin. I feel ______. I think _______. I believe ________. I am _______. I disagree because _______. I have PTSD and DID yet I have never behaved like that. Inexcusable behavior on the part of the student.
7
The spineless progressives that now run Yale should look to the history and traditions of their owninstitution.
Students are there to learn. Those who show no respect for the institution should have been expelled.
3
This article is one of a few recently that suggest that some at the NYT may be starting to realize the left is going too far and is becoming what they most fear. It’s about time!
6
What a mensch!
6
If you think the students were getting overwrought over trivialities, I would suggest you do the intellectual exercise of substituting your own ethnic/religious/political/racial group for theirs, and see how that makes you feel.
One commentator said (and I paraphrase) that it used to be okay to wear blackface but not any more. I daresay it used to be okay among whites to do so, but not so funny at any time if you're black.
4
Thanks, I needed that.
2
Thank you Frank, well done.
1
I grew up in New Orleans, with its Mardi Gras and Lent, its dissipation and discipline, its costumes and disguises. A culture without fantasy and festivity is a bankrupt culture. A college campus without polemic and response is a travesty. Ivy League students once protested poverty, war, pollution, and racial injustice. Now they throw tantrums because somebody wears a sombrero on Halloween? That's not collegial. I had a student, a fundamentalist Christian, who attacked me and another student because that other student had the temerity to present a well-researched TED TALK in class on religious satire that was audacious enough--imagine!--to include examples, including Christ on a donkey with its double entendre. Heresy! the Christian shouted to anybody who would listen. No, I replied calmly, secular education. Satire's intent is to offend. You want to respond? I said. What we have after the presentation is called discussion. Discuss. With collegiality. Festivity and fantasy are still alive and well in New Orleans, but not so much in New Haven, where liberals have hissy fits, or on my college campus, where it's conservatives who can't bear to hear anything that goes against their vapid ideology.
13
I suppose that few, if any, Yalies are Christians nowadays, so I won't run the fool's errand of bringing up the Golden Rule and thereby gain any ethical cache, moral heft, or intellectual validity in my comment via that dead end.
But are they not even Kantians?
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can will that your action should become a universal law."
-- The Categorical Imperative
What, then, I wonder are their ethical guidelines, their moral foundations? Are they neither spiritual nor philosophical? If so, they have thrown out the baby with the bath water.
All that's left is situational ethics or cultural norms. (Going with your gut or acting out of habit, however, are better descriptions, I suggest.) Neither of which possess anything objectively valuable or redeemable. Nazis boasted that they thought with their blood.
Maybe the Yalies involved see further than the rest of us, perhaps a new Jerusalem or Athens. If so, I can't suss its parameters from their behavior.
Thus, to me, their actions seem inexcusable. Nonetheless, maybe they'll respond in some forum or format and I'll learn of the new way, the new truth. Perhaps it's: If anyone violates our strict, but commonsensical guidelines, you have the right and the duty to correct them with great energy in whatever way you see fit and to do so till they have seen the light and become wise in our brave new world, the one we are creating. To resist is to sin. Go ye forth and spread the word.
3
In her 2017 blog post "unpacking the Yale Halloween Scandal", Jodie-Lee Trembath, then a PhD candidate at Australian National University relates this telling exchange between Dr. Christlakis and the students:
“We’re humans – great! Glad we understand that,” says one student, “but your experiences will never connect to mine.” Exasperated, Christakis addresses the crowd: “If you don’t believe that I can ever understand what you’re saying to me, then why do you stand here demanding to be heard?” And, in response, an anguished voice wails from within the crowd: “Because we’re dying.”
https://thefamiliarstrange.com/unpacking-the-yale-halloween-scandal/
There is much we can learn relevant to our political divide from her trenchant observations about how two people can experience the same event from such differing perspectives that even in conversation, they become unintelligible to one another.
5
I don't think so!
1
A previous Times article reported:
“You should step down!” one student shouted at Mr. Christakis, while demanding between expletives to know why Yale had hired him in the first place. “It is not about creating an intellectual space! It is not! Do you understand that? It is about creating a home here!”
That's delusional. Yale is a university, by definition an intellectual space. Not a home. Yale may want to rethink its admissions process and recruit students who are looking for intellectual inquiry instead of, apparently, parenting.
15
The over-reaction to a contrary opinion re: stupid and/ or insensitive costumes should not have generated the over-reaction that it did and it should not have cost this professor her job.
It's one thing to cultivate sensitivity, but we shouldn't be forced to live with restrictions from the thought police that dictate behaviors that can be subjective.
I am not in favor of Nazi uniforms - such as Prince Harry once wore and even thought funny - but it generated a conversation that reminded us how important knowing history is and the consequences of such ignorance.
A dictatorship of the well-meaning is still a dictatorship.
5
Looking forward to reading the book.
In our business we have been burned by individuals who seek to take advantage of our generosity. You can't help but remember them, yet sometimes forget the decency of the everyday 99% of people who help with our business and help all of us enjoy life, have a family, look forward to the future.
We've been burned, but if we ever start to focus on that 1% who will always take advantage, that's when we stop the job that we do. It's more fun to live not worrying about who may take advantage. It's going to happen. It's a 1% risk that stings, but the 99% always come around to soothe that wound.
Here's to living without fear. Or less fear.
Have a great day everyone.
3
Learning is messy, it’s not about coloring inside the lines. One of the privileges and benefits of living on a college campus is the opportunity to experiment in a relatively safe community. Young adults broaden their awareness through intellectual, emotional, and social experiences which are temporary; yet upon reflection in later life do have greater value.
Whether one’s process of growth and integration is Christian prayer or Buddhist meditation or love of nature or passion for music, or whatever, it is possible for communities to grow through civil discourse and the intention of love. The first step is to show up and tolerate the discomfort of disagreement, which apparently this professor has done quite well. I will seek out his book.
2
This is the Blueprint of wisdom not shared in classrooms or the media as it resonates understanding and is innate despite ourselves and our inherent dualism. Mr. Bruni perpetuates this with the title to his latest musing, an unfortunate title filled with the irony of tomorrow’s sunshine despite the reign of the dark media and academia’s apocalypse promoters.
Nicholas Christakis and his wife fleeing the ivy prestige is evidence of the closed state of intolerance dwelling contentedly at the university where tolerance, ideas and accountability once flourished. This is the new leftism stamp on the culture where the making of another blueprint, much more draconian, is underway at warp speed, a freight train on the way to oblivion cheered on giddily by politicians, the media, and professors.
There is another path.
1
Individual humans are overwhelmingly good. I don't think anyone can look at the people around them and not conclude this is self-evidently true. Aside from the vanishingly rare sociopath or serial killer, we are instinctively helpful and friendly to one another in one-on-one interactions. Yes, normal people do behave badly on occasion, but it's very much the exception - especially when it comes to interacting with people who we know, but are not intimate with.
The trouble mostly comes when we start grouping up, and particularly when we start distinguishing ourselves by that group affinity. This is what leads to the vast majority of bad human behavior. Group affinity is the tool by which we escape our natural helpful instincts, because by dehumanizing someone else you give yourself permission to treat them inhumanely. It is what creates the mass delusions that allow otherwise good people to do incredibly cruel things to certain other people while remaining their normal, smiling, friendly, helpful selves to others.
3
I look forward to his book.
My starting place on society isn't how all societies differ, but where they are all the same. What is the commonality? What is the commonality between today's society - any one of them - and the society of 50,000 years ago?
And, no. I never confuse "material culture" with human "core values". One doesn't need a 'smart phone' to 'communicate'.
And 'philosophy'?
Not once have I ever agreed with any philosopher's starting question, and it's a head-scratcher how they ever came to 'that' conclusion.
Yes. I look forward to "Blueprint".
I might wind up actually agreeing with a part or two.
Hope so.
2
You know what would really help bridge this gap? If the people writing these articles and calling for sympathy for the Christakises weren't all white. There's a sense that the voice of young people of color who were the other half of this incident is being left out when it's just older white people having this conversation in the media. If the Christakises were really as open to discussion as they claim, why not create that dialogue by giving some of the students in the video this huge, mainstream media platform to express their views, instead of just creating dialogue between the Christakises and NYT columnists/white moderates they represent? It's not just enough to acknowledge the students' stance in passing like Frank Bruni does in this article. There needs to be more reassurance that they understand the experiences of students of color on college campuses and our stake in this incident. Like, are they aware of the racist incidents at Yale the same year and in the years following the Chistakis controversy? Like when a black grad student had the police called on her and when a fraternity was accused of turning away black women at a party? I know the NYT values diversity of opinion but do all of its centrists and conservatives have to be white?
6
@Alyssa Why do you assume that people supporting Christakis are all white? I am not! How you do determine the race of a person what they write?
6
What helps bridging the gap is thoughtfulness which doesn’t have a color. It is something we can train ourselves to do. Maybe the teachers can ask their students to make a positive comment first before criticizing another. They can grade on that. Probably not too many instances to count. Might help in the workplace they want to enter.
Often people who pick up a cause for something they have no experience with, knowledge of or patience to understand are the most hostile to new thinking because they get comfort from their thoughts and it challenges those feelings but that is the gasoline on the fire of hate and ignorance that is mob psychology
1
When I went to college I worried about getting good grades so I could keep my academic scholarship. Without that and a part-time job I wouldn't have been there. "Culturally insensitive" Halloween costumes? Apparently these kids need to face some genuine adversity. There won't be any speech or dress codes to protect them when they enter the real world, and if they graduate from Yale without learning that, they will not have gotten a complete education.
By the way, you have to wonder if the brilliant Yale faculty and administrators who come up with these "edicts" realize how much they are doing to encourage the dangerous contempt so many Americans seem to have developed for "left-wing" academia.
13
Obviously, we as a species manage to be vicious towards "others" and "supportive" of our own- defined in various ways.
If we have learned anything during the "clash of civilizations" that began with the collapse of the cold war, which in a way organized nations of the world, it's that comity is not the inevitable future of humanity.
Two ways to view mankind, one as a variation of primates, the other as made in the image of God. The two can't really coexist theoretically. As the USA official motto is now "In God We Trust" rather than the previous "E Pluribus Unum" we are struck with the battle of one persons mythical truth against another.
We've gotten away with this absurdity for a long time, but with a demagogue who is feeding on this mythical base, it may not continue.
2
For some reason, people wan to cheat and bribe their way into Yale. That aside, I am sure that Christakis had to see the conflict with students coming. Yale is in the vanguard of what has gone beyond political correctness. They have been pushing correct politics. They have a faculty that in its heart of hearts believes that conservatives should not even be hired to teach, so wrong is their thinking. These elite schools do not teach open mindedness, as much as they teach single-mindedness, all while taking billions into their endowments by enabling privilege masked by exquisite virtue signaling.
6
@TD. Donald Kagan, also a Sterling professor of history and recently retired, was a well-known conservative on the Yale campus since 1969.
The only explanation for the over reaction of the Yale students is that the well known preference that ivy league colleges give to legacies, the rich, and the connected to power has reached the point where there are no students left who are actually admitted on merit. Most ivy league schools had a program (called economic diversity) where they would admit at least 10% of the class from middle class or less backgrounds whose families could not hope to compete with the gifts and connections of the typical ivy student. Obviously they have narrowed this window. What the professor described is simply the typical behavior of the spoiled rich who now seem to control Yale campuses. If he wants to experience what normal students act like he can teach at any number of public universities where the majority of students are admitted on merit. I think he will find a much more tolerant atmosphere.
2
Odd that Mr. Bruni is defending this couple for the rights of those wearing particular Halloween costumes. Yet, Mr. Bruni is comfortable with censoring the voices of scientists that present data contrary to the "conclusions" of the CDC, alerting the population to the dangers that vaccines may pose. You can't have it both ways and think your are open-minded.
3
Yes you can. These professors are espousing certain views on social issues, which are subjective. That is not the same as a group of quacks promoting junk science that has been proven repeatedly to be hokum. People don't die of political correctness.
5
Would that these same students protest so vehemently against their alumni who are major Trump enablers and such a threat to our Democratic institutions: Bret Kavanuagh, Ben Carson, Wilbur Ross and Steven Mnuchin to name a few.
6
Who wrote the preface for this book you've cited? It seems the author is picking up on themes that Richard Rorty argued. I mention because in choosing the word 'shows' : "Blueprint 'shows' that humans are pre-wired..." it seems similar to Rorty's thinking, in that, argument in academe protagonism is circular thinking.
I left off with Richard Rorty's philosophical work. I haven't read anything by Richard Rorty yet.
It is important to remember that Christakis was more or less defending his wife's position that the wearing of a blackface or "culturally insensitive Halloween costumes", on Halloween ought to be tolerated, that we shouldn't be overly sensitive to racism. For his act of "bravery" in the face of such "abuse" he has been rewarded with an honorary professorship and an Op-ed promoting his new book; and no one dare call his wife a snowflake. I hope the student protestors have fared as well.
7
The students weren’t pleading for “an atmosphere in which they feel fully respected and safe.”
The students were aggressively disrespecting anyone who didn’t follow their dictates. They attempted to gain power & control over everyone else around them, including faculty & other students, by making it unsafe to fail to submit to their whims.
The Times always portrays identity politics Lefties as having reasonable & admirable goals, instead of showing their actual goals: power, prestige amongst the woke, unearned advantages & rewards, self-righteous self congratulation, & demonization of the other.
10
The young lady in the video was rude and condescending. It is important to remember that this took place around October 2015, before Trump. It was also before this year’s media fueled kerfuffle over the Virginia governor wearing blackface in the 1980s.... in college!
A millennial couldn’t be more ironic. If colleges prevented students from wearing politically incorrect costumes in the 80’s, the Virginia governor wouldn’t have that blackface picture in his yearbook!
Watching that video, I can’t help but think the student yelling at the professor had a personal history with racism that was intense enough to overcome her civility. I will say that I feel her outrage every time Trump is anywhere near a racial or sexual issue.
There is one difference, though. The professor had a different point of view from the student and came out specifically to communicate and to try to find mutual understanding, if not agreement. He politely listened to the student. Trump would simply tweet insults to activate his racist base and watch the conflict with the gusto of Gomez Adams watching a model train explode.
2
"Political Correctness" is running amuck in the West, but it is something else in USA. It is a symptom of a deeper issue: the blind worship of "individual freedom" of all sorts.
On YouTube is a 2017 talk by Fudan University professor Zhang WeiWei's at Berlin's Schiller Institute. He explained "the China Model". On one of his charts is "Priority of values: East Asia vs. USA (based on D. Hutchcock's survey, 1994):
Priority in "East Asia" vs "USA"
(1) "Social order" vs "Freedom of Speech"
(2) "Harmony" vs "Individual rights"
(3) "Accountability" vs "Individual freedom"
(4) "Open to new ideas" vs "Public debate"
It summarizes and explains very well the P.C. excesses as exemplified by the treatment of Nicholas Christakis and his wife at Yale by the students, on other campuses, and everywhere else.
No respect for teachers and elders is spreading. Recently on Canada's CBC radio, primary school teachers complain that they are subjected to escalating violence from students. Imagine how these kids grow up and roam campuses. It's a serious cultural problem. Surely American primary teachers share similar experience.
Keep these in mind when the issues of censorship, the great fire-wall, and how hatred is propagated through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc come up.
2
Has anyone read any reports that directly interviewed the students at this infamous event? The only one with whom I discussed it, had a totally different take on it, than the one that gets repeatedly reported. Perhaps, the Times should send a reporter to interview students who were present and who lived in the college where Christakis was "Head of College."
3
The anger roiling the campuses in the Ivy League will probably lead history's view of them in the 21st century. This insanity is completely preventable: when a student acts like these goons, he/she is sent home within 24 hours.
Remember, Delta is ready when you are!
4
Only those who have an inferior product fear the free marketplace of ideas.
6
The kids see the adults as immoral monsters.
The adults see their own future irrelevance and are similarly disgusted.
Why in the world would anyone take a college student seriously?
7
@Futureman EIU '79 because the failure to treat college students like competent adults hinders their ability to become competent adults. Also plenty of college students have actually accomplished pretty impressive things.
5
I am disappointed in how many of these comments call minimizing black face and racist costumes "a minor issue." It is only minor if you are speaking from a place of privilege, where you never had to fear for your own safety because of racism.
7
Who are you to determine someone else's "privilege"? Maybe all the people supporting screaming Yale students are the privileged. They seem to think behavior normal people can't get away with is perfectly acceptable for elite students.
Just watched the video; had missed it years ago. Wow. I have to say I found it shocking. That little twit screaming at Christakis is the over-privileged one. She's at Yale for pete's sake. And she's such a hothouse flower that she's undone by a Halloween costume?? God help her out in the big wide world.
12
“To accept this belief that human beings are evil or violent or selfish or overly tribal is a kind of moral and intellectual laziness,”
It’s also a fact. But then, ivory tower types have the liberty of ignoring this.
1
He is a hero.
5
I recommend a lecture by Michel Foucault on the word “parrhesia” given at Cal Berkeley in 1983. To speak ones truth requires risk.
“For too long ... the scientific community has been overly focused on the dark side of our biological heritage ... The bright side has been denied the attention it deserves.” The professor is apparently ignorant of the extensive research by primatologists and other behavioral scientists on prosocial behavior in humans and other primates. He might start educating himself with the new book by Frans de Waal.
2
I am disappointed that the Times repeats the mischaracterization of the original Halloween letter as an “edict” from the University when in fact it was an email from an intercultural affairs committee that simply “encouraged” thoughtfulness when selecting a costume. Big difference. A suggestion is not an edict.
3
@Beth Myler
Sometimes a "suggestion" should be interpreted as an edict. And I suspect this example fits within such parameters.
4
Maybe those Yalies hadn’t read Lord of the Flies (or, chose not to read it because it might make them feel uncomfortable).
They would have learned of the vicious propensities of children - here, armed with social media instead of mere rocks
6
I look forward to reading this book. Thanks for presenting this material; for making the personal efforts to get to know and to understand IT. Your "summary raises a number of challenges: How best to enable to BE come sufficiently aware and sensitive to the entrapment. of an either/or weltanschauung. Good-bad. Harm-help. Right-wrong. Open-closed.WE-THEY. An all too human learned oversimplification. Which offers too-early-closure; answers which avoid confronting the frustrations of the “quest” inherent in creating and exploring legitimate, necessary questions. Many, perhaps, being unanswerable. As well as risking experiencing “failure-blindness,” in a lifetime trek of “Fail better” in order to… Amidst ranges and continua of…How do any of us effectively engage with reality’s operating-dimensions of uncertainty? Unpredictability? Randomness? Lack of total control, whatever one’s timely efforts? If and when each of US, ourselves and with others, choose to contribute to making a needed difference? One which can make a sustaining difference! Given toxic human complacencies. Harmful complicities. Willful blindness? Deafness? Ignorance? In global cultures and worlds, near and distant, void of active-personal-accountability. BE ing aware, using semantic, visual,etc. languages, transmitting unvalenced data, derived knowing, created understanding, and menschlich DOINGs, of inherent flaws. No representation IS, can be, what it was created to represent. Describe. Explain. Explore.BE!
1
Self-righteousness is always ugly, and kindness is always beautiful.
1
The great majority of people are basically ruled by their amygdalas (the most primitive "reptile" layer of the brain). This is responsible for anxiety, fear, hatred, fight or flight responses, selfishness, distrust of those unlike yourself, and a compulsion to want to follow a strong leader. For the past 10,000 years, civilization has arisen as a veneer that allowed the original hunter-gatherer families to live in larger, sometimes cooperative, communities. Even then, the veneer is easily punctured and tribal groups will divide & kill each other over trivial matters like even minor disagreements in social values or religious doctrines. Professor Christakis addresses the veneer without peeling it back and seeing what never stops roiling beneath the surface. Fear (which breeds hatred) of the "other" has always been with us and, I suspect, always will. As long as this is true, the good Professor is blinding himself to the 9/10ths of the iceberg that lies beneath water level.
In some areas of the country, some professors speaking up for abolition would have received the same treatment as Christakis. In other areas, professors speaking up for slavery would have received similar treatment. The same is true today on hundreds of issues of values, morality, & politics. If there is ANY issue on which people disagree passionately, the mobs will cry out for scalps.
Dear Mr. Bruni,
Your piece on Professor Christakis (and also remarks about Professor Erika Christakis) moved me. That the Professor went on to write what appears to be an extraordinary piece of scholarship about the inherent goodness of humankind moved me. That you reached out to him, and that he responded, afterall he and his family went through (I was there) wells the heart. "grace and goodness" as all of us walk a "jagged line" . . . Gosh I admire you and I have long admired them.
7
The Yale incident was a glaring example of the scourge of self imposed fragility that infects a significant number of undergraduates today. Particularly troubling is the failure of supposedly intelligent and ambitious students to perceive the hypocritical aspect of their outrage, shrieking invective at a professor who credited them (erroneously I guess) with intellectual and emotional strength, viciously attacking him verbally while complaining that he did not afford them a “safe” place shielded from exposure to difficulty. Used to be that we went to college expressly (but not only) to learn to confidently tackle complex issues head on, regardless of their historical, social or political “danger”. We went there to learn - to think clearly and rigorously, to assess ideas and information, to marshal coherent, disciplined arguments in favor of a well thought out opinion. Not to hide from challenges.
8
The freedom and opportunity to use good judgement - especially at our nation's elite schools - is necessary preparation for life itself. If we don't raise students who are prepared for far, far greater conflict than someone's provocative Halloween costume, what are we doing? We live in a world where offenses routinely include AK-47s, suicide bombers, and politicians who lie straight through their teeth. Are we really preparing students well if they grow up in a soft bubble of unreality? How will they lead our country through the rocky shoals of earth at large?
8
Thank you, Frank Bruni. I have tears in my eyes, but in a good way.
4
For people "hard-wired" for kindness & compassion, we have a very strange history as a species. Yes, a tragedy like the Titanic brings out extraordinary heroism & compassion for others sharing the tragedy. But, not long after the Titanic sunk we were embroiled in World War I, an essentially tribal war, with millions dead & tens of millions suffering. I offer a telling quote from Abd Al-Rahman III, Arab Emir & ruler of the Caliphate of Cordoba, Spain in the tenth century:
"I have now reigned about 50 years in victory or peace, beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot. They amount to fourteen."
3
Thank you. I just ordered the book.
I've been addressing my ego issues around judgement and resistance. I'm starting to wake-up to where the need to be right and wrong comes from and practicing acceptance of myself and others.
May we all find peace in every moment despite the external cues that say we should react with anger and judgement.
10
Hmmm...so there is not only goodness "on both sides," as our deeply learned and psychologically perceptive President would say, but goodness on all sides? And particularly in the heart of a sterling Sterling fellow who though chastised by the unwashed was able to rise above it?
Oh how jolly: ours IS the best of all possible worlds, burn your Voltaire now!
2
We can only hope he is right. Evolution, after all, takes longer than a tweet. A lot longer.
1
I’m a Yalie and I’m proud of Prof. Christakis. We can choose, I suppose, to believe in the evolution of virtue. Or I suppose we can choose to believe that small group identity is innate and outward-turned negativity is the norm. But there’s no contradiction between small group identity and universalist aspirations. These days, if we don’t care about the large group, if we don’t retain some cohesiveness, we are going nowhere. And that is scary.
10
When you bite the band that feeds you, you usually starve.
1
Yet another Bruni column denouncing what's going on on campuses . . . geez, maybe find a new topic? How many students did you talk with before writing this? Are you sure that all people who write books about being good are morally above the rest of us? Are you so sure the students can't possibly have a point, and can't possible be right to ask for a different approach from their residence leaders, different from the sad email sent by Christakis' wife, where she seems to say that because she is a childhood experty she knows that the kids are being childish? Keep blasting away at camuses, Frank Bruni, and one day Trump will get what he wants--universities to shut down. Then where will we be?
3
Could you explain how exactly she says that? Can you be specific, please?
Glad to read that Yale awarded him the Sterling Professorship.
11
Two of the students in that video later received prizes from Yale for improving community/race relations.
7
Trying to understand the whole purpose of the article and what this guy did I’m drawing a blank. Halloween costumes and tide pod cry babies who need a safe place with coloring books. A rude ignorant handful of cursing ungrateful State recipients, I don’t get it. That’s 5 minutes I’ll never gain from thanks for nothing...as usual.
4
Political Correctness, wow! Screaming, privileged brats. No where do I hear a description what is PC or it's origins: it's Communist International in origin: comrade, you are not following the Party Line, there is only one acceptable opinion, bang, bang. PC is NOT another name for politeness
While going out of one's ways to insult or offend is not nice - Trump does it several times a day - however, to muzzle ourselves for fear that we shall offend some one would result in a world of mutes.
As for cultural sensitivity: the ruckus at the Boston MFA over a wooden replication minus head of a Sargent painting of a white woman dressed in a kimono. visiting women could place themselves behind it their heads showing. Young people screaming cultural appropriation. I of MW European ancestry complained to the museum after I saw a group of Japanese tourists DRESSED in European clothing!! How dare they??
What a stinking world!
5
The toxic mix of Tribalism, Victimism and Absolutism on the far left and in academia as well as on the far right, has left our country far more nasty, brutish and ignorant.
7
College students dressing up for Halloween? Must be a Yale thing.
6
This is all close to madness. A tyranny of the few...students so bereft on intellectual tolerance or perspective. I followed the confrontation , at the time, and was struck by the sheer Crucible nature of it all. Zeal without reason is a frightening thing to behold. The animus and lack of understanding for the process of " liberal" discourse is stunning. She simply disagreed with the students outrange at Halloween costumes. And for that , all this was done. This is the Cultural Revolution, the Jacobins returned. Gone is debate, the strength of argument , the emergence of a reasoned idea or position. What is happening to us as a nation is simply hard to believe.
When we look back the the child soldiers in Cambodia, the Hitler Youth, the unspeakable cruelty of MS 13, it all seems unfathomable until we understand what young people , convinced to the point of parody, are capable of.....Burn Them They Are Witches.....not so far away.
10
Humans are genetically wired to be tribal - which means total loyalty, support, generosity and kindness to members of your own tribe combined with total cruelty towards members of all other tribes.
2
This was an almost perfect article on a learned man's positive response to incivility and attempts at social censorship. Where it fell down was in the third paragraph, where Mr. Bruni stated that the incident was described as a battle "between free expression and many minority students' pleas for an atmosphere in which they feel fully respected and safe." There were no pleas involved, only screaming demands, and no question of their being fully respected and safe - at Yale, and because they had some kind of hyperbolic disagreement with something the professor's wife had written about Halloween costumes? It's moronic on its very face, and perhaps the professor should have said this outright instead of making nice with what really are appropriately called "snowflakes". By the way, were all these swarming students members of minority groups? I doubt it, but that's the impression one would come away with when reading this. This is going on all over the country, mostly in elite liberal universities, where only one opinion is to be countenanced, and if it is not the students', then it simply must not be heard or discussed. In other words, the very opposite of what a university education is supposed to foster and engender in its student body. It's great that Professor Christakis maintains his positive view of humanity, sad that Mrs. Christakis thought it best to leave the same university, and tragic that intelligent civil discourse is no longer to be found in our seats of learning.
9
I do not condone the students rude and hysterical behavior. But, as an anthropologist I understand the power of cultural symbols whether in Halloween costumes or displayed by bigots. Our multicultural society requires sensitivity, especially towards any “new” groups that have not yet been accepted by the majority. Perhaps “old” groups are not hurt, Jews, southern racists with whips, gays, dumb blonds or whatever. Sikhs, Native Americans, Asians, Hispanics, may be. It depends on whether the costume celebrates or demeans. I have seen people dressed as abortionists, Nazis, rapists, etc. what does a costume reveal about the wearer and those who find it entertaining?
4
Every year brings us more information on how the elite schools recruit their student bodies. And the info ain't pretty. Lately we've discovered that fake athletic credentials and creative photo-shopping along with a gratuity can get you in the doors of Yale and Harvard. But should that shock us? Geo. W. was a Yale graduate, Ted Cruz was an alumnus of its law school as was former Texas A.G. Dan Morales recently released from a Federal penitentiary. Then there's Juan Sanchez, "welfare entrepreneur" and detainer of migrant children, who apparently found his calling as a human parasite while matriculating at Yale. And its faculty? There's former Harvard President Larry Summers and Obama golfing buddy who once famously declared women's brains can't do math and who brought us the 2008 financial crash. You've also got Glenn Hubbard at Columbia's Business School who distinguished himself as an avid celebrity booster of unrestrained real-estate speculation for the price of an honorarium. So now here's Dr. Christakis who lately played martyr to a a mob of preening Yale malcontents incited by the prattle of a women's studies course insisting that humans really aren't that bad. Small comfort to the huddled masses of stateless Rohingya people or the Yemeni children with missing limbs courtesy of bombs made in Garland Texas.
4
Sounds reminiscent of the late Hans Rosling's "Factfulness." Everything is not as bad as you think, once you ground your thought in actual facts.
Much, much ado about utterly nothing.
2
The lefties at Yale and elsewhere are raising a generation of angry brats that will eat their young if they commit the most heinous of crimes -- a different point of view. This is just the modern burning at the stake for heresy. Funny how Berkeley and Yale are now probably the least tolerant places in the Western hemisphere.
4
Halloween costumes...really? A memo was circulated about Halloween costumes. This is what Yale professors are concerned about? This "elite higher education" stuff is kind of lowbrow. Maybe the cure is with the admissions process and not accepting inappropriate costume wearers in the first place.
It's just so dang hard to overcome stupid.
5
That hysteric episode at Yale should have been the nadir of PC culture. Sadly it hasn't. A Democrat presidential candidate Beto just made a "confessional apology" a la cultural re-education for a joke he made about not being able to raise his children with his wife.
Loosen up folks. We're getting sour and crazy.
5
Reading this, and Pinker’s “ Enlightenment” is uplifting , in an age of Trump..... ‘This too shall pass’.
No need to overanalyze You had a mature sensitive intellectual vs an immature mob fueled by pure emotion.
Reason wins everytime kids.
4
"Good heavens a Yale man!"
- Thurston Howell III
5
Maybe these students should save their rage for voter suppression, gerrymandering and police murdering people instead of obsessing over Halloween costumes.
4
The thing about the backlash of Kavanaugh's Supreme Court hiring was the matra "Hey, hey ho, Kavanaugh has got to go." Everything has because so dramatized. It's difficult to know if Amy Klobuchar's questioning was staged. I would hope it wasn't.
It's just too much drama.
The student in that video should have been disciplined by Yale if not outright expelled. But of course in these days of political correctness, blame the old white guy.
4
And what of the foundation of Judaeo Christian thought: the depravity of man? That's the whole reason we need a Savior or Messaiah...or so we've been told...since the Bronze Age.
2
Basically the professor was defending blackface. Yale wanted its students to stop being racist and these professors thought their time would be best used defending the right of white people to continue terrorizing the rest of us.
4
@gdf..."terrorizing"?
Good grief. This just reeks of calculated bad faith.
5
Thank you!
I respect Mr and Mrs Christakis....no matter how supremely stupid their “Halloween Memo.”
Blackface is very very deeply morally offensive. Erika Christakis, a professor at Yale, did not know that, and defended the practice. That really is disgusting. So of course was the puerile swinishness of the students, but to fail to describe her offense truthfully was a journalistic misdemeanor, if not a felony. I expect better of Bruni.
4
@whim Did you read Ms. Christakis's email? She never mentions blackface. Perhaps you can re-read her email and then cite when she does this. Otherwise your comment could be considered a misdemeanor, if not a felony. Or simply misinformed.
3
Where did she defend any such thing.
3
That happens when you allow certain kind of people to a place where they won't assimilate.
Thanks to this article, I look forward to reading "Blueprint" and delving into the author's points. Privileged colleges like Yale and Middlebury, I believe, where an invited speaker was chased out before any speech could be made, any discussions made, shows the angry mob mentality of righteousness. It is ironic that these privileged students believe their thoughts superior to others as a right rather than as an opposing side to an argument. This does not lead to learning, of course, but is a hallmark of current political views where freshmen/women congresspeople can label others freely and willfully using the power of their position. There is a certain contempt for the center in these arenas which may help explain the popularity of certain candidates like Beto O'Rourke.
3
I find the comments which attempt to generalize the story to some movement by “the extreme left” to silence uncomfortable ideas to be missing something. A group of students, at a single elite university, is just that. They are generally 18-22 year olds from comfortable, if not also very wealthy, well-connected families. Given when the event occurred, nearly all of the students involved in the incident have left the protected environment of an elite private university and are now most likely making their way in “the real world”.
Here’s the thing: elite private universities like Yale and the other Ivy League schools have always been protected environments for the young adults of the wealthy elites. At best, all the Ivy League schools put together provide higher education to a couple of percent of students getting such an education. That these institutions can do well continuing the “snowplow” parenting style that wealthy families traditionally and historically provide to their offspring basically says nothing about the more than four thousand other institutions of higher education in the United States, nor about the students at those institutions.
What happened to the professors over this incident is somewhat tragic in an institution that publicly prides itself on intellectual pursuit and the exchange of ideas. It is not representative of any larger “left” perspective. It is unfortunate that it gives some with an axe to grind a cherry-picked outlier example.
2
This passage tells me all I need to know about the lack of standing this professor and his wife have to comment on the university's stated position on racist acts by students: "Although he stayed calm — which he attributes to years of training in karate and its premium on self-control — he was rattled, deeply, by the encounter. He soon took his first sabbatical ever." If this doesn't speak of privilege I don't know what does.
3
A sabbatical is not a vacation and is awarded to pursue research and creative work. Sounds to me like he earned it. The privileged behavior was by the students; secure in their immature world view, whatever their socioeconomic background.
8
@SP from Penn State sabbatical guidelines (similar to those of many other universities). "A leave with pay (sabbatical) is a privilege." Within the construct of university systems, I'm sure he has worked hard for it. You and I are both pointing out that in general those who are white and wealthy have layer upon layer of privilege which we frequently mistake for hard work in the context of U.S. history. I had shock to the system recently when a young black woman checked me out at a Goodwill store in NYC. Her shirt carried the slogan "The Dignity of Work." I have been thinking pretty ceaseless since then about the irony and repugnance of this inadvertent judgment of the white and privileged about work conducted by people whose labor built the wealth and capital that allows the white and privileged to live comfortable lives with choices.
2
So if you take karate and have a job that allows for sabbaticals you are “privileged” and aren’t entitled to an opinion on certain topics? What if he quit karate and took up crochet? Would it be ok then?
1
Professor Nicholas Christakis stepped out to meet a mob. As expected, this turned out to be a mistake. Everything he attempted was prejudged as being wrong. In those circumstances, he had no option other than to dig a deeper hole for himself. You don't have to read Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew to know where we've seen this kind of thing before.
2
While the late night e-mail response made by Erika Christakis does not literally advocate the position of Megyn Kelly, namely blackface is ok as a Halloween costume, it precisely allows for this position in its refutation of any norms guiding Halloween. Many comments here appear more shocked about students' outrage over this insensitivity than the insensitivity exhibited by the white elite represented by Nicholas and Erika Christakis. It is telling that this event occurred in 2015, anticipating the current political and cultural climate in which racism is openly condoned.
4
Thank goodness it's still possible to debate something in the United States without resorting to an AR-15. Someday we may even progress to the level of the 1960's, where students shut down campuses to protest the social causes they believed in.. Today's students prefer to no not make waves, lest they don't find a job after college.
2
Please, people... people are alluding to the president, they are alluding to 'human nature', but missing from the entire article and every comment I've read is any admission that this ugliness is a trapping of the left.
4
There will always be disagreements about human nature. However, whatever it is, it is helpful to consider what Hegel said about freedom being the recognition of necessity. By this he meant human actions exist within frameworks, systems, and constraints. This is view is useful for understanding how human nature is manifested in our best or worst ways. It suggests we should not only focus on whether Professor Christakis, or anyone else, is right or wrong about human nature; we should also try to understand necessity. As for those who were so full of themselves and obnoxious in confronting this brilliant man and good soul at Yale, it is likely most of them had personality disorders masquerading as positions of substance.
6
The fact that we are hardwired to be social doesn't imply that we are hardwired to be moral. Morality grows out of group expectations and norms. These expectations and norms can be skewed in any direction to service the survival of the group. There is a certain part of our brain which rapidly recognizes the 'us' as opposed to the 'them'. Politics and shared culture reinforces the 'us' vs. 'them' differentiation.
Look around the world today and can anyone doubt that, in many respects, politics is organized hate? It often appears that alliances such as NATO promote peace and stability for a while and this must surely be moral. Unfortunately, even moral-seeming alliances and coalitions are fronts for reinforcing the 'us' vs. 'them' paradigm. The path to a broader moral existence of universal compassion is difficult. World religions have wrestled with this notion for centuries, but they too often have fallen prey to the same old 'us' vs 'them' game.
2
The students' treatment of Prof. Christakis & his wife is very reminiscent of the Red Guards of China back in the 60s. They went further, often resorting to physical abuse, & Mao used their revolutionary fervor as an excuse to banish anyone who might threaten his preeminence to harsh detention centers for 'reeducation.' This kind of behavior will stifle free speech & is dangerous & could invite a backlash which is even worse. Interestingly, Xi Jinping's insistence on controlling both speech & access to information in China might be partially rooted in the abuse his father, a once powerful communist official, received from the Red Guards.
13
I'm disappointed that Bruni doesn't seem to entertain the possibility that some of these Yale students might just possibly have had a point, or that a strident, even over-the-top presentation might not invalidate an entire argument, or that NC's own arguments as Bruni excerpts them demand taking the students' concerns seriously: "complex societies are possible and durable only when people are emotionally invested in, and help, one another."
4
@KW, we look forward to reading one of the students' book on the topic to counter the arguments made by their professor. They are all Yale grads and certainly have the privilege and means to get punished as well. I recall the student shrieking at him before storming off was famously from a wealthy town in Connecticut and had a home with close to a million dollars. A book can get published for just under $2,000 so a bargain compared to her Yale degree.
5
We interviewed some 1960's former student activists more than 20 years after the 60's had faded.
Several had been Weathermen, and two of them recounted individually that in hindsight, they had gotten caught up in this "power thing," They had no idea anyone would listen to them at first, but when students did, they kept ratcheting up the rhetoric and antics, always rather amazed that they gained a following.
Plus, within the group they competed, showed off, and egged each other on to determine who could be the most outrageous.
Much like Donald Trump, I would say.
Professor Christakis indicated: The problem occurs when followers give up their critical thinking and give themselves over to a mob mentality.
I had a frightening "conversation" with one of our Trump- supporting family members this weekend. I had not talked to her in quite awhile. She has given herself over to Donald Trump and whatever Fox News and Rush say. She now thrives on bashing liberals and went nuts over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She used to be one of the nicer and saner members of the southern wing of the family.
This all seems to happen without thinking--and that's the problem!
12
What a thoughtful, poignant column. I have been thinking a lot lately about whether the far left is becoming so extreme that it meets the far right in a circle. I am a progressive and Democrat, and long for the time when there was room for discussion, and not the demand for everything to be politicized. I find myself policing my thoughts with friends who are super liberals as much as I do with friends who are on the far right, in order to sidestep subjects which have come political word bombs. This is disingenuous on my part perhaps, but I treasure friendships, and want to keep the peace. We need to talk......
18
@Diana: Nihilism is ambidextrous.
1
When the voting age was reduced to 18, the reason was old enough to fight a war. Through the courts, minors have been defended as having brains not fully mature, of not being able to fully understand the consequences of their actions (successfully). In politics today, liberals now want to reduce the voting age to 16. College students now think they have the right to control what is permitted on their campuses. As strange as it may be, I agree with with the lawyers.
2
The line of good and evil does not run between groups, men and women, liberals and conservatives, majorities and minorities. It runs through the heart of every human.
It is the job of a just society to encourage its members to seek out the good and reject the allure of evil. At our best, we strive toward this goal by placing the highest value on the good and admonishing evil in our words and actions. It is a process meant to take place in the public square through free and open discourse of ideas and reinforcement of the best ideas through establishment of social norms. We enforce those norms through our interactions with each other, sometimes requiring courage and sacrifice to stand up for what is right.
Erika Christakis had the courage to remind us that the more we yield the moral compass of our culture to institutions and bureaucrats and memorandums on decency, the more it impoverishes us and abdicates our personal responsibility. She paid a dear price for her honesty.
5
To see the students behave this way is nothing short of embarrassing. One can draw all the "deep" meanings they want from this debate, but to me, it's students behaving badly toward a respected academic. Now, you don't have to agree with him, but you do have listen to what he says, refute his points, and move on if you can't come to an agreement. We are talking Halloween costumes, after all.
8
Wishful thinking. Goodness is largely memetic and part of upbringing and social pressures. Any 'lord of the flies' environment produces chimp-like behaviours. Like gang culture. Or the societies on the Solomon Islands; you could actually even argue that the first surviving settlers on the Solomon islands were likely only kids, given the results.
2
It is a scientific fact that all current living human beings are descendants of one African woman who lived approximately 160,000 years ago. Obviously this means that we are all related (in fact we all are "cousins" of some degree). This fact has not received sufficient attention and has a tendency to make me believe that Mr. Christakis is correct in stating essentially that there is a great deal that unites us.
2
We are evolved social animals inclined to reciprocity, good or bad.
1
Do Yale students support free speech or agree speech?
14
The better question is whether Yale’s governing body supports free speech and thought or wants a quiet life.
3
To a hammer, all the world’s a nail.
Thats what allows Christian scientists to believe prayer heals medical problems, pseudo scientists to propose ludicrous theories and research that perpetuates lies and myths, and people blind to the horrors of ths world to wear “Life is Good” tee shirts.
In the words of Carey Elwe’s character, the Dread Pirate Roberts: “Life is pain, Highness! Anyone who says otherwise is selling something”
Thinking people are at base “good” as if it were a generic moral imperative is overly optimistic, quaint and inane. Our state of nature, ontologically, is in our histories brutal and violent. We can, and should strive for higher goals and a more informed way of interacting with others but left to our own devices, in private, we often make less than honorable choices.
We lie, cheat, steal, mislead, insult, offend, do harm, discriminate and act selfishly because that’s our instinct. There is chaos everywhere (if you open your eyes) our better selves need to try to work against this - also for survival.
Sure there might be people who seem to be anomalies but this might be explained, as some science suggests, due to the bio chemical makeup in their brains.
Should this Professor and his wife have been treated as they were by the children at this elite institution? Lets just say, its not a good look for them, or Yale. But their brains are still developing and they haven’t learned much about being alive on this earth. 18 yrs fir maturity isn’t enough.
109
@MAB,
So much Princess Bride wisdom.
I confess my selective memory did not select this gem to remember. Thanks for that.
10
@MAB You are off my guest list.
I would never suggest the "no worry" part, but the "be happy" part keeps us from killing ourselves, eh?
2
@MAB we also create, nurture, share, laugh and love. this is not an "either / or " binary. Go to a museum or a concert and experience the amazing beauty humans are capable of.
18
I think that when we consider these campus tempests, we really need to remember that we are talking essentially about a bunch of teenagers. Yes many of the excesses are ridiculous but let's keep them in perspective. Who among us, on the left or the right, has not taken some concept too far in our teens or early 20s? I read and agreed with Ayn Rand at that age (shudder...). If I could think such idiotic thoughts then, why should we be so mesmerized and disturbed by what a few dozen students get up to at Yale? They aren't "Leftwing fascists" as Laurence Bachmann comments, they are young and veering off the rails while they figure things out.
8
Obviously not enough Yale students took Prof. Laurie Santos course on happiness -main take away be KIND!
Thank you for this article, and for the link to Nicholas Christakis's very thoughtful TED talk. Really worth a look. (As it turns out, Dr Christakis was an MD and researcher before turning to academia.)
Though many Republicans are authoritarians, authoritarianism itself is not a political philosophy; it's a personality disorder. Just so with the snowflake types who are being identified as liberals. There is nothing liberal about their intolerance for other viewpoints and lack of empathy for other groups, believing their own experience and unique form of suffering is valid.
As my dad liked to say, "Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else."
4
Nobody is made in the image of any God.
I am not a Yale student or alum but I went to a liberal arts college years ago and I guess we should expect that conversations about race will continue to perpetuate.
Since Frank has elected to resurrect the Christakis’ controversy to plug his book (a questionable tact), I was curious to know what upset the students (a shame I had to go elsewhere than this article to get an objective account). I read news reports and a opinion piece written by Ms. Christakis in the Washington Post.
One of her major points appears to be this: can’t we accept the hurtful (potentially bigoted, prejudiced) acts of young people (not children or toddlers, this is college after all) as youthful transgressions to be dismissed and discounted in their significance? No.
Shouldn’t these students learn to confront racism? The answer is that these kids confront racism every day whether they notice it or not, so, no, there is no need to purposely excuse it as the Christakis’ have done.
It is surprising to learn that Ms. Christakis is labeled an “early childhood development expert” - and how convenient to be white and at an elitist institution like Yale which further breeds this mindset. Both facts frankly disqualify both the Christakis.
Ugh - I did not know the background of this story beforehand, and I am further disposed to disregard the book and its author.
8
@Can Racist Acts Be Forgiven As A Youthful Transgression...No
Your own willingness, as displayed in your comment, to embrace stereotyping and prejudice means that nothing you say can really be taken seriously.
6
@jim Excuse me, you have no place to say whether my comment should be taken seriously or not. It is a valid opinion. Stick to the topic, please. And the term elite is self-styled by its occupants (at Yale and similar institutions) so make of that what you will.
This was a great column. We must remember that students at Yale and other colleges are still children, still finding their way and making mistakes.(Neuroscience says our brains are not complete and functioning properly until we're about 30.) When I was young, everyone on campus gathered to scream, "Hell, no, we won't go." It was a perfectly normal response to the fear of being sent to a war most young people hated and the inability to do anything about the draft except to scream and emigrate to Canada. Today's youth are angry and sensitive to any perceived slur or hint of disagreement. Let's hope as they mature, they will learn to solve differences by discussion rather than anger which simply provokes more anger.
5
@Daphne
They are NOT children. They have a brain that knows the difference between right and wrong, despite a possible inclination to be impulsive and stupid.
1
"...the strength to cope with offense. " Bingo. In America today, we are puny weaklings when it comes to coping with offense.
It seems anything that even remotely offends others has become a felony punishable by having your life, career and family run through the shredders of hell.
And there seems to be cadres of policing detectives out there searching for new offenses and offenders to put on trial.
In the case of this brave couple we are not talking about fascists or white supremacists who were threatening and advocating direct violence against others; which is where the line on free speech and expression should be appropriately drawn.
I'm white. And bald. And fat and ugly. And not hip. Offend me and my tribe all you want. I can and do take it. I understand it. Just don't do it as a screaming, threatening, hateful mob showing up at my front door.
5
This medium - this one right here - weaponizes emotion.
Then include the rest of social media.
This new normal is going to destroy a lot of good people before we settle into a new pattern of civility - if we can at all in this era where our political leaders lambast each other in modes worse than I ever experienced on a High School football field.
"Wait - that's not right."
We've got to come to that. The default is that we come to the conclusion our own predicament is caused by external forces driven by despicable people hell-bent on our destruction for their own profit.
We need to get to a default where we are all innocent, well-meaning, and charitable - and work reality from that point.
Because you never get to innocent, well-meaning, and charitable with someone you've already characterized as unworthy.
2
Beginning in the 1960s, colleges developed a culture of rebellion. The tide of anger ebbs and flows but generally speaking college students will always find somewhere to direct their outrage. Conversely, they sometimes become callously indifferent to things society would like them to value. Same difference. We're talking heads and tails.
Christakis clearly hit an outrage cycle. However, you almost need to take the moment in stride. We are all dealt circumstances largely outside of our control. The human experience is mostly one big game of craps mixed with time and the genetic roulette wheel. Think about how you met your spouse, if you even have a spouse. Think about the near random series events that brought two people into the same time and place before human agency took over.
These students are responding to the environment and circumstances of their time. They do so with imperfect information and a limited experiential grasp on the material of their surroundings. Cut them some slack. An impassioned attempt to exert agency over the seemingly uncontrollable is not only normal but generally encouraged on college campuses.
The lesson for Dr. Chistakis is to never again engage students outside a stringently if fairly moderated context. A classroom typical qualifies. However, you could try panels or debates as well. Don't engage the mob though. They aren't going to take away anything worth hearing.
6
From the elevated stage of privilege, I assume, it’s easier to notice the compassion abound in our world—and from the safety of the same stage, it’s also easier to believe that people would “police themselves and should have both the freedom to err and the strength to cope with offense.”
6
I read Erika C.'s letter in response to the administration's request that students be respectful when choosing Halloween costumes. I listened to Nicholas C.'s interview with Sam Harris and I watched the video of N.C.'s interaction with the students. I'm white, non-Latina, American. It is not merely "disrespectful", "politically incorrect", or "offensive" to dress in blackface and flaunt yourself in front of your African American classmates. It is CRUEL. In the letter, E.C. comes across as if she's asking people to put up with 10 year olds making fart jokes instead of asking that racist 19 year olds be given a pass to be cruel. Is there anything about you over which you have no control that has historically and personally provoked hatred, and has been consistently associated with inferiority? Try to imagine that: all the time you were growing up, you knew that millions of people in your own country believed that you and everyone like you are probably stupid, that your parents are likely to use drugs, didn't want their kids to go to school with you, etc. You work hard anyway and go to college, and someone who is supposed to be on your side opines that it's okay for your classmates to have fun ridiculing your phenotype--that same aspect of you that was used by slavers, segregationists, lynchers, and white fascists to justify their heinous crimes---because they're young and it amuses them. The video shows the young women, traumatized by the professor's lack of empathy.
13
For openers, nothing in that brief letter—briefer and better organized than your rant—said a single solitary word about the costumery being “okay.”
It said that the writer believed Yale students could handle this ine, without admin stepping in and issuing orders. Whoop-de-do. And if the letter HAD said anything resembling, “Kind of a stupid costume, but don’t we all have better stuff to fuss over?” Why’s that deserving of this much yelling?
Know how I know you’re wrong? Complete lack of specificity. You don’t mention the letter, or cite what actually was said, or even explain precisely what the problem is. It’s all waddabout this, waddaboutthat, how would you feel if, it’s as though, and hyplerbole like “flaunt yourself.”
By all means, call out stupidity. Name it what it is. But when you’re surrounded by yelling people and called names like this, when you’re getting threats on a e-mail, don’t come crying about all the meanie Trumpists. Because you’re acting like one.
5
Cool dude.
Erika Christakis displayed appaling insensitivity, and her husand in agreeing with her did as well.
The university memo simply suggested that students act responsibly.
Words sometimes have consequences. This was one of those times. For all of his laudable work, Professor Christakis stepped in it.
Bruni depicts him as a stoic martyr.
But he's not. All he did was silently listened as students laid into him.
Today, he has a book deal and a cushy, nicely compensated teaching job at one of the nation's top universities.
8
Her “appalling insensitivity” was that she thought students should be free to choose as opposed to submit to the politically correct orthodoxy for Halloween costumes (can’t get more absurd than that). Well then by all means we must ruin her career. Oh, that’s right we did.
7
I have never felt so vulnerable. Till now our enemies have been foreign. Now I am afraid one of our political parties is aiming to destroy democracy for their own profit. It's hard to be loving when your security and life is threatened. I look forward to reading this book. It might even have medicinal value for the fear and resulting anger that the Republican Party has brought into our lives. I am afraid that the people who now make up The Base and follow the pied pipers of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid empire would prefer to be living in smaller isolated units. Why else would there be this hysteria over a wall on the southern border? It is what white nationalism is all about.
7
At the time I thought Erika Christakis' email regarding Hallowen costumes was gratuitous at best. The comments here alleging that the Yale students who protested that were a privileged bunch ignore the fact that the guidence about how some costumes should not be doned were aimed at Yalies who were so privileged that they wouldn't get how offensive said costumes could be. (See Kavanaugh, B. medical school yearbook bruhaha.) I could see that her intensions might have been good - affirming the ability of Yale students to make good decisions - but it came off as okaying racially offensive displays.
7
How, EXACTLY, did it do that, please? BE EXACT. What precisely in her note or behavior cheesed you off?
1
I'm an old codger, so I'll write something like what old codgers say. When I was young" we had an expression that is today out of favor in the extreme, "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me." That was never meant to be a statement of fact. It was a maxim, to harden children against insult. It was meant to teach children that if you can inwardly ignore insult, you could escape its bite. Today's children are taught that insults are assaults, like physical kicks in the teeth. It is law of nature, even a necessity, that they hurt. Having learned that lesson, insults do hurt, and the deeper that lesson has been learned, the greater the hurt. Those Yale students in the courtyard were hurting, I believe that, but only because they were wrongly taught to be hurt.
9
I can tell you that as a teenager who was raised by a single parent who had to endure sexual harassment at work just to make enough money to care for her children, and who had to endure the shame of using food stamps before the days of EBT cards, getting plastic coins as change as everyone stared at me, I felt privileged just to be able to attend a community college. I was too busy working after school to pay for my tuition and books to think about white privilege, sexism or racism, never mind if Halloween costumes were insensitive to any particular group of people. All Erika was saying is that in a free society, and in particular at college where the free exchange of ideas is considered sacred, adults should be able to police themselves, either through social pressure or by ostracizing those who are offensive. The fact that privileged ivy league students thought that the University should impose its own view of what was acceptable to wear in a free society speaks volumes about their sense of self-entitlement. The fact that thy were able to force a good person from her job is appalling. History is replete with those who believed their cause was more important than civility and sent those who disagreed to the gulag or the concentration camp, and at present some still do so. Bravo to Professor Christakis for standing strong in the face of such intolerance. In the current political climate, we will need a lot more people like him.
32
Left Right Left Right Left Right Company Halt.
Bulldozer parents, Helicopter parents, millennials, boomers, guidance counsellors in schools who can't see students with serious problems because they are inundated with those who feel unsafe or threatened by the smaller stumbling blocks of school, society and life.
Granted, life is scary and complex. And in the current atmosphere of ALL the peoples whose lives and culture have been caricatured by media, costume, appropriation etc, there is both a backlash activism and a strong movement toward reconciliation. Let's not throw the babies out with the...
3
Thanks for addressing such a fraught topic. I'm more familiar with a smaller liberal arts university not too far from Yale and I'm sure the context is similar. The university works hard to recruit minority students and also to offer support. However, as others have mentioned, that effort is an uphill battle against decades of racism that is still unfortunately firmly entrenched in our society. Christakis is not responsible for this situation, at Yale or elsewhere in the real world.
For those not familiar with the Yale campus, it's essentially an island of privilege in a very economically depressed city. I sympathize with the pain felt by the students but in context there are dire real world problems right outside the gates - poverty, hunger, homelessness, unemployment, lack of funding for public education, etc. Perhaps Yale should require all students to participate in community service, this might be more effective at enlightening the privileged.
7
Thank you Frank Bruni for writing this article and interviewing Professor Christakis. I had not followed the news at that time very closely. I appreciate Professor Christakis' efforts to reach out to the students... and for writing Blueprint. I look forward to reading it.
2
In the past freedom to err and cope with an offence were learned in childhood playing games after school and on weekends with other kids without adult supervision. Tolerance, negotiating, resolving arguments including physical attacks, team work, addressing hurt feelings, empathy, kindness were priceless skills. You learn more by giving the opposition time to be heard than shunning them. Take heed Democrats debate on Fox news and take every opportunity to be interviewed in order for those who watch that exclusively to hear your voices. Believe this, when you speak of the cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Disability and other social programs the Republicans are planning people will listen. Use FDR's name to explain your ideology of socialism and how he raised the country out of a depression that the majority are still in 2008.
4
Maybe we should stop listening to the noise of the angry. Especially when it is amplified on the internet -- don't respond to the anger. I suspect the angry mob is not as big as the noise, so really it is no surprise that Professor Christakis has this theory of humanity's cooperation. Don't give "disgusting" any power, that is. (And I know when the mob gets assaultive, and violent threats, that is a different story.) Peace to all.
6
One of the most important lessons I learned way back in the mid 1960s when I entered university was the importance of exposing myself to new ideas whether I agreed with them or not. In the good old days this exposure to new ideas and or ways of thinking was intrinsic in the university's modus operandi. Quite frankly I loved university and a big part of that love was testing my mind with a multitude of ideas.
It seems to me that in this respect present day academia has failed and continues to fail to allow students this exposure. More and more universities have become diploma factories so that students can hopefully get high paying jobs all the while coddling them, making them "safe" (whatever that is?) and making sure that they are not confronted with disagreeable ideologies.
As we all know of course when they enter the workforce this utopia of banal ignorance of a multitude of affronts, disagreements etc. will suddenly end and they will not be in the least prepared to deal with them. After all is said and done, the only true way of defeating a bad idea is with a better idea.
7
"Complex societies are possible and durable only when people are emotionally invested in, and help, one another; and human thriving within these societies guarantees future generations suited to them."
Then you have societies like ours where the ultra-wealthy feed off our society like parasites pretending they made it all on their own while contributing nothing - certainly not helping one another in a society they benefit from. Collaboration means do as they say; as they conspire to cheat society of its wealth and power; resulting in a trump POTUS.
Christakis is right, for now. There are more of us than those with trillions of bullets. The inertia that built up for centuries of "peace & progress" is up against a spreading force of greedy wealth, global despots and violent regressive agents. Unfortunately, it only takes a few evil, violent, selfish or tribal humans to ruin it all for the rest of the world - that's morally and intellectually realistic.
"sociodicy tries “to vindicate society despite its failures.”" Yet we have trumplican right wing anti-society - thus anti-socialism - creatures dividing society; misrepresenting and vilify socialism entirely; they're effectively nihilists.
So many willing to lie, cheat & steal to enter Yale and become part of intolerant mob-think as shown in the video. These are the smartest and brightest? Or most entitled to have an easy life? Elite graduates from Yale, Harvard and Wharton seem to be of the same mold - trump, Bush, Kuschner.
1
Bruni provides the last word on the Prof. Nicolas and Erika Christakis controversy at Yale and I am sure they are happy to see their positions vindicated. However, Bruni chose to gloss over the substance of the controversy and the actual context of the criticisms lodged by students. Let it be acknowledged that the students found the Chistakis' dismissive acceptance of the Yale status quo as inherently unjust. For ex., the Native American students whose culture is often the target of Halloween costume mockery are pressured to just endure the practices of "Redface" not just in the close confines of student residential life but also in the expansive arenas of professional sports where the NFL team in the nation's Capitol ridicules Native imagery for profit. I also found it interesting how Bruni cleverly chose to dog whistle his approval of such practices in the veiled way that sophisticated pundits can, by lacing his defense of the Christakis' with their quotes attacking "tribalism" while at the same time extolling the Christakis' superior evolutionary view of humanity as being higher than the tribes in all their tribalism and savagery. Bruni is not the first pundit to equate tribalism to a lower stage of humanity, that view is centuries-old. It is time that Bruni, the Christakis' and other well-meaning "thought leaders" focus more on their own cultural heritage and find examples that better serve their argument that human beings can be brutal, violent, savage, etc.
14
@tony hear, hear. The students may not have expressed their anger optimally but their rage was absolutely just, and it saddens me how few Times commenters are interested in understanding their feelings and point of view.
6
I'd been aware of the Yale incident and yet hadn't heard his own perspective until hearing his podcast with Sam Harris, which left me feeling great admiration. His dedication to rise above bitterness in the face of what he and his wife experienced is truly superhuman. In this interview he also expressed sympathy for Bret Weinstein, another liberal professor who was similarly mobbed and who ultimately had to flee his university. Christakis recalled with horror how students had shouted that Weinstein was a 'white supremacist'. He decried a "loss of subtlety of thought' and a 'concept creep which makes us lose the capacity to use powerful words when they are actually needed". Weinstein hasn't gone on to write a book, but he certainly has not kept quiet. He has done several interviews and speaking engagements in which he maintains his core liberal values while attempting to regain some sense of balance in the face of a this new dogmatic regressive leftism. Weinstein is part of a group that has come to be known as the Intellectual Dark Web, which may as well include Christakis, as it's mostly made up of academics who have been mobbed for entirely reasonable views that happen go against a newly authoritarian liberal orthodoxy. This group also includes Bret's brother, Eric Weinstein, Jordan Peterson, Jonathan Haidt, and the aforementioned Sam Harris. Many of these figures get pilloried by publications like NYTimes. Hence it was especially refreshing and inspiring to read this here.
8
That we have not killed each other into oblivion is pretty strong evidence that, on balance, we must have been doing something right. But it sure feels like we're always on the edge of descending into extinction through mutual savagery.
Today though, aside from the ability acquired in the 50's to destroy all human life on the planet, the three hyper powers that can deliver that fate are lead by three megalomaniacs, two of whom are cunning empire-building despots and one is insane. To have megalomaniacs leading all the major powers has never happened before, not even during the two world wars. We are in uncharted territory.
243
@Aardman. As a Baby Boomer, I have to disagree with your first sentence. The only reason that humanity is still here is that we have not yet used our atomic bombs in a world wide war. But our selfishness towards the earth on which we depend for life can kill us as a species just as surely. I am not convinced that humanity has the smarts or the willingness to work together to save the climate of the planet, in spite of the economic costs to some of our sacred cow businesses,
22
@Aardman That "mutual savagery" itself relie on our ability to co-operate. War is evi. I can't express how much I hate war. But war also brings out the most astonishing self-sacrfice. We are both demons and angels.
12
@Aardman Humankind via global warming is likely to be around a lot fewer millennia than the large dinosaurs.
6
Between this and the college admissions scandal, I would say our nation's elite universities have taken a real beating. So happy my kids chose public schools. I read the professor's letter, and found it to be as unoffensive as an adult telling young people to grow up and make a decision can be. That is, completely unoffensive unless you are a person looking to pick a fight. But as others have said better than me, this horrible story is the exception not the rule. Stop letting right wingers define progressives by these outliers. This young woman and her supporters represent a very small minority of liberals. We have real racists/sexists/bigots to deal with in the GOP. Just look at their St. Patrick's day tweet and see that no one is safe from them.
7
Why are college students dressing up for Halloween?
Our society has extended childhood too far into what used to be adulthood.
9
So what happened to Christine Christakis? Her husband receives the Sterling professorship and dedicates his weighty book to her. Has her professorship been restored and her reputation rehabilitated, or is she a lowly adjunct somewhere in New England still wearing her scarlet letter? I couldn't help but think of "The Wife" when I read this article.
7
...and I thought "theodicy" was a book by Homer!
6
The comments continue this vital conversation. I've ordered the book.
1
The girl who went off on Professor Christakis was driven by raw emotion & rage instead of by reasoned thought. She needs to reassess her behavior & develop some control.
13
Please excuse me for not knowing anything about this dispute before reading this op-ed. I still don't fully comprehend because Mr. Bruni hasn't provided any details about the sort of costumes the students want to ban. This omission hasn't stopped many of the commentators from taking sides. I'm amazed that some commentators don't seem to need facts before drawing conclusions.
2
Amazed? Some of us remember the original dispute because it was all over media not that long ago.
3
it was about blackface. the school was suggesting that white students stop using blackface. the white professors didn't think that suggestion was warranted.
Terribly reductionist, @gdf. It wasn't "about blackface."
Wow! Surprise ending for that story! I can’t believe this amazing man did not have his career destroyed and that he was not driven out of education for his failure to embrace the politically correct orthodoxy on Halloween costumes. I also can’t believe there is a politically correct orthodoxy for Halloween costumes.
12
When is a ( ethnic ) joke funny? Does a joke’s comedic merit make it funny, or is it only funny because we are laughing at someone else? President Trump wondered in a tweet last weekend if the FCC should look into the way he is roasted on SNL. Really? So maybe a joke is only funny when it’s about someone else.
4
I found the students hysterical behavior in this incident to be 'disgusting.' The fundamental absence of critical thinking, the group think, an inability to take a viewpoint with even the slightest pretense towards charity, and the certainty of self-righteousness and self-entitlement cloaked in the guise of legitimate protest, is the very antithesis of what a university represents. These students should be protesting their outrageous tuition fees, and their clear lack of tolerance never mind this trivial pursuit.
16
I think his and his wife's experience is a perfect example of the rigidity of PC thinking on campuses, and the extreme vulnerability of students who believe their feelings are paramount in any intellectual discussion.
In a democracy, you do not have the right not to be offended; in fact, some political philosophers argue it's the *duty* of a citizen to cause offense and thereby challenge accepted norms.
12
No, it isn't anybody's "duty" to be offensive. That goes too far in encouraging bad behavior.
3
A serious defender of speech should be just as pleased as the object of "kind" speech and as the target of "unkind" speech.
But of course, the professor, in exercising his right to speech, is free to push back on "unkind" speech.
Anyone who truly embraces free speech should not want to curb disagreeable speech. What might be permissible, is to educate that one type of speech might not be the best vehicle to achieve some end. Was the professor doing this, or, was he aiming to silence not by force, but by shaming?
1
@Steve Brown
I very much disagree.
Support of the human right of someone to express disagreeable ideas in a disagreeable manner is not the same thing as endorsing it as a righteous, honorable, or appropriate behavior.
The notion that civility and standards—and consequences for violating same—are antithetical to free speech is juvenile and a reflection of how debased the entire concept of free speech rights has become over the last few decades.
2
@Cormac:
Certainly, you are free to disagree with me, and I feel the same about your disagreement as I would have felt, if you had agreed with me.
People are not obligated to be civil in their discourse, but we should not say we are champions of free speech, if we use our free speech ticket to condemn uncivil discourse.
Those who practice uncivil speech/behavior will often come to realize that there is a high cost, and at which point, there will be self-correction.
1
@Cormac The concept of free speech is precisely for times when speech upsets or offends (wouldn't need an amendment for speech that makes us all happy, would we?).
Also whose "civility and standards" do you propose to set? It's a big world out there with lots of versions of civility, civilization and standard behavior. If colonialism taught us anything it is that what looks barbaric to some is the height of civility to others.
1
Thank you, Mr. Bruni.
It is clear that Nicholas Christakis and his wife have been the victims of hatred from those on the extreme left who have little understanding of the freedom of thought and freedom of expression. It shows how the quality of a great university is letting in far too many intellectual and emotional inferior students.
10
I spent 15 years in academic as a graduate student and teacher, and was appalled at the treatment inflicted on NIcholas and Erika Christakis. Perhaps, as some posters have claimed, only one student was screaming. Nonetheless, Nicholas and Erika were victimized by an online mob, and Nicholas was verbally abused when he tried to discuss the memo and underlying issues with the large group of students that had gathered on campus to condemn him and his wife.
Erika's memo was thoughtful, reasonable and compassionate. She questioned administration policies that sought to resolve sensitive issues about racial and ethnic symbols by imposing rules and standards on intelligent young adults. Such values questions, she suggested, could be resolved by those young adults on their own, without administration intervention. In other words, that the freedom to be a jerk, otherwise constitutionally protected (but not at a private institution such as Yale) should not be constrained.
For having the temerity to question the political dogma of a number of Yale students - who despite their cries of "microaggression" and demands for "safe spaces," had no compunction about aggressively invading the personal and professional space of the Christakises - Erika was denounced and hounded. Any who think that those of us reminded of Stalin's purges are overreacting should read "Journey into the Whirlwind," by Eugenia Ginzburg. She was an academic, too, a professor of Russian literature.
18
I bet you don’t have to deal with black faces, nooses etc. it is pretty awesome place to be when you are the top dog in society. It is up to a school to set rules. If you want to insult fellow students or be a racist you don’t need to be in school.
@Dharma And if you want to
inflict mob justice on anyone with whose opinion you disagree- shame them, call for their firing or resignation, bully them in public -
then you need a lesson in civility, open discourse and justice. Blackface and nooses are terrible, but so are jackboots and truncheons, even metaphorical ones. Don’t wave a noose in my face to justify your bad behavior.
I’m so puzzled by this article. 🤔
I do not even comprehend what was so offensive.
And kids who enter Yale supposedly are a higher caliber?
OMG. No wonder the social emotional state of these kids are so fragile. 😢
I’m convinced that life skills, communication skills, ...must be thought in schools as early as k-12.
13
In the 60s while attending Rutgers University the Vietnam War was raging. Students at other universities were occupying deans' offices and causing mayhem. The same protest began at Rutgers, but handled in a very different way. Dean Mason Gross met the challenge head on. He wanted to give the issue serious conversation. He shut down the school and opened the largest auditorium, allowing student speakers ample time to express their objections. It was peaceful and a productive exchange. When controversy hits campuses with only one side arguing, this is doomed to disaster. Put opposing sides on the same stage so thinking can be clarified instead creating a tribalistic crevasse.
3
Thank you, Mr. Bruni.
It is clear that Nicholas Christakis and his wife have been the victims of hatred from those on the extreme left who have little understanding of the freedom of thought and freedom of expression.
8
Wow. Thank you for this great column.
2
Thank you for this piece. I only wish the editors had chosen some of the most popular (and insightful) reader comments as times pics.
1
It’s the Closing of the American mind that Allan Bloom already described a long time ago, but he was classified as a conservative, so why listen to him, right?
8
Ethnic, racial, and sexual minorities have been told over and over again that they are less than white straight men. These students are finally rising up against that paradigm.
As expected, to dare challenge patriarchal thinking, they are being admonished.
4
@EmmettC I do not see anyone doing any "admonishing". To the contrary, I see a human being attempting to make the case that we collectively are fundamentally decent, despite ALL of OUR flaws. Having been involved in the civil rights struggle for over 50 years, I firmly believe that we do not lift ourselves up by tearing other people down. We do become "less than" when we use the same bullying tactics as those we seek to (rightfully) change. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, hate cannot conquer hate; only love can do that.
7
Some commenters have said that these students were fearful and needed protection from adults with “power,” like Christakis.
Can someone explain to me what Halloween costumes UNIVERSITY students at Yale might FEAR? I really don’t get it.
If they have a problem with a costume, they should just tell the person wearing it how they feel. You know, like an adult would, instead of depending on protection from the “adults with power.”
16
You have done us all a favor by pitching “Blueprint” in a column I will remember as "the blueprint column.” It seems to me that our “sterling professor” has provided an answer to the fundamental question of art, science and philosophy: what is most obvious? It is that we are — by nature — brilliant, decent, compassionate creatures who have not learned how to create the excellence programming from which we will all profit immensely in time.
“It’s the programming” everybody gets in the conversation that shapes us that accounts for our costly differences. In this scary time for our species, the question is whether the excellence programming will arrive ahead of programmable micro weapons in a turbulent atmosphere around the world. We have to act. I'm pitching #ourtopstory to The New York Times and other top tier news organizations (in articles I write and comments like this one) in the hope that I may attract others like you to help me make an excellent case for excellent news coverage of human excellence.
I want the story of the best in us to be part of the blueprint, and I want the best news organizations to tell it. I think of it as starting a writers’ movement that operates in writing to focus the instrument of journalism on the truth of achievement. I am making a bet that human kindness influences The New York Times and that there’s an audience of people like me who dearly want to be inspired by the truth of achievement. I invite everyone to do the write thing.
4
I can’t help but notice that Mr. Christakis was recently awarded Yale’s highest faculty honor while Ms. Christakis had to leave Yale. I don’t think the sexism at play there can be overstated. I don’t begrudge him the Sterling Professorship, but rather I mourn the damage to her career (and psyche). I hope her career recovers and flourishes.
1834
@Sarah This article written by Ms Christakis sheds light on her decision to leave Yale after this incident. Who could blame her?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/my-halloween-email-led-to-a-campus-firestorm--and-a-troubling-lesson-about-self-censorship/2016/10/28/70e55732-9b97-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8f73ab43b238
54
@Sarah One wrote the allegedly offensive article and one didn't.
54
@Sarah
I believe she decided to leave Yale. Also, he was a tenured professor. She taught classes but may not have been on a tenure track. I don't think it's fair, but I wouldn't blame sexism.
61
That student was obnoxious and should have been suspended. It was not "free speech", it was a verbal attack just like the student's verbal "attack" on Chelsea Clinton. We must start defining the difference and treating these attacks appropriately. By the time you're in college, you're 75% into adulthood and you need to be held accountable.
This was NOT adolescent behavior! Parents are raising kids who are self-absorbed and do not think they have to observe boundaries. Unfortunately they will fail when they get into corporate-American and more so in corporate-China!! Christakis was a model of what a good professor should be.
14
Thanks for the heads up regarding Mr. Christakis' book. I would like to know if there is going to a translation into French? I would like to gift it to my French in-laws for Xmas as this is just the sort of book we like to discuss around the New Years table.
I and others have been saying for decades that a complex society must be built upon the strength of good people. As we are now moving to a more integrated society it is necessary that we bend to listen to hear all voices because it must be all inclusive as we build a new etiquette structure for handling everyday situations. Old etiquette that was based on old caste structures doesn't belong in a free society. Etiquette is a cushion until respect kicks in and respect is earned, not merited.
By the way, it is not easy to do for any of us. would you, Mr. Bruni, have used written "one of them screeched" had it been a young man? Screech has become gender related to females, young children, brakes, and machines. I've never heard it as applying to males. Screech invalidates what a female vocalized.
3
Let’s all keep in mind that Halloween costumes are “meant” to be scary not wholesome, ie, ghouls, ghosts, monsters, zombies, evil spirits, witches...oh yeah witches...why aren’t they banned for their misogynistic representations?
I’m more offended at the “sexy” costumes. Now they are wholly inappropriate and completely misrepresentative of the true spirit and history of Halloween and I think that could be considered cultural appropriation too.
Unless of course sex is meant to be terrifying. Hmm. Maybe I’m on to something here.
6
It is unfortunate that trigger warnings and sensitivity have silenced rational debate. I think emotions matter, but if college students cannot be treated like adults then they aren't ready for college. College students should be able to hear opposing viewpoints without freaking out. A mob shouting outside this man's house is horrible. The fact that this happens more and more should make other employers more forgiving and accepting, but I can say from personal experience that a whiff of disrepute scares off job interviewers from even desperate employers. His wife has a great record, so why doesn't some other employer give her a second chance? The New York Times should write about why employers are so scared off from job applicants with a problem in their past. Talk about emotions overruling reasonable debate.
11
Many, many people are raised with religion. Religions teach us that we are evil, born with sin, and they do it with authority and ritual. It is probably very hard for most people to escape that thinking after it has been internalized.
1
Richard Stengel, who wrote a biography of Nelson Mandela, also wrote a concise and wonderful description of Mandela's "life lessons". Reading Bruni's description of Christakis' thoughts brought to mind some of the insights which guided Mandela. Among those principles are some strikingly similar to some Christakis espouses:
► Seek out the positive in all people and situations—look past the negative even with those who have wronged you. Seeing the good in people improves the chances that they will improve themselves and actually become better people.
► Mandela practiced 'ubuntu' derived from the African belief that, in Stengel's words, ‘a person is a person through other people’, and from this recognition of our relationships with others, we find community.
►Mandela believed that even though we cannot know everything about another person, we should presume to forgive since were we to understand all about others, we would forgive all, his version of 'tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner’.
►Learn to be comfortable with those who express disagreement with you or treat you with less grace than you expect or would like. It is the first step in understanding others.
►Showing love makes all the difference even in hostile situations.
I am glad Christakis wrote this book. I am also glad about the belated recognition Yale offered, which may, by comparison, be unimportant in light of the contributions "Blueprint" makes to our own betterment.
6
I teach engineering at a major research university. The "snowflake" moniker for students is increasingly correct. The coddling they expect is completely alien to my experiences in college 40 years ago. They protest to avoid hearing anything that will possibly upset them. They are intolerant of considering any other viewpoint, and attack anyone who tries to engage them.
Sound familiar?
17
@Mtnman1963 - A friend works in a university's security center. A student recently visited the security office with an "emergency" - the student had a term paper due the next day and they had run out of printer cartridges for the printer in their dorm.
The student actually expected to be able to get their printing supplies from the security office because it was, to them, "an emergency."
1
And how many of the students in that video later received “leadership” awards from
Yale, recognizing them for “contributions to society.”
7
I’m sorry for this professor’s experience, but it was predictable. The human, like other primates, lives in groups, and group behavior is not inherently or instinctively ‘good’. Morals are an individual affair, this man and Stephen Pinker should read ‘Candide’ (again).
48
Perhaps it is you who should; note that Candide was fiction-Pinker’s nonfictional take, based on statistical facts....
1
Yes, the “punishment” by students at Yale of the professor and his wife probably did not fit the “crime”. As a privileged Caucasian however, unlike the well-read Yale students of color, I am not carrying around the broad knowledge and the resulting heavy weight of over three centuries of unspeakable subjugation, slaughter, discrimination, rejection, and hatred that courses through their beings, trivially because of the arbitrary pigments contained in their skin. This societal understanding must be first and foremost whenever we attempt to assess and judge racial confrontations, like that which tragically occurred at Yale.
3
@John Grillo These students are adults and should be expected to act accordingly. Directing anger and hatred toward a person for the sole purpose of making themselves feel powerful is wrong and serves only to create conflict for the sake of conflict.
4
@shep Your certitude about what motivated the students is based upon what? I suspect it is nothing more than what fits neatly into your own narrative about what they must be like. Alternatively, these young people risked much in directly confronting well known faculty at a prestigious university, more likely for a higher purpose than to merely “feel powerful “. For you to grasp this however, would require considering other, non-knee jerk reasons for their passionate response.
Perhaps the true error of the professor and his wife was in overestimating the maturity level of students (and some professors). This seems especially true after recent stories of sexual and racial assaults and offensive behavior.
Students, in general, are still emotionally immature, with limited experiences. Many students at elite universities come from homogenous backgrounds. Their interactions with “others” has been limited.
We should not expect them to know how to live harmoniously and productively with others. Nor be shocked when they don’t live up to expectations. After all, they are going to university to learn.
Workplaces have training and policies to ensure a harmonious and productive workplace. We should expect nothing less from our colleges and universities.
While I believe in potential of human goodness and virtues, I remind mindful of the Platonic concept of education. Goodness and virtue have to be drawn and led out by wise guides. Our word “education” reflects that concept. So universities and colleges should be dictating rules and norms of behavior consistent with what our society expects from our citizens.
4
Christakis and his wife have the right to be wrong now and then, and his new book is a gift to those of us who want to believe his thesis is right. On balance, to me that puts him on the positive (assets) side of any assets-and-liabilities ledger that judges people for what they do, say, and put across to their fellow human beings.
1
I wasn't aware of the referenced incident, or of Mr. Christakis in general before this column (or if I did come across mention, it quickly became buried under dozens and then hundreds of reports of similarly savage and mindless behavior by the PC police). I commend him for having the maturity to handle this idiotic behavior well, and to have responded with what I can only call grace.
Grace is a divine quality of course, and that's where I think Mr. Christakis and I differ. I do believe in our transcendent goodness, but I believe it is truly transcendent in source - coming from our own souls and the divine nature of consciousness itself
On the other hand, the ugly and vicious attacks he was subjected to show the essential problem with the egoic mind, all too often held hostage by fear and a tribal mentality. There's an urge to call this behavior animalistic but animals don't behave like this. It's what happens when you mix the egoic mind with only the lowest levels of self-awareness. A significant portion of our country - both on the right and left - have in a sense lost themselves to these base reactions, and are no longer accessing any higher states of awareness.
It is I think not dissimilar to what happens to those in the grip of addictions to drugs and alchohol. The soul is still there somewhere, of course, and divine consciousness everywhere, but it can't break through and reclaim the driver's seat.
5
Cooperation is the good. Competition is the evil.
2
Human nature runs the gamut from kind and loving to spiteful and malicious, from thoughtful to thoughtless and from provocative to placid. Some personality manifestations are more tolerable than others and easily embraced, while others are less so.
Society often defines what is, and isn't acceptable, and it varies with the times. The increased lack of tolerance for behavior that is deemed to slight others is among them. We can disagree as to what should, or shouldn't, be considered acceptable, and why, and that applies to both the trigger itself and responses it engenders.
But the thing is, as a long ago mentor taught me, that "life is a series of snapshots." All too often, it is that one, and only that one image-bending incident that comes to define an individual in the eyes of others. No matter that a lifetime of good, kind, thoughtful and generally acceptable behavior preceded it.
It is the snapshot, and the focus, that matters most. It turns out that a picture is, and always has been, worth a thousand words.
1
While I didn't remember the names, I did recall the incident that occurred over 3 years ago.My take then was similar to that of many: young, immature, mainly pampered students, at an Ivy league school, getting fired up for something that would die down. Perhaps they should have instead protested legacy admissions or the soccer program.
What I certainly don't recall was Yale awarding Christakis the school's highest faculty honor this past year. Not near as newsworthy I suppose. If he was/is so disgusting, why wasn't there a re-ignition of protests, whether on campus or by the many commenting on this page?
5
I suspect that in the following years students learned a lesson from seeing that video spread widely across the internet, seeing that student publicly mocked and critiqued for her freakout. Not a good look ehen it's time to apply for jobs. Also, the activist campus fervor of 2015 was channeled into programs universities created in the wake of those episodes, and, at least at my school, these programs have led to real change including hiring of more diverse tt faculty. Finally, the election of Trump probably put a damper on the mood, since I think in part the current conservative backlash was, sadly, a reaction to the political activism that happened in the years before the election. I work at an ivy, BYW, and am very familiar with these campus dynamics.
2
Apparently the concept of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" needs a lot of instructions to go with it when it comes to halloween costumes or having a talk with a teacher. I am not religious but that is still the best guide to become a better person. And you don't have to get into Yale to use it!
8
"we’re genetically wired" is an argument that has no empirical support and zero evidence in its favor. It is out of step with all the developments in evolutionary biology, epigenetics etc. That it is still used by many is truly a shame. Typically, it is a symptom of a very conservative politics and right-wing ideology. So, no surprise here.
4
@anna And your conclusion that this book is a product of "conservative politics and right-wing ideology" is based upon what exactly? The exact same argument "that has no empirical support and zero evidence in its favor"? No surprise there.
2
@shep I actually give a full semester course on this evidence. You could start with (to get an idea and you could explore from there; this is by people with background in biology, unlike most who like to write about how "we are wired"): Lickliter, R., & Honeycutt, H. (2015). Biology, development, and human systems. In W. F. Overton & P. C. Molenaar (Eds.), Theory and method: Vol.1. Handbook of child psychology and developmental science (pp. 162–207). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
1
@shep And pay close attention to arrive at a logical conclusion: I wrote the following - "Typically, it [an argument that "we are wired"] is a symptom of a very conservative politics and right-wing ideology." I have not claimed anything about the book directly, I have not read it and am not planning to. There are hundreds of books with the same underlying premise, they have been debunked before, no need to waste time on it.
1
I really want to agree that this was all a foolish and poorly thought out dust up that somehow morphed into a mob demonstrating amped up mindlessness of a mob. But I can't. Whenever I've seen blackface used, it has been in the service of denigrating blacks. On the horror scale of the evils of racism, this appears toward the low end because it so rarely leads to acting against the mocked other. Still, it is offensive and hurtful to those mocked and serves to reinforce the prejudicial structures in our society. Could students "police" this themselves? Probably to some degree. Does it serve any useful purpose or carry some underlying useful message? No.
The students' behavior was mob like yet did serve to carry an important and overamped message that the good professors missed because they initially focused on the low level of immediate harm rather than thinking through the more significant harm it represents symbolically. All in all, the whole situation was unfortunate. That it is polarizing seems not very surprising.
3
I did not go to Yale, nor have I taught there.
But what is going on with Yale University, with its recent history with the awful Chistakis incident, to the Supreme Justice Kavanaugh's unfortunate escapades there (Beer!), and for its current involvement in the college entrance fraud scandal?
Odd, too, how a university that places so many people prominently in national positions of power seems to have so little effect on Connecticut state policy, an economic mess; and the rank injustices and poverty that are rampant in New Haven, Bridgeport, and Hartford.
Someone ought to have a look at Yale mission statement and do some deep thinking about how it is reflected in its educational program.
8
I am confused: The professors' crime was their belief that students at an "elite" university are possessed of maturity and should therefore have the autonomy to select their own Halloween costumes, without the university's interference in loco parentis (which I thought went out in the '60s). The subsequent brouhaha, proving the error of their ways, makes sense only in light of the recent admissions scandal, where it was revealed that parents had done everything possible to prevent their children from maturing.
36
It seems we have entered an era where a true insult to race, ethnicity, class or religion is seen where it does not exist. A white kid dressing up like Michael Jackson or Tiger Woods is no insult, imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Americans may not be well educated in the history of Cinco de Mayo or St. Patrick to appreciate the impact in Mexico or Ireland, but we recognize the importance of celebration of everyone's culture.
Our broken justice system, underfunded public education systems, systemic discrimination and rampant poverty should give those who truly want to improve the condition of our society plenty of protest work.
I'm glad Mr. Christakis can continue to share his optimistic view of humanity. It gives me hope.
16
Our behavior as humans cannot be reduced to an either/or binary choice: evil and tribal vs. full of grace and goodness.
It’s clear throughout history, and in our personal lives as well, that we are all capable of an astonishingly wide range of behaviors depending upon our personality, our culture, the circumstances…etc.
While we may have no control over the social and cultural mores under which we are raised, we do have an ability for self-reflection and can make an effort to temper our behavior accordingly.
3
She "questioned a university edict against culturally insensitive Halloween costumes, suggesting that students could police themselves and should have both the freedom to err and the strength to cope with offense," and she's "a respected expert in child development."
How does such an expert say something like this? Is she treating them like children, with the freedom to err, or is she treating them like the young adults whom they are, who could police themselves?
I never understood why she said what she said, but I certainly understand the inflamed responses to it. Those responses were sometimes excessive, but I still understand the hurt and anger where they were coming from. Yale is still struggling to find the balance between cultural sensitivity and freedom of speech - Calhoun College, etc.
5
@me. Have you read her letter? It is a nuanced and sensitive statement. She was not defending insensitive or offensive costumes, but instead suggesting that it was the wrong response for the university to make rigid rules specifying what halloween costumes shall be acceptable and unacceptable.
36
Mr. Bruni--appreciate this piece---living each day in Trump's Mad Max administration--I yearning for ideas to exit this tribal mess we are all in. I will read the book hoping that Hobbes view of humans can be debunked. This last year at social gatherings, participating in a local school board election, family outings, would question the Professor's thesis---we seem more comfortable in our tribal corners than working with our common humanity.
7
I consider myself a liberal but I have to say that most people even in my circles thought the Yale students were wrong. Even Larry Wilmore on his show (before it was cancelled) made a joke about how they were hysterical over nothing (he had a guest who was subjected to real racism, was the context).
25
I thank my lucky stars I turned my Ph.D in Philosophy into a job as a web developer instead of a faculty member. I'm a shy person with mediocre people skills who would find it difficult to tolerate today's climate in colleges and universities. I'd know I'd say the wrong thing and be thrown to the wolves.
21
@H Ph.D. in psychology here. Just surviving the academic gauntlet made me know that academia was not where I wanted to hang my hat!
1
Academic freedom is not just a pure idealistic principle. In reality, it is a double edged sword: it protects all kinds of thought-provoking intellectual conversation, but at the same time, it has been used by the dominant group to promote their privilege and silence other voices. There are decent white folks and decent folks of color. Unfortunately and tragically, a decent white folk was verbally attacked and insulted by some mean-spirited young people when both sides didn't really understand each other and the complicated implications of the so-called academic freedom. Then, the dominant group cried foul and further denounced all others, even though a few mean-spirited people are not representative. At the same time, the radicals among the suppressed determined to eliminate the principle of academic freedom and claimed that it is what all people of color want.
3
Utterly at a loss. Self-expression, free-thinking, self-regulation used to be the benchmark of university life. Yet students from a university from where many U.S. Presidents hail want to be policed, viciously seeking retribution for an enlightened individual who thinks students will thrive if not on a taut leash.
21
Several commenters have referred to the Yale students described in this column as “Red Guards” and I find this comparison quite apt. I recall the stories coming out of China during the latter years of the “Cultural Revolution” where anyone holding counter-revolutionary views (whatever they were) were badgered into self-criticism and public apologies for their “impure thoughts”.
17
Were these the students, that by one strategy or another, bought or bullied their way into Yale? Come to think of it, is there any other kind?
Enough of Ivy League folly. Universal tuition, now.
6
I love this essay, particular the wisdom of the closing sentence.
9
Great Column! Now this is a guy who has courage and the ultimate self control under enormous duress. Not many people could cope.
My sympathies to him and his wife for having to endure some of the worst aspects of human nature.
So, it turns out that even Yale educated students, despite spending their lives in a cocoon of wealth and privilege can behave like the plebs with their pitchforks.
12
Another reason for folks to halt all giving to academic institutions. I did and feel much better about it, after donating appreciated stock shares to my alma mater for years. Post secondary education (public and private) is big business.
If I ever donate again it will be to the sate vocational tech college in Missouri located in Linn. Yes folks, you can get an associates degree in HVAC, welding, auto mechanics, electrical, computers etc. All very useful and needed skills by the rest of us.
7
The current fear on elite campuses of being 'triggered' is a direct result of children being protected from anything they don't like by mollycoddling parents. The recently-outed purchasing of college admissions by cheating parents is just the extreme example of that. If kids have never had to cope with failure, disgust, fear or hurt, and never had to overcome them, then it is no surprise they are 'triggered' by anything that contravenes their view of the world from their perfect little parent-protected bubble.The Professor and his wife were victims of that. The good news ending of this story is that the Yale establishment have supported their professor and even rewarded him. I hope the silly immature students have learned something from their failure to intimidate their betters.
12
Most human beings don't feel they have to help each other to save their species. They become altruist when they think to the contrary.
4
On the book. This has been dealt exhaustively by the game theory. I am not sure there is anything new. On a personal level, the shameful scenes from Yale were starkly similar to hung wei pin students attacking their reactionary professors during the cultural revolution era in China.
7
I am so glad Professor Christakis made this into a hefty tome and work of a lifetime, putting flesh on the bones of what I have long known to be true, though in far more distilled form. One ignores at great peril the thousands upon millions upon billions acts of simple kindness and humanity taking place every moment of every day across this vast world, unremarked upon, not particularly notable for the very fact of their ubiquity, its utter commonness, their reflection of the quotidian.
Human beings are, at base, despite their manifest and enduring failings, a pretty good bunch. Ho-hum...
4
I am trying to think of a modern biologist "overly focused on the dark side of our biology."
2
I remember the attacks on Erika Christakis well, political correctness driven to its absurd, violent extreme. That and single issue groups are the biggest threats to the Democrats in 2020. The Donald loves them all.
13
So when did Halloween become enshrined as a serious college event? We've come a long way, alright, from the freedom march in Selma to going bananas over a silly costume parade. Must be a millennial thing. And as for Mr. Christakis' "brilliant" TED lecture, this seemed to me superficial in content, narcissistic in presentation. Makes this aging humanist want to brew some strong coffee, grab a good book and disappear.
4
No, Mr Bruni, the tension is not "between free expression and many minority students’ pleas for an atmosphere in which they feel fully respected and safe," but between that atmosphere of respect and safety, and white racists' demand that they be free to spew racist and bigoted speech with impunity.
His wife's contention that students should ignore the edict urging against culturally insensitive Halloween costumes was disgusting, and a clear, though implicit, dog whistle to racists to go ahead and demean minorities.
Indeed, he did not "got out to meet" those students because of a commitment to "free and open expression." He went out and stood there just to protect his job, refusing to acknowledge the implicit bigotry of his wife's position.
Sorry, but racism and bigotry are not great ideas that universities should protect in the name of "free and open expression." It's just intimidation of minorities.
Time for Times columnists to stand up against that institutional bigotry, and not pretend it's about "free expression."
4
Respectfully, you are missing the details— the teachers are not racist.
He did walk out again to meet the mob not to protect a job, but to be the teacher he is— you don’t avoid interaction with your students just because it’s uncomfortable. You listen
You should read her email and his interview again and maybe try to consider in your own heart why so many understand this incident differently.
5
Christakis' assertions aren't new; those of us pursuing a holistic life and studying the human experience have been talking about – and writing about - his perspective for 20 years; society just hasn’t been interested…until now.
It’s about emotion. Negative emotions are destructive; positive emotions are creative. Negative emotions contract our energy; positive emotions…expand our energy. Our society is mostly being fueled by negative emotions and reactions, because our marketing and media is relentlessly feeding us the message that “it” is never enough, and “we” are never good enough.
It’s also about the size of society. Smaller society’s prize fairness; larger society’s become distanced from fairness. Not only is our society large by comparison to much of the world, the inundation of media, marketing, money, advertising, and technology in our daily lives – and the belief that these things can replace genuine, tangible human interactions - has further disconnected us from one another. All our energy is poured into simply “keeping up,” with no room left for balance, connection, wisdom, and empathy.
In essence, we are disconnecting ourselves from our own humanity.
As Bill and Melinda Gates – and statistics – will attest, the reality is that in the big picture, in more ways than not, our world has gotten better…but that’s not what “sells.” It’s up to us to get our heads out of our smart phones and back into reality.
175
@Kelly Grace Smith
Thank you for sharing abit about Chritikas philosophy.
What I find puzzling in our society the endless promotion of Positive emotions. This is a fallacy and misconstrued concept. We need to accept that both emotions exist. And teach how to navigate negative emotions into positive and creative solutions.
I agree 100% that we need to lead a balanced life that we are connected intellectually, emotionally, physically, socially, and spiritually.
But for this to occur we need to start with “know thyself.”
These Yale kids should be transported into underserved communities and live and work there for a year.
Will they survive?
15
@Kelly Grace Smith "Our society is mostly being fueled by negative emotions and reactions, because our marketing and media is relentlessly feeding us the message that “it” is never enough, and “we” are never good enough." - I've never considered this - it makes so much sense.
In recovery we learn how to sit in our emotions as these too shall pass, and we learn that we are enough. We joke that we wish the earthlings, normal people who are not addicts, could find what we've found in recovery. We practice gratitude and learn how to live in the day, in the moment - to be present. These should be lessons we learn in life without having to be alcoholics to get there.
We also practice accepting what we cannot change, and having the courage to change what we can. We don't have to be complacent with status quo.
14
@Lets Speak Up
Precisely! As I say in my work, positive and negative emotions are a "package deal."
You cannot have passion and pleasure, laughter and excitement...without anger and sadness, frustration and fear. Emotions are our guides, not our masters.
It's what we do with our emotions that count.
10
The only way the right and left will be able to coexist is to disagree respectfully. That said, we cannot look the other way on overt racism. There is a line that can't be crossed.
3
Chelsea Clinton was accosted at NYU last week because she was trying to empathize/sympathize with members of the Muslim community over the horrific terror attack at Mosques in New Zealand. She, according to the students, couldn't do so because she had spoken out against Ilhan Omar's Anti-Semitic remarks. I want to think that she could do both and that we all can. Content of character rather than color of skin, religious affiliation or nationality--what happened to that as the way to judge and approach people. We all make mistakes based on lack of education. Our words matter. But we need to strive to look at the humanity of all and I applaud all those who are trying to move in that direction. "Blueprint" is one of those ways. I applaud its author.
24
What concerns me at the moment, seeing the trends both is the US and U.K. is the absolutism of the “outraged” of whatever political persuasion. Life is often a choice of least worse options and dealing with matters is often dealing with shades of grey.
Achieving things is often a matter of compromise
6
@FGA Omar's remarks we not anti-Semetic, she was criticizing and questionning our multi-million dollar tax-payer funded support for an apartheid religious orthodox state with a military. It's as absurd to support the Vatican state, except the Vatican doesn't have surface to air missiles. (Israel is not Judaism - Judaism deserves much better than its zealots and fair weather allies).
1
When I read this article about the "social-network-dynamic" observations of Nicholas Christakis, I couldn't help but thinking about a book that impacted me more than any book in my life, the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. In many respects, Tolle's observations of psychology and human interaction fit into Professor Christakis'. Human's (and all living things) have a core of goodness and joy at their center, but humans clouded this core of goodness by adopting obsessive, jaded thought processes over millenniums. It has made humans a risk to the planet as if humans were a cancerous threat to the planet's continued existence. I will have to add that there are networks of humans that seem to have more intent on causing harm than others. But dynamically we are all connected and all part of the network of humanity. We all have to aim to change. We all need to get reconnected with that centered goodness and joy.
7
Thank you, Frank Bruni. I, too, am surprised.
The part of this story that is incomprehensible to me also, is how Christakis could reach a positive conclusion about human nature. Not because of the suffering he and his wife experienced that was so painfully distressing and disruptive, but because in the world over, since time immemorial, societies have been divided. Human nature does not seem to allow for, or lend itself en masse to, the good of the whole.
As people, we don't have to argue with each other about positivity v. negativity of people and/or what percentage of populations is good vs. "evil."
More practical, and possibly more beneficial, would be to recognize human nature for what it is: complicated and influenced by wiring/experience/chance/luck/opportunity/and emotions (particularly those related to anger and sexuality), and take that into consideration when trying to positively influence the welfare of us all.
If feelings were seen for what they are--authentic & real, despite agreement or disagreement with them--and could be addressed with civility, in an attempt to mitigate the irrational notion that one person has a right to destroy someone with whom they disagree.
Acceptance of human nature, rather than defense of it, might be a constructive framework for reducing belligerence and hatred. "Validation," which isn't agreement with a person's view but is acceptance of their right to that view, may help us get along better and foster the principles of equal rights.
2
@Andrea Troy
It's true that "since time immemorial, societies have been divided." But that can be spun another way. As Yuval Noah Harari has pointed out, we have the biological tools to form strong tribal group bonds with about 100 people. Allegiances to groups larger than that (races, religions, countries, etc.) require the formulation of stories to bind us together. This can be viewed as an encouraging sign. If we can formulate stories that gets us to form these large groups, we can formulate other stories that get us to form even larger ones.
1
I've been a college professor for 18 years. It appears to me that the vitriol directed by the immature Yale students toward Prof. Christakis was only a manifestation of their limited ability to think critically or engage in informed discourse. I'm surprised that anyone would take their reaction seriously, but in the present climate in higher education where students are treated as paying customers – particularly, it seems, in elite institutions such as Yale – the imperative of ensuring customer satisfaction is eclipsing academic freedom and reasoned discussion at an alarming rate. I don't fault the students for their callowness; rather, isn't it the mission of Yale to teach them how to get beyond it?
34
I find it hard to make sense of this column. Mr. Bruni does not explain what the professor's detractors complain about --was it something in his past? Is there a countervailing social solution that is at odds with his view?
2
Professor Christakis deserves all of the praise that Frank Bruni awards him, even if there is an aspect of Christakis' optimism that seems contrived and a bit like reaction formation, a psychological defense against acknowledging something deeply uncomfortable or disturbing.
One wouldn't necessarily know it now from what is reported in the press, but back in 2015 President Obama and then candidate Bernie Sanders both expressed dismay over the puritanism they were seeing on college campuses, and how blasphemers (like Christakis and his wife) were being treated by those puritans and true believers.
As we approach the 2020 election, those Americans age 50 and up who describe themselves as liberals need to be especially cognizant of how independent voters are increasingly interpreting who and what the DNC stands for, and what the term "liberal" is coming to mean. When the term starts to be shorthand for persons who de-platform speakers, or physically attack them, or behave in a manner that looks as if they are going to start throwing stones, many voters with a very different understanding of what constitutes liberty and liberalism will start defecting from the Democratic party and their candidates.
21
@Middleman MD
If that perception of voters is valid, then why do republicans and others tolerate the MAGA rallies and all of the hate and vitriol spewed by Trump and his base? It seems to me there is a "both sides" validity assertion in this argument that is incorrect. Neither should be tolerated.
1
I’m afraid there is a cost to freedom. The first amendment protects freedom of speech so that the press can write about the government without fear of repercussions. But hate speech is also protected, so we have to live with it and hope for the best in human nature.
Professor Christakis’s thesis is that humans are inherently good. What’s ironic is that both groups, the students with the offensive costumes and the hecklers, are far from the best that humankind has to offer. Still, the book should be a good read.
7
Professor Christakis represents the best of academia and humanity in general.
Any form of protest that degenerates into a rage-fueled mob loses its legitimacy. Middlebury, Yale, and other institutions have something to learn here.
26
It takes all kinds and there is as much good about disagreement as there is bad. It's just when things get violent, they go haywire.
1
He'll do fine. Yale, I'm less sure of. It is slowly slipping down and perhaps out of the Top Ten—a direct result of things like this. It's a sad story.
9
Now would be a great time for some of the tenured professors to have some courage and defend their distinguished colleague publicly. As Benjamin Franklin said "We must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately."
18
In the name of an atmosphere of safety and respect, swarming and yelling. Irony?
12
I wonder what those students and others did this past St. Patrick's Day? Every year I am amazed and amused that so many people who are so willing to condemn others for "cultural appropriation" willingly celebrate St. Patrick's Day, they dress in green, drink green beer, eat stereotypical Irish food, and generally act like drunken buffoons. The next day, they will stop at some coffee place to pick up their Chai as they are on their way to a Yoga class blissfully unaware that they are practicing the very thing they condemned others for doing.
34
@snm You did not mention the worst offense: stereotyping the Irish people and people of Irish descent, like me, as boorish drunks.
1
Corned beef, which the Irish didn’t eat until they arrived in New York!
The overwhelming priority of moderates and liberals (and actual conservatives) for the next two years should be voting "President" Trump out of office in 2020.
When the attack on the Christakis' happened in 2015 it contributed to the right wing backlash that elected Trump a year later, by lending credence to the right wingers' screeds about "liberal fascism." And things like this continue to happen with depressing regularity.
And every time they happen, the participating students, administrators and faculty might as well all be wearing big fat "Trump 2020" buttons.
Between Trump and his supporters and the liberal fascists on college campuses, it's like we have dueling narcissists, each so self-absorbed they lack any sense of the effects of their actions on the larger stage.
Professor Christakis rightly observes the human propensity for cooperation. This is often good, but it's just as easily something else. ISIS in Iraq and Syria is an example of human cooperation, just as neighbors helping each other after a flood is.
Meanwhile anything we can do to redirect self-absorbed campus denizens' focus on the damage the Trump administration is doing to the country--including those students' own futures--we should do.
Imagine if Trump gets re-elected. I beg all my fellow citizens not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
14
Just a small point - I have to wonder what these over privileged entitled kids were talking about when they railed against a Cuban professor for being the "wrong" color. As we Cubans know, we come in all colors. These students, instead of screeching as if they have it all figured out, should be listening and learning and not dictating what should and shouldn't be.
11
As a Yale alum, I was deeply troubled by the lack of support that Yale provided to the Christakises. Nicholas Christakis faced an angry, irrational mob. The students who screamed and swore at Professor Christakis should have faced disciplinary action. They were an embarrassment to themselves and the university. Instead, one of the ringleaders of the mob received an award for her "activism" during graduation exercises.
Yale's response to the incident emboldened those prone to act uncivilly. It also, I'm afraid, made conversations about race even more difficult. Reasoned conversation cannot thrive in an environment of hysteria and fear.
22
And of course my question is: “Is this the Yale to which parents paid excessive illegal bribery sums in order to get their children admitted? Were these students some of those same children? Were they “C" students with US presidential aspiration? " Just asking.
9
The deceny we hope for is rarely found in the media today, even when perusing the New York Times. It, too, can be full of hate of hate and ridicule for those who fail to fall under the progressive penumbra.
Worser, of course, are the talking heads on both sides of the remote TV clicker who love nothing better than a brawl. But the most awful worst is the daily fare found on Facebook, which in truth should be renamed "In Your Facebook."
Erika Christakis was right the first time, and so now is Prof. Nicholas with his blueprint "Blueprint." The history of a kinder mankind is a jagged line of occasional "ups," but now more often it's "downs." This negative behavior is encouraged by the media as it sells more media. If you believe in the devil, he's the one who makes us do it. It's time for a better belief.
3
I could not imagine having to work on one of these campuses; from what happened to this couple, to speakers such as Bill Maher and conservatives being denied a chance to speak, to Chelsea Clinton being blamed for the New Zealand massacre, it seems that outrage is the reflex reaction to hearing a viewpoint you disagree with. What happened to listening to ideas that you disagree with and engaging in a civil discussion? Professor Christakis and Ms. Clinton calmly listened to those challenging them; they didn't try to shout them down or attack them.
16
There is something happening at US liberal arts colleges that makes students very righteous in their indignation of certain behaviors and statements requiring faculty and staff to adjust what one would consider to be normal behavior and utterances or face the rebuke of insensitivity or a failure to provide a safe space. I have worked with many dozens of college interns from the US and overseas for the past 15 years. And while the foreign student interns are aware of what is considered to be the parameters of political correctness in the US (they are of the age to understand these things seemingly by osmosis - I’m not) they often explain it time as anthropologist would explaining the cultural habits and sensitivities of a different culture, one that they may find fascinating but one to which they tell me is not the norm on the campuses they will be returning to. Just saying.
5
I also believe in the essential goodness of all people. However humans are complex and have different impulses that come from societal and developmental experiences. Just as individuals must learn through self regulation not to act out negative emotions and behavior, a society needs rules and norms that protects the vulnerabilities of others. There must be freedom of expression and agreed upon constraints of harmful acting out behavior. I do believe that the suggestion that there should be no regulating of racist Halloween costumes is worthy of public shaming. Healthy shame is the socializing emotion that informs us when we have gone to far in harming the other. We can see how the absence of such shame in our current president has harmed society and our planet.
75
@DLG
Neither Professor has anything to be ashamed of or to be shamed for. A suggestion that adult students rather than the University should regulate non-academic behavior is an idea worthy of debate, but not shame. The students’ reaction, however, was shameful.
14
I look forward to reading "Blueprint", as it sounds very much like Princeton professor Robert Wright's excellent "Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny". However, as I recall, Professor Wright concludes his book by considering whether our ultimate destiny will be shaped by our innate sense of commonality, or by our increasingly zero-sum inclinations on a resource constrained, overpopulated planet. Just now, I am afraid it looks increasingly like the latter.
2
I work in a department that has a brilliant young woman. However, almost every time I open my mouth, she takes offense and accuses me of throwing microaggressions towards her. Recently I told her I loved her new haircut and she accused me of insulting her. I finally just realized minimizing my interactions with this person was the only way to stop her from taking offense. I've never been so frazzled by anyone in my working life and can't imagine being on a college campus nowadays where every word you say can be a microaggression.
28
@Sasha Love
Are you familiar with the actor Dwayne Johnson? A good natured enough man, very muscular. A no nonsense presence about him.
If you were talking with him, would you complement him regarding his hair (or lack of, in his case)?
A very simple rule: Just treat all women you aren’t intimate with as if they were Dwayne Johnson.
2
Have you considered that she might have a mental health issue?
2
the problem is that no one challenged you growing up and now you are clueless about the impacts of your actions. you keep offending her and you haven't wised up as to why. you're the problem. next time actually listen to what she's saying. you should at the very least have a coherent idea of what bothers her.
I think that a key threat to American democracy is the impatience people have with the ideas that contradict their notions of right and wrong. This is especially curious for the liberals, since one of the many definitions of liberal thought used to include tolerance with the ideas that we do not like or even hate. Liberals used to say that they would fight to the bitter end for the right of such opposing views to be freely expressed. We are now living in a period where people lock themselves in their dogmas and passionately hate, belittle and attack the ones who dare to express anything that contradicts those. We are almost living in an Orwellian world that leaves no room for dissent.
What happened to Professor Christakis is a sad example. Maybe he will find something good in that childish madness, but I do not, and I just want to invite people to loosen up, to smile and more than anything else to tolerate. These issues are not worth to hate one another, they are not worth to question ones belonging to American society.
365
@Ahmet Goksun
I can't speak for that particular student, who may have been acting from teen-age impulses of anger. However, Ahmet, you must consider that when you 'invite people to loosen up, to smile, and more than anything else to tolerate', you have to understand that it may be hard for those who have genuinely suffered-cheated out of their homes by unfair foreclosures, separated from their children by useless anti-asylum enforcements, cheated out of their overtime wages by unscrupulous business owners, indeed cheated out of fair pay period, cheated out of decent health care by wealthy Congressmen who have their own guaranteed socialistic (for all intents and purposes) health care, cheated out of their jobs by corporations who promise and then don't deliver, cheated out of having decent access to clean water and clean air, cheated out of having a way to even get to a job unless a two-hour commute is endured, etc....in other words, by institutions or individuals who have far more power than they do, it's hard to fault some anger. You have to experience life in all its heights AND pitfalls, not just your own, but others as well. You are presumably educated and that education was a gift of sharing to you from many people and places, a veritable city. In order to take advantage of it, you had to have other advantages as well. Not everyone has those.
108
@MacMahler
I really understand all of that. I was carrying barrels of coal at age 13 and came to this country first time with $100 in my pocket. However, all the issues you have raised and all the inequality and ugliness that is around are still not good enough reasons to label someone as "disgusting" , not enough reasons for this hatred. And worst of all, they do nothing to resolve the grievances that you highlight.
255
@Ahmet Goksun The thing is, there are some absolutely "right" and "wrong" positions, and just because they can be dichotomized along a dimension from liberal to conservative doesn't mean they are equally valid views. Discrimination, whether based on race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation (not a complete list) is wrong. Full stop. And liberals intolerance for and antagonism towards this discrimination is both reasonable and good.
And "ideas" and "notions" aren't the same as actions. So, my problem with the Right isn't that they BELIEVE abortion is wrong and wouldn't do it themselves, it's that they believe it is bad and are TRYING TO PREVENT everyone else from having safe access to the procedure under any circumstances. I am tolerant of their belief and will defend their right hold it. I am strongly opposed towards their actions and will to everything I can to thwart them.
15
Doesn't this article point out that we need to better educate our children before they go to college. They should have an open mind, understand the intellectual history of ideas, the way the world has changed, and be able to laugh at others in a gentle manner. Perhaps if the holiday of Halloween and dressing in costumes is so offensive, we should ban that and ban costumes all together. Perhaps we should all wear the same black sack in winter and white in summer to erase all differences. Perhaps we should rethink the purification that is sweeping certain circles and understand that we all have differences and we may make mistakes. As long as we do not intentionally seek to harm another and we apologize when we are wrong or when we embarrass others or unintentionally hurt feelings or otherwise harm them, we should be forgiven. And, all of us should have a thicker skin, not wilting because of a slight or a joke when it is not meant to harm. We should also keep our own culture but understand and respect the cultures of others. Professor Christakis whom I don't know and perhaps never will, seems to exemplify these virtues I have stated. I will get his book and read it as some point, hopefully soon.
16
Hardly anyone seems interested in the contents of the book.
There's real chance that we humans will destroy ourselves within the next 200 years by way of climate change, nuclear war, or bio-weapons, to name a few or the ways we may do it.
So I'm happy to see an argument that suggests we might have it in us to do better than recent performance suggests. Because if we don't, there won't be a Yale or students or professors.
6
This incident echoes the outrage among a subset of Harvard students who 'do not feel safe' around Harvard law professor Ronald Sullivan because he agreed to join the legal team of Harvey Weinstein. Respect for free speech, constitutional legal protections, due process of law (see: campus sexual assault tribunals) at Ivy League insitutions leads me to question the wisdom of attending those institutions. I say that as a liberal who attended an Ivy League school.
10
The Christakises ended up as scapegoats for Yale's - and society's - institutional racism over years and years. The attacks on them were intellectually lazy, substituting feelings for thinking. They also ironically called for the University to violate it's own commitment to freedom of speech ( the same freedom being utilized by the outraged demonstrators) to muzzle comments that provided an argument for students being allowed to express themselves as they see fit, and face their own consequences.
I would say also that Yale - or many there - were happy to let them take the heat, so to speak, because the Halloween incident distracted the students from the real wrongs that have existed.
196
No one has the corner on suffering. Halloween costumes and blackface could be offensive, hurtful and in poor taste, but they are not slavery, redlining, genocide, or discrimination in employment, nor are they the smiling and polite kid-gloves hypocrisy that can really keep a minority group down.
And a sociology professor and a child-development professor(!) are such easy and safe targets in a world that has Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, Mitch McConnell, Putin, Trump, and many other brutal people who care nothing about anyone's safety and physical well-being, much less feelings!
I have no sympathy for the brutalization of anyone, or the demonization of anyone, and I absolutely don't care if you're a young member of a minority group that's been oppressed. I don't even care if you've been traumatized. Traumatizing someone else doesn't solve your problem. If that makes me un-"woke," so be it. There are systemic problems in this country. There are forces that are dividing people while a tiny percentage has insane amounts of money and more power than any human should have. And there are complex dynamics where NO side or group is all good or all bad. Listening and empathy are the only answers to those problems. Righteous rage feels good, it's very human and normal, but it never, ever, ever helps anything. Not in a couple, not in a family, not in a college, not in a community, and not in a society.
35
@LNL Thank you. You took the words out of my mouth.
We live in the age of trump, there are no barrier, no second thoughts, no decency whatsoever.
These screaming pack of students are Yale students ?
Shows education has nothing to do with their " disgusting " , behavior.
trump broke the century old tradition followed by past Presidents irrespective of their Party.
9
I was surprised at the lack of background information in Bruni's piece. This story is much more complicated than "rude" students attacking a reasonable professor. If you go back to the original stories, it becomes clear that a problem with parties where black face was allowed began this saga. The original letter asking students to not be offensive in their Halloween costumes, was responded to by Erika Kostinakis with an email saying basically that students could police their own behavior.
If you are black or can put yourself in the position of black students, you might find this email response offensive, or at least, insensitive. The whole thing devolved from there in the heat of passionate feelings on both sides. Why make the professor a hero now, because he's written a book extolling the best side of human nature? Again, it's much more complicated than that!
11
@Karen
Ms. Kostinakis was not condoning the offensive Halloween costumes. As a chile development apecialist, she was suggesting that young adults take responsibility for confronting their peers rather than relying on the institution to do that for them. Young adults--and the rest of us as well--are often willing to march in support of faraway causes or "like" such causes on social media. But we are too often loath to confront those closest to us who are doing harm to others by their words or behavior. We delegate that policing to others to avoid implicating ourselves. Kostinakis was asking students to take action to defend their beliefs--direct action. It was good mentoring advice for their growth as citizens, and I wish she had been better heard. I hope whe was able to move on as well.
10
A big reason why these dust ups get so vicious is because so many of the students, who are in the process of crafting an identity that will help them make their way in the world as independent agents, find them empowering. When people blow up over something relatively trivial, they're doing so for another reason. When I encounter someone raging for tolerance, I conclude that they're acting hypocritically, and disregard them.
143
@RGreen
The people I know who rage for tolerance have often personally experienced intolerance. They are not hotheads but stewards of moral outrage when its easier for most to insulate in their own respective communities, virtual or otherwise.
12
@RGreen
No one should have to "rage" for tolerance. Raging for acceptance is what should be happening
Perhaps you should find out what the rage is about, before you call them hypocritical.
5
@RGreen
A big reason why these dust ups get so vicious is because of the preponderance of toadies willing to exonerate these students under the auspices of "crafting an identity" and "finding their place." What a pathetic excuse for the sheer hatred, and vitriol that was on display. When he isn't allowed to look you in the eyes, he is isn't allowed to smile, it's clear he isn't treated as an equal. He did everything they wanted--obseqiously. There is nothing he could have said to placate these entitled brats. A man as accomplished and erudite as him should be shown a modicum of respect. As an Indian man, I've faced my fair share of discrimination,
on this topic, too. Wearing a towel on your head--ostensibly to mock turbans worn by many in my Sikh community is wrong. Where were the social justice warriors then? I would love to have a professor like him--and his partner mentor me.
17
Perhaps Professor Christakis should study the network characteristics of lynch mobs, whether in the mythical old west, the post-Civil War South, or among social media among students, anti-vaxxers, anti-gmo activists, extreme political elements, and other groups that plague us.
One eagerly awaits to hear how the Yale students who harassed this honorable couple survive in the cold cruel world.
10
@WBS
Thank you, WBS. When I hear from post-grads who make their way into the world, it is often with a certain recognition that what happened when they were undergrads was a golden time. They lived near friends, enjoyed a social life, and focused on studies. Some tell me that "real life" is much harder than they expected. One even admitted: "Adulting" is hard. I listened. Additionally, I also wondered to what degree did we prepare them for a real world that would not be as tolerant (or interested) in their politics. Their are some rude awakenings ahead. People want social/political change? It will not be through screaming and disrespect that this occurs.
2
I wonder what level of discipline Yale gave those vicious students. Immediate expulsion would be right, but I doubt it happened. At least a long probation. Anyone know?
5
This whole business was about costumes? Really? One of the country’s most prestigious schools? Incredible!
11
So many of the "woke" "liberal" "democrat" "progressives" seem to be acting out of helplessness in their desire to defend some cause that they just can't seem to understand.
They feel too helpless to attack entrenched money and power, so they attack individuals who express their opinions on dress codes, drugs, history, etc. Eventually, if this continues, they will simply be standing in their underwear in the public square screaming at passing clouds.
The top 10% the wealthy now own and control about 75% of the total wealth. The bottom 40% own nothing (0%). The fabled, disappearing Middle Class own about 15% of the wealth and are losing that.
Can't we start there and forget about attacking people for expressing their opinions on minor things?
11
Just my 2 cents, but what is really dividing people today is economic inequality. I think social change and accepting differences between people happens easier when people are less concerned about their futures. We now have a world where many are worried about the future and see immigration, social change, etc, as a threat rather than a possibility.
And ultimately, we are tribal, so if we ignore our tribalistic behavior, we ask for trouble. Our better nature is a tribal trait that looks inward, not outward. It is hard for humans to feel bad for large abstract populations compared to how they feel for immediate family and friends that are suffering. We are not so suited to long term survival if we can't override that limitation, but then you can't always overcome that tribal hardwiring, which is pretty apparent today.
3
Thank you for this opinion, yes being "human" is difficult and for each individual the map is unique. But more importantly how have we forgotten how to be nice, how to say "I'm sorry", how to say that I will not do that but I will support your right to do that?
That all said, trump must go, he is the apex of all that is wrong in America, the anger, the hatred, the labeling, the pettiness. He is exactly the wrong face for my America.
8
On the strength of this article, and after watching Professor Christakis in the accompanying video, I pre-ordered his new book. It's never too late to learn from someone who has his kind of wisdom, courage, and composure.
15
We should also remind ourselves that the people who pilloried were young and made a youthful error. Reserve blame in this mess for adults who set those kids up to perpetrate an injustice that most will live to renounce and regret.
[And when they do, we will remember not to pile on them for doing the thing they admitted was an error.]
4
I state the following not to 'insult' any others, although I realize, sadly, that such may often be inescapable these days. Next Halloween, I am costuming myself as Professor Christakis.
14
I definately remember the incident. This makes me wonder what would happen if we applied the same standards to the students actions?
9
On the original issue, we are talking Halloween costumes and a university committee's advice -- conspicuously not an order -- to avoid insulting fellow students. This is simple civility and has nothing to do with freely airing opinions and thoughts about the great matters of the day (or the trivial ones, for that matter).
Thus far: nothing. Now Erika Christakis steps in and manages to inflate it. A predictable reaction follows, into which her husband Nicholas intrudes himself. Then it's time for an outraged public to insult the insulted students as over-privileged brats --- unlike (apparently) the heroic professorial defenders of those who wish to wear blackface and those costumed, painted Yalies whom they are defending. Allow me to put forth the idea that deep academic principles may not be at stake here.
Let us also briefly contemplate the fact that by the time academic superstardom and the third big professorship is reached, most of the celebrities have long since done their serious work. In any respectable field, it's hard to make arguments that last, and there's a notable tendency to drift to bloviation after decades of rapt approval. This can be also fed by the familiar "famous-because-famous" loop because universities are intensely conscious of their public standing and will often move to elevate that standing by purchasing well-known figures from rival institutions.
A little skepticism, of the sort that is native to academia, is therefore in order.
12
@hquain
Wow. Very well put, and well reasoned. You've managed to open my mind a little.
In the video, Christakis treats the protester as he would an agitated patient. He recognized he was dealing with psychopathology, not reasoned, nor reasonable, protest.
It was entirely the correct approach.
More troubling is that Yale saw fit to let his wife go. In so doing, they gave in to irrationality coupled with intolerance. It seriously tarnished its reputation by this action. Reinstating her would be the obvious thing to do.
101
@Kim R
It was her choice to go. Yale expressed regret about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/us/yale-lecturer-resigns-after-email-on-halloween-costumes.html
2
I never understood why there is so much opposition to political correctness. In most people’s everyday lives they are not brutally honest with their love ones. They tell them the truth but they are tactful about it. Well that’s political correctness. It’s a keen sense in what is appropriate or in good taste. It used to be called politeness.
39
@Oliver The words "Political Correctness" are divisive in themselves.One side or the other. What's political about being considerate and sensitive? Politeness - sounds almost quaint. I'm for it!
24
Politeness can be hoped for but not demanded and certainly not legislated. Additionally, some people’s tolerance is so low as to define most any human interaction as an impolite infraction. Cultural appropriation is one such example.
5
@Eileen Giuliani and Oliver, well said! For conservatives, political correctness is all that is wrong with the world. To them it is their God given right to denigrate and insult people, often about things that one cannot change, be it race, skin color and some kind of disability (not that they have to change at all, mind you), and no one has the right to question it! That is their attitude! Free speech only applies to them! Is that not partly how Trump came to be POTUS? Insulting people- even a reporter with disability? I shudder to think of a future with adults who are now children of those who support Trump unconditionally - like that MAGA hat wearing high schooler visiting DC who was in the news a few months ago and is going around suing CNN and others! The values he is growing up with! I wonder if that whole incident was staged to bait the MSM!
1
professor Christakis certainly appears to be a decent man and a deep thinker. we need more people like that in our society. as for his student critics, we might remember that the adolescent mind is exquisitely sensitive to the mistakes of adults, but significantly less aware of its own shortcomings.
72
@butlerguy I concede your point, but in ages past students continued to respect their elders despite mistakes and approached disagreements in a polite, questioning attempt to learn.
16
@butlerguy Bravo!
One thing that is not often discussed in these incidents is what the formal response of a university administration should be to behavior, such as wearing the wrong kind of Halloween costume, that offends some students. Here are a few ideas.
(1) Students would be required to submit their costume plans to a university-appointed "sensitivity judge," who would screen out the offensive ones. A student who failed to submit his or her plans or refused to abide by the judge's decision would be placed on probation or expelled.
(2) A student caught committing an offensive act would be required to do a "walk of shame" at a public place on campus at a time advertised in advance. A student who refused to do so would be placed on probation or expelled.
(3) A professor who upheld an offending student's right to free expression would face trial by the faculty-student senate, and, if found guilty, would have his or her contract terminated or tenure revoked. An alternative punishment would be to do community service as determined by the offended students.
Of course, any such moves would trigger a blizzard of lawsuits, and offended students, or their parents, would be required to help the university pays its legal bills.
If all this sounds insane, that's because it is. But it wouldn't surprise me if things began to move in this direction, because, as has been reported, some book publishers now use sensitivity readers to screen out manuscripts deemed offensive in some way. What next?
18
While there is no doubt that America is place where systemic oppression of people of color thrives and overweening white and male privilege is a real thin, I am most interested in the visceral appeal of that flush of energy that comes with being righteously offended. It matters not what one's political stripe. I have seen in my own small town how the conflicts are enhanced and immeasurably worsened by those whose real (and possibly unconscious) aim is not to communicate or solve problems, but to seek attention and experience the rush of adrenaline that conflict delivers, whether online or in person. Thinking things through and arguing logically in a measured tone doesn't make for interesting Facebook footage.
37
There is a doubt. Stop being divisive.
Mr. Bruni, I wish you had consulted with a single Yale student before publishing such a congratulatory piece.
Mr. Christakis was not just an ordinary professor at Yale. He was appointed to be the position of Head of Silliman College, whose single role is to lead, entertain and protect a community of students between the ages of 18 to 22. He abjectly failed in those responsibilities.
I can also add that while the administration and a core of students adored him and his work, many of the students and faculty of Yale consider Mr. Christakis a sort of academic operator, who floated through positions at Harvard and Yale without producing anything of substance. The fact that he was summarily given the position of Head of College after so little time at Yale is proof of a system looking to give him accolades before he earned them.
All questions of racism and privilege aside, Mr. Christakis was given a position - the Head of Silliman College - the mantle of which he was not ready to pick up. He was, for lack of a better word, just bad at his job.
21
@Former Yalie
What does it mean to "protect" residents, or entertain them? In what ways did he "abjectly fail" them? I think that when anyone offers criticism of someone else, especially publicly, it behooves one to define what it is you mean. Very few readers will have experienced Yale's system, or Mr. or Mrs. Christakis.
Whether or not he was an "operator "- which I assume means someone interested in advancing himself as quickly as possible, maneuvering through the hierarchy - correct me if that is off - while it might be irritating, it doesn't indicate how he performed his duties.
13
@Former Yalie
It is not the responsibility of the Head of the College to coddle students and protect them from ideas that they may find offensive. Universities are settings for the dissemination of ideas, even bad ones. If students are so fragile that a single email causes them to lash out, then those students do not belong in a robust academic setting such as Yale.
20
@Former Yalie
Accepting your premise (and I have no idea) that he was bad at this job, how does this relate to what happened to him and his wife? Is it your contention that his incompetence justified the behavior described in the piece, or are the descriptions of that event incorrect. I knew nothing about this before I read the piece. Whatever this man and his wife did the behavior of the students, if described correctly, is indefensible. Sometimes I feel like I've woken up in another world. When did the suppression of free speech become progressive? Of all the nutty stuff we read and hear about today, this to me is the most un-American.
1
if 1000 students signed some sort of letter calling for his the profs ouster, did any sizeable portion of the majority of students sign a letter in his support? if not, was this silent majority passivity ever discussed openly , much less debated at Yale?
5
Your editorials always make me stop and think. I love that you push the envelope. I don't remember this incident, but I'm told that the students were not quite as venal as you describe. Also, I wonder who Erika sent the memo to - just other faculty members? And how was the memo discovered - accidentally? Was it stolen, hacked? Perhaps, rather than a memo, Erika should have suggested a university-wide discussion which included the students? How you deliver a message is often just as important as the message itself. It sounds like a bad incident all around, many people being hurt and misunderstood.
8
Hi Joanna - The message was not stolen or leaked in any way. Rather, it was sent as a memo to the entire student body of Silliman College, one of twelve residential communities at Yale, which Mr. Christakis and his wife were tasked with leading.
This was not a private thought - Ms. Christakis felt it appropriate to send 600 college students a note that in some ways condone racial insensitivity.
Also: ask yourself why you would feel better if it had been stolen or leaked in some way. Would it paint a more complete picture of a student body out to get a professor they didn’t like? That’s not what happened.
3
Why no accountability at Yale? Who are/were these students? Why were they admitted? Who admitted them? Who is teaching them this behavior? Why do the administrators tolerate this behavior? Where is leadership?
32
@Len319 You've more than covered Who and Why, and Where is there too. But what happened to What?
The students were mostly people of color. At places like Yale, they occupy a safe place where their actions are almost always beyond reproach. @Len319
2
The common denominator between the snowflakes and the supremacists is lack of Emotional Self Regulation. Both groups demonize "the other," lack tolerance, and boil over easily... although (obviously) a hideous ideology is not common to both.
We need to wake up as a country to our less and less compassionate childrearing practices, particularly from 0-3 when Emotional Self Regulation is modeled and taught. Babies learn ESR within their primary attachment relationship, by being externally co-regulated (soothed) by their attachment figure. This being repeated thousands and thousands of times is the way babies learn, eventually, to calm themselves.
The way human beings thrive is by getting 1:1 attention from a beloved attachment figure during early life. Today, a third of newborns are in 1:4 daycare situations, though they still need 1:1 attention, developmentally. We can see the rising salivary cortisol patterns among babies in daycare-- it is a new stress on small children to be separated from their source of comfort for 10 hours a day. If they bond to the provider, they lose this caregiver when they move into the next-age room.
The routine use of early daycare and the mismatch between group care and babies' needs is the driver of a lot of anxiety and depression among young people, and the lack of self regulation that is now exploding.
We are wired for goodness but we need experiences of a safe and reliable "other" in early life to activate this goodness.
45
@Megan Yes, the behavior of these Ivy League students would not be tolerated in a pre-school for three year olds. Their teachers would have most likely gently redirected them to some other source of interest. People in their late teens & older should have more self control, however. Self control, deferred gratification, logic, all good things for adults to possess, whether in college or the Oval Office.
6
@Megan. Though you seem very well informed re child development & personality formation & the importance of 1:1 child rearing, how can that happen if parent(s) must work to provide for themselves & children? Your observations may be correct but you're not addressing the economic drivers & the disappearance of the extended family w/ many caregivers at home that drive the need for "payed childcare".
2
I couldn’t agree more, I was brought up in of a day care environment as a baby because my parents were needed as workers during the Second World War. This has left lifelong scars on my wellbeing, notably, anxiety, which in turn leads to a plethora of other problems such as difficulty in learning and concentration not to mention insomnia.
These conditions are largely avoidable simply by the baby being physically close to it’s mother during those all important months after birth until the time they can become naturally separated. When we ignore these crucial times in a child’s life we are sowing the seeds of poor development of the individual and the risk of a life ruined, also the loss to society generally of that individual’s contribution to society.
3
According to this piece, Professor Christakis states in the preface of his new book “Blueprint”: “For too long, the scientific community has been overly focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for tribalism, violence, selfishness and cruelty. The bright side has been denied the attention it deserves.” Of course, the here mentioned dark and bright sides both belong to the same part of human behavior. You may best observe this when nationalism connects total strangers who may sacrifice even their lifes for their compatriots, while at the same time may kill total strangers just because they belong to an other nation. Unfortunately, there is a heavy heritage in human behavior that we have to face, have to study, and have to handle using science, even if finding relief takes a hundred years, say.
11
It's good for people to be kind to each other on an individual level-politeness is a virtue-but trying to apply kindness as a principle for organizing large, complex societies just leaves us with the status quo. Ruling classes love it when the disadvantaged are polite-it's much easier to dismiss someone who is asking than someone who is demanding. Social progress is only won through struggle. Any other argument is naive.
25
@J. Free
No, the only social progress has happened in the last few hundred years, due to technology and capitalism. The apparent struggle was like the pain of childbirth, where the economic changes released through the transition from monarchy to capitalism was the zygote.
4
@J. Free: It's important to remember that when Yale suggested students refrain from offensive behavior, this wasn't about demanding that the disadvantaged be polite: it was suggesting that the ruling class refrain from mocking the disadvantaged. When white college students dress up as minority stereotypes, this isn't some carnivalesque uprising of the underclass, it's a celebration of power by the powerful. No-one here was talking about the possibility of students mocking the Yale faculty, or the Supreme Court, or their own wealthy parents. That would have been a totally different thing.
3
@J. Free Well mannered, polite and discrete people are the only people I ever listen to - regardless of color. Yelling, barking and acting out will tune me out and make me turn my back on you. And by the way, I am a minority and my parents taught me to not only treat others with respect, but to not make myself into a victim.
2
“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.” Anne Frank
Words I live by.
71
In the 60 years since the civil rights era, some society values have improved, but others have gotten much worse. While there are more opportunities, there is also far more inequality, rage, environmental destruction, demonizing the ‘other’, polarization.
It is high time we ask what we are doing wrong, because clearly we are not on a right enough course.
I found the concepts of this professor enlightening partly because he was challenged by oppression and bigotry (yes indeed from those ‘idealistic ‘ students who arrogantly believed they were the only ones with the truth).
Through that challenge, clearly he became a better, deeper, more tolerant, more thoughtful man.
Makes me wonder how many in the ‘thought police’ mob also have traveled on the rough road to goodness and humility, and how many learned how to suppress alternative ideas by being aggressively nasty and arrogant.
67
@organic farmer The person at the top of the food chain in this country is certainly not making it any easier to be kind. But I take issue with the words "thought police." As a woman, I've noticed that the times I stand up for myself, I'm called a "bitch," and when I'm submissive, I'm called "nice." It really does a number on my self esteem, my confidence about speaking in public, even my ability to think clearly. The "thought police" come from your side too, those who want to keep the rest of us in their place. Part of that process is demonizing us by calling us the thought police if we raise an objection to a societal "norm," i.e. who should have the power and who shouldn't.
We all need to remember, human brains aren't done maturing until 25ish. Those privileged co-eds are still learning to control their emotions.
Nobody has more unquestioning strength in the "rightness" of their beliefs than young people who have had little chance to bump up against adversity.
52
@Mary This is not an attempt to disagree with you, just a question that's been on my mind. If human brains don't mature until 24, 25...why do we give the vote to 18 year old individuals? Should anyone under the age of 24, 25 be held responsible for their actions as anything other than a minor? I am skeptical of such a late maturation of the brain. I think it more likely just a matter of experience.
2
@Victor It May be surprising, but many neuroimaging studies confirm both structural and functional differences in adolescents vs. adult brains. Until 25 or 30, the part of the brain used by adults for rational thought (the prefrontal cortex) is not fully developed and, as a result, younger people appear to process information using a different part of the brain typically associated with emotional processing. I think your point about the voting age is a valid one — our current “cutoff” of 18 is only based on custom, rather than the complete capability for complex, rational thought.
2
I admire the forgiveness, the learnedness and the intelligence of Professor Christakis, and I feel deeply for what he and his wife suffered at the hands of a crew of self-righteous, self-obsessed and over-privileged Yale students. Reading this column, I realize I have none of his optimism.
I was a professor at a mid-sized university for more than three decades, retiring from full-time teaching in 2014. For the past four years I continued teaching as an adjunct.
No more. Students today see the world strictly in terms of group identity, and listen only to voices of others so long as they are not white, straight or male. They never speak without first looking over their shoulders for approval from their group. The result, needless to say, is that individual freedom of expression is all but gone.
I've grown used to hearing students (including a lot of liberal. guilt-ridden white students) dismiss the opinions of straight white people as nothing but the contemptible "white gaze." A group of students at my college recently publicly mocked a professor from Cuba for not having skin that was dark enough. In a seminar I recently taught on Enlightenment thinkers who wrote about the role of art and artists in society, several students refused to discuss or even read any of them because they were "oppressive white males."
P.S. I'm a left-leaning liberal who loathes Trump.
P.P.S. The more elite the school, the more likely this intellectual Maoism rules.
228
@Emile As if most college Deans aren't white, straight males. College professors are 41% white males only 35% are white females, the other 24% being divided by gender and race of nonwhites. So white males are controlling the dialogue, still. one can find a group that will mock or say anything but that doesn't say much of the whole group now does it? Not all at Yale attacked this prof and his wife. At times the small loud vocal group gets the attention. " several students refused to discuss or even read any of them because they were "oppressive white males." Yes, several but not all is the point. Why not recognize the group that did read the material? Should I only recognize the minorities that do crime, not noticing the majority of minorities that don't?
4
@JDSept: We can probably take Emile's report as valid, but somehow this reported contempt for straight white males coexists with a society that is still very much dominated by straight white males. My guess would be that Emile is talking about certain liberal arts classes, and not so much what is going on in the business school and elsewhere. When I was studying sociology, years ago, I didn't see anything like what Emile reports. Many of my classmates were preparing for careers in law enforcement.
1
@Emile
Students at so-called elite schools can be self-absorbed, but they are savvier than you realize. They feel and know their power and they can get things done and many of them go on to become movers and shakers in the world.
You do not think complexion matters in every sphere of life in the real world? That is what your students were telling you. How many minority academic positions are filled by light-complected blacks and white Hispanics?
They were also telling you that your curriculum was too traditional.
Perhaps you were not ready or willing to listen?
Instead of deriding your students in a throwaway fashion, you might have listened to their concerns more forthrightly. That is what good scholars do.
3
Another troubling element regarding this topic is how much this whole thing is becoming steeped with potent retaliation of one sort or another for anyone daring to express his opinion regarding issues of that order.
And within this sphere of modest though healthy activities for public debate, high-profile personalities strike as ideal candidates to take first the tumble downhill while on the line of duty.
It's a dark Orwellian and dystopia world where apparently some subject are better being circumvented or if so, treated with the most neutered and sterilized opinion, unless one is at risk of seeing himself exposed for saying a piece perhaps erring too far outside the so-called politically correct norm.
How did we even get there? Do people really have to proactively apply self-censoring to their own thinking for fear of being later censored then chastised by a recondite body, in which case with an unfathomably steep price to pay?
Is liberty of opinion soon to become an obsolete notion to be fished out of oblivion by a future generation? Even when scratching up my frontal lobe while plumbing the exact causes having this Yale Prof. outnumbered and bludgeoned by such a rampant backlash overlooking such a vaguely controversial issue flies way past my present understanding at this point.
30
@jeanfrancois: Remember, in this one episode Professor Christakis was outnumbered and "bludgeoned" (yelled at), but he was still the dean of the college, and he and his wife are doing fine, thank you. In another place and time, those students might have been backed up by the power of the state. That has happened, but it wasn't the case in this instance. In this case, they only had the power to yell their indignation.
The protesters at Yale may have also shown how many of us are 'inherently not-good'. These protesters are representatives of the very worst, the entitled. Altruism may lead to better societies, but these Yale student protesters remind us that 'little good comes from those unto whom much is given without due merit.'
29
@Cynical
I think this has a lot more to do with the dangers of group think or mob rule, allowing emotions and the need to belong which displaces objectivity or fairness, which afflicts the entitled and un-entitled alike.
1
@Cynical You are, of course, referring to the legacy admits, like Bush and Kavanaugh, right?
You perpetuate the harm done to Christakis and many other decent people when you write that the vicious attacks on him and his wife were born of “minority students’ pleas for an atmosphere in which they feel fully respected and safe.” We need to reject the absurd notion that those young adults - as students at an American Ivy, perhaps among the most privileged persons any society has created outside of royalty - had a legitimate claim of being targets of unearned disrespect or threats to their personal safety. They merely chose to capitalize on a special moment in time when the media was captured by a false narrative, and brought harm on decent people who did nothing wrong.
88
Too often societies band together under the shared belief that others who disagree with them do so at their peril. Too often we value the rightness of our causes in destructive ways and that blurs the lines of right and wrong. Maybe we have taught ourselves that it is acceptable to seek punishment, if not outright vengeance, not only from villains but as well from those whose disagreements may seem to set us back a bit. We've lost the memory, if not the knowledge, that noble causes suffer when we lack nobility in their defense. Watch the video again, if you've seen it before, and pretend you have no understanding of what is being discussed. Then ask yourself who is the victim and who is the villain and why you have decided the way you have.
10
The Yale incident illustrates another emerging issue, which is that protest (particularly at the extremes) is more commonly targeting allies than outright opponents. Some trans activists (or, more commonly, the 'woke' who speak on their behalf) attack others in the LGBTQ community for being 'imperfect' allies, as opposed to going after those who are openly and proudly transphobic. BLM got mileage going after Hillary Clinton, but where are their memes confronting actual white supremacists? Maybe this is a result of social media bubbles--people with opposing views lock each other out of the conversation, and the only ones who remain to be the targets of frustration are the people who still bother to listen.
And frankly, it's a lot safer to attack a professor with a slightly different view on a particular topic than it is to stand up to a proud bigot who doesn't care about you or what you think.
85
Totally agree. The amount of vitriol and contempt that BLM activists direct at the failings and failure of their white “allies” to agree 100% with everything they say far exceeds the amount of vitriol they direct at, you know, actual racists. I often wonder, with “allies” like BLM, who needs enemies?
27
@T Chance
In the so-called second wave of feminism, this was often referred to as trashing -- and it was generally directed at those who took on leadership roles. Instead of recognizing allies, there was envy or arguments about ideological purity, which were often worse than outside attacks.
@T Chance: On the other hand, remember, when BLM confronted Clinton, some real communication ended up happening. You can make a good that it's often more useful to argue with friends and allies, even with raised voices, than to seek out the worst of your opponents right away. Of course, choosing who to confront is always a pragmatic decision in a particular situation.
(And remember "Black Lives Matter" is itself a perpetual meme against white supremacists.)
1
A most transformative article on how one should deal with hate and anger without succumbing to the consequences of ostracism. Praise to those who can articulate the inherent “goodness” in others rather than lay prostate at the feet of currently fashionable dogma.
26
It is difficult to think long and deeply about anything in a public forum. Mass communication has trained us to have a shorter and shorter attention span while our world has hurtled into tighter and tighter ideological spirals. There is no luxury of time to develop an idea before one is attacked by those committed to a different position. These committed positions are held by many who never did the groundwork to consider that their ideological maps, like everyone else's are just abstractions and not equivalent to reality. They have engaged in so much reductionist thinking that they can't see the information that their sorting obscures and if anyone raises it, they are an enemy. The fabric of understanding in our culture has become so thin skinned that it cannot contain any depth beyond power point presentations, sound bites, and other highly synthesized compact missiles of information designed to appear like learning and understanding, when it is just data bombs directed to secure a position. We drown in a sea of information without understanding and we attack anyone with a devotion to developing a thought different from our own. Things change, though, and hopefully the pursuit of knowledge and understanding will eventually make a return to style.
26
There may be a connection between student fragile egos and the recent revelations about the way some parents and students have scammed their way into getting admitted to elite colleges. Both suggest an acceptance of privilege over substance as well as a narcissistic view of the world. There are plenty of worthy issues in this world that should merit student attention and ire. But some students would rather protest perceived personal slights instead of the bigger calamities that affect all of the people on this planet.
46
I liked Professor Christakis after watching the video back in 2015 and I like him more today. Thank you Mr. Bruni for this update on him. I wish the Democratic party giving the Governor of Virginia a pass on black face was based more on Christakis and less on political calculation.
32
It's the students' behavior, predicated on the absurd notion that offensive speech, defined by one's own standards, should not be tolerated, that disgusts me. The first amendment guarantees free speech, period. I'm glad president Trump is pushing back hard against this "snowflake" culture and hope he will continue to do so in his second term.
22
@Robert Howard Spare me. Donald Trump is one of the great "snowflakes" of all time, obsessively tweeting whenever he feels fragile (which, apparently, is often). Trump, who constantly attacks the the press as "The Enemy of the People," is no friend of the 1st Amendment.
4
@Robert Howard
Have you ever noticed how Trump responds to every perceived insult and slight with a Twitter rant worthy of a 10-year-old? How he denigrates others with ad hominem attacks that have nothing to do with substantive issues, or even with established facts?
He's the king of the snowflakes.
3
Robert Howard - Trump rails against "snowflakes" but he is the biggest threat to 1st Amendment rights and press freedom in a very long time. The press is not the "enemy of the people". Trump can't control political humor and satire. The Oklahoma DOT employee who compared Trump to a Communist trying to suppress speech esp. political speech was right. Hopefully his SCOTUS appointments will not repeal the NYTIMES v. Sullivan decision requiring a much higher intent standard to get a libel verdict for public figures. Trump is a charlatan mouthing hate, invective and Fox News sound bites.
2
Tribalism can impart both goodness or evil depending on the prevailing culture of the tribe. When exposed to anger, evil and hatred sometimes people’s attitudes or behaviors can change.
If, as a minority, you’ve born silent respectful witness to casual everyday racism for years perhaps a well intended memo about Halloween costumes lands on a bad day. Stewing resentment among peers fed by increasingly louder voices leads to tribal outburst like to mess ay Yale.
Imagine you’re a white male in rural America who has lost a series of blue collar jobs -a victim of globalization as factories move oversees. Without an education or job prospects quiet desperation gives way to rising rage fueled by like minded victims on the internet or in the local union hall leading to among other things Charlottesville.
The 24 hour news cycle and catastrophication of every single news event on TV is creating the ideal conditions for more of this.
Grace and empathy as an intentional feature of everyday life might help interrupt these events. I can’t wait to read his book. Has he considered a podcast on the topic? With his wife? I would listen to that all the time.
22
Years ago I read an article comparing humans to chimps, explaining that a plane full of chimps flying from NY to LA would not arrive with all limbs intact. It's helpful in these dark times to be reminded that we are hard wired to be communal, and thanks to this piece and the prof's new book for shining a light on this. Here's hoping that a new, kinder, wiser, more generous and moral generation of leaders will emerge to guide us toward our better angels...
23
@sue denim I think if we think in terms of "Bonobos" not chimpanzees, that flight, a metaphor for the forward arc of humanity, does seem much more promising and benevolent.
6
@Elizabeth Graham
Great point :)
Aside from the rather other the top hagiography here, as someone who has taught undergrads for a number of years, you have to remember they're still very young. They are more susceptible to the romantic lure of moral righteousness. And I think a key component to kindness and empathy is a sense of eternally renewing humility; everyone is imperfect, and those in positions of authority and power owe themselves more humility than those they teach.
I see very little humility here.
11
@David
Really? I'm a prof as well, and read in the way the prof listened to the students patiently and peaceably as they expressed their anger, great humility and generosity of spirit. Personally, I find when students express such strong emotions, as long as it's not destructive to others, that it can often become a great teaching moment, and it sounds like that may have been the case here, here's hoping...
31
@David
The victim of the Yahoos shows insufficient humility?
A strange take indeed...
15
If standing his ground is an image of humility and generosity.... and on top of that standing on the principle of being a tenured professor with really nothing at risk, I guess so.
1
Deeply disturbing incident from a few years ago. I am glad that he has done well since but wonder what became of those students.
21
They’re not hard to find. Too bad no one is interested in listening to them.
1
@Andrew
Hopefully, those students have become nothing.
2
There's an image in this piece that I think sums up it all up. Prof. Christakis emerging from his home and LISTENING. Two hours of angry students, no doubt shouting and verbally attacking him and his wife. And yet, he listened. How can there be any progress...any compassion...any constructive movement forward if we do not listen to one another here and throughout the world. LISTEN....
80
@SLP
Yes. Listening is not only important, it's what college is supposed to be about. Listening to professors and learning. Had the students "listened" they would have learned that the professor's wife was only suggesting that those same students were mature enough to make their own decisions. I guess not.
9
Wishing Nicholas and Erika the very best, going forward. Lovely human beings, had the pleasure and opportunity to meet them many times, they are as genuine and talented as they come. Put the sad bad unfortunate chapter behind them. Our kids have grown in an ultra PC works and the Yale Halloween incident shows how hypersensitivity can harm collectively. We saw the same Uber hypersensitivity in the Omar flap in the name of anti semitism. Just shows that from college students to old people, we are all prone to prickly highly emotional hypersensitivity and allowed to display and vocalize it even if it is wrongly placed.
36
@petey tonei Yes, I'm hypersensitive to being charged by Representative Omar of selling out my country.
3
@Petey
I'm not sure about your comparison of reactions to hypersensitive college students and an elected member of the US Congress. One has power and is supposed to be speaking for and representing a wide swath of voters. And, oh yes, it involves anti-semitism.
2
I read this quote in the NYT and cite it frequently.
‘Today’s students are more accomplished than any prior generation - and more fragile’.
Still rings true.
32
@Brian"More accomplished" in what way (?)--perhaps so in some ways, and less so in others.
Leaving aside the sensitive bit .... by what measures more accomplished? Sweeping generalizations should have been left behind in your first freshman composition class...
What happened to Christakis and his wife is symptomatic of a power shift in universities and schools. Universities like Yale promote an atmosphere in which students who mouth off at faculty and administrators believe they are engaging in some kind of activism, a behavioral license underwritten by exorbitant tuitions and affluent parents.
But this academic couple brought on this brouhaha through their indiscretion. Why did so-called intelligent faculty feel impelled to weigh in on a relatively insignificant but still incendiary issue? Why do educated people court such attention by tweeting and posting on Facebook, where they can be judged by a world replete with trolls, minions, and political operatives?
Erica should never have circulated that superfluous and provocative memo.
How can a "respected expert in child development" seriously defend her position—that "students could police themselves and should have both the freedom to err and the strength to cope with offense[?]"
At a university Halloween party many years ago, a guest dressed up as Yasser Arafat. Another guest broke down in a combination of grief and outrage because he had recently lost a relative because of the PLO.
Are the Christakises tacitly defending Megyn Kelly and Jeremy Northam over the blackface controversy?
Some costumes are not acceptable in civil society. Pernicious cultural stereotypes harm both members of racialized subcultures and the society at large.
So much for respect and expertise.
13
@MS well put but wrong. the freedom to express and ability to discuss is a higher priority; limited by the Sup Ct to a sliver of exceptions that do not include guests at Halloween parties or poor judgment.
33
@MS I think you may have missed the point. The reaction to her memo - well-intentioned as it was - was ridiculous and harmful to the nature of freedom of speech. Maybe we need to rethink if costumes, even offensive ones, are really something to worry so much about. My friend lost her twins at 20 weeks and spent a long time breaking down in grief every time she saw babies. Obviously babies freely existing and someone intentionally dressing up in something offensive is different, but each individual needs to be responsible for their reactions, not expect every other 7 billion of us to be responsible for shielding them from their grief. As my Buddhist meditation teacher once said, "They bring you present, but you don't have to accept." If each individual stopped allowing the outside world to affect them so much, and practiced a little inner tranquility and took responsibility for those chemicals racing around in their body out of control making them feel pain, and learned to deal with their own inner worlds, we would not have nearly as much outrage and need for "safe spaces". (This obviously does not include actual physical attacks.) I don't know when Americans got so obsessed with safety, à la "safety first!" but I don't think it's been very helpful in fostering resilience and strength of mind, and was meant in like, a seatbelt way, not in a "triggered" way.
1
@ray oro Legally, you can wear blackface, or use racial slurs, or do any number of things.
It doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do.
1
The professors premise that people have evolved to be good is put into question by the current political situation. People may have evolved to be taller, but goodness/evil are choices that can differ even from the choices of those most closely related to you.
5
Though employing very different interpretive vocabularies, Freud and Hobbes both thought that human beings would essentially try to get everything for themselves until experience taught them that compromise with others was necessary for survival. What this brilliant professor deems inherent human goodness is, from that perspective, more like good judgment than true virtue. Goodness, in short, is at least as much a learned response as a natural condition. I’ll go with Freud and Hobbes.
11
@Q I take the Aristotelian view that good judgment is a true virtue.
For failing to grasp all the particulars underpinning this case, again, what stuns the reader in his attempt to make his own judgment of this partisan issue depicting a stranded teacher facing a surrounding mob of revendicating/vindictive students is the extent by which such a sensitive issue nowadays get to, so speedily, be blown out of proportion.
No middle ground available or on option. Just witnesses ready to pull their smartphones to record mounting aggressivity soon in full display.
Thus, the lack of respects and display of civil behavior manifested by the students is just baffling to watch. From the vid mentioned in the article, this whole debate centers mostly on self-entitled undergraduates who, on a dime, join the fray then lash out at their teacher. Himself stands with his back against the wall, deprived to give his own take on the matter for simply declared guilty on the spot.
No safe space for discussion. Instead, just another case where the impossibility of a healthy dialog between the 2 disagreeing parties bursts in full view in this antagonistic Either/Or World that captures the media's attention and becomes the new normal.
33
This is all about judgment. And the wisdom, the maturity, to know how and when to exercise it. That can only come from experiencing life, not just theorizing it, the more and the sooner the better. Yet that still takes time.
6
I am awed and ennobled by this man and his wife. How he accepted with complete equanimity the incensed Yale student's language and ire was remarkable. A true example of listening and not responding viscerally. The University made a wise choice in honoring him with a Sterling Professorship.
50
I remember the whole "Halloween costume trauma" at Harvard when it happened. I also remember thinking that those Harvard students were going to be so very unhappy when they had to deal with real life. Reality was going to be a big shock to them.
43
@sjs The protesters were all Yalies
3
@Buster Bronx
Oops.
that's what i get for typing before my morning coffee
Still, the point made is still valid.
1
@sjs What a huge shock to discover that you were at Harvard after spending four years thinking you were at Yale!
1
I’m not sure the student viewpoint in these reader comments is being well articulated or completely understood. It sounds like the students might have imbibed a sort of trickle down postmodern idea of speech as a practice or an act rather than a neutral medium for a fair contest of ideas. Halloween costumes “construct” the Other in quasi-violent or at least domineering ways that control, limit, and direct others—in other words, perpetrate social injustice against minority groups. I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with this idea, but that may be the motivating concept behind their seemingly egregious lack of respect for “free speech” rather than the emotional immaturity or the “snowflake syndrome” with which they are often charged.
30
@Chris Buczinsky
Your comment made me stop and think and it checked my (somewhat) quick rush to judgement of the students' behavior.
I find most of the comments (mine included) are either a denunciation of the writer/idea/political position or an affirmation of the above.
Rarely do they make one pause and think. Prof. Christakis' ideas and your comment did that. Thank you.
9
But the students were exercising their right to free speech.
5
@Mcountry Yes, but I think they see "speech" as a kind of political action, so shouting someone down or turning their backs on a speaker is reinterpreted as prevention of cruelty, a kind of counter attack, if that makes sense. They don't see speech as "free," a fair exchange in the marketplace of ideas, but as always motivated politically, always an "act." At least, that's what I am surmising.
6
This seems to be an extension of toddlers and teens never being told NO by their parents. Kids are in charge now. The administration at Yale and other universities need a test for the ability to deal with things you don't like or understand. It would be far more predictive of success than the SAT which has been debunked.
38
I think you mischaracterize. The students' methods may be immature (surely understandable) but the content—the analysis of the meaning and impact of some Halloween costumes—is sound.
16
Christakis states that "[t]o accept this belief that human beings are evil or violent or selfish or overly tribal is a kind of moral and intellectual laziness." He is right.
To ACCEPT it is laziness, because we must work hard NOT to accept it, to continue trying to do better. However, we must recognize that it is a characteristic of all organisms to fall back into defense mode when we perceive we are threatened. The plants do it. The animals do it. We all do it.
And what is tribalism, or selfishness, after all but a response to perceived threat. We just have to keep trying to do, and to be, better. To bring out the better angels of our nature.
23
What I find telling in the whole business is the evident lack of knowledge on students' part of the work of their professor. No student who had any inkling of Prof. Christakis's work would have insulted him. Instead he would have been shown respect. Too often students, especially at elite colleges, but really everywhere, have little interest or concern for the very work that has put the professor in front of them in class. It's totally incongruous--imagine going to Hegel's seminar, or Derrida's for that matter, and not knowing or caring about the "professor's" work.
33
Defending the “wearing” of black face is really not a great look.
21
@Joe B.
True. But wouldn't it be better if the kids learned to negotiate the issue? Especially in a university environment, we learn best from the reactions of our peers - the possibility of shame, expulsion, isolation is far deeper of a lesson than directives from above.
21
@Joe B.
He’s not defending that behavior, he advocated allowing people to make and learn from mistakes and for local communities (tribes?) to decide the boundaries.
5
Why do you presume that the students hadn’t been negotiating this issue with Yale administrators for years?
7
What happened to him and his wife was despicable.
51
I am a current student at Yale. I am deeply saddened that the reputations of Mr. and Ms. Christakis have suffered because the actions of Yale students. However, I admit that I am slightly grateful that an event like this occurred at Yale, because if it had not, I almost certainly would have been caught up in the mob mentality of other students. The desire for "safe spaces" and the end of free speech is common among "liberals" and minority groups alike at Yale. Due to being both a liberal and Latina, I would probably have blindly adopted those views. I put "liberals" in quotes because not all people with progressive political stances are like this (such as myself), but the "special snowflakes" are among the most visible.
I am glad that this event has solidified in me a deep respect for free speech. I am just one person in a big university, but I am sure there are other Yalies who feel the same way - so I hope people's dread of "these special snowflakes being the leaders of this country" can be somewhat lessened, knowing that not all Yale students think like the ones who treated the Mr. and Ms. Christakis so disrespectfully.
I hope Mr. and Ms. Christakis are doing well and wish them the best in all their future endeavors.
111
@Gabrielle
Does it not seem, instead, that it is the reputation of Yale STUDENTS that has been damaged, while the Christakis' stature has only grown? And despite the harm to his wife's career? I think there is an incident towards the close of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that may be illustrative.
7
@Gabrielle
Thanks for sharing this Gabrielle. In a comment above, I expressed hope that this incident and the way it was handled could be a positive learning experience, helping to transform students' rage plus probably fear, confusion, angst, etc. into something wiser and more enduring. Glad that's been the case for you and hopefully for others. Wishing you the best in your studies and beyond.
11
@gabrielle
Thanks for your thoughtful and respectful comment. You give me hope.
5
This same kind of situation happened several years ago at Evergreen College in Washington. Evergreen was known as a very progressive state college. I am not sure if the college has recovered. I do know that the professor who was in the middle of the allegations about racism also left the college.
14
The best thing that can be said for the attitudes and actions of the students is “forgive them for they know not what they are carrying on about”. There is no reason to respect their treatment of Christakis and his wife under any circumstances. Arrogance in the young is fool’s gold because there is nothing of redeemable value in their thinking. They do not know what they do not know.
51
Coincidental reading this, as I had just recently commented on another article, saying that college years are the time when young people need to be at their free-est, exposed to new and challenging ideas. Then I'm reminded of the debacle surrounding Mr. Christakis. Children do inherit the tendencies of those who raise them, for good or not so good. This was a moment of the "not so good"; I was appalled at the ignorant, egotistical hatred expressed by young people without a clue of how they were acting.
Difference of opinion is wonderful...everyone benefits from it, but only when shared in a humane and mature way. Beliefs can be passionate, attacking the messenger is juvenile.
29
I didn't know being a Professor at Yale meant having to put up with the abuse of its students, the most incredibly privileged group of people on the planet.
We now also know that admissions at Yale, and at all the elite colleges are incredibly compromised, explaining the astounding examples of student behavior frequently observed. Time for Yale and the other elite colleges to go back to taking the students who get 800s on their SATs. (We know they can fill their classes with these students.)
39
Important at this time to hear Christakis's perspective. The most telling of his comments is that regarding intellectual laziness. The discipline to test assumptions, to carefully examine language, and to engage in genuine inquiry is increasingly rare these days. It is leading to a substantial drop downward of that jagged line toward decency.
11
“People are genetically wired to be good......”..... ugh! I wonder whether Donald Trump is a rule or an exception?
9
God forbid someone (Erika) might say we are all adults. The students proved the opposite. The students were academically in way over their heads. On some level they knew this and lashed out at anyone they could. Play intellectual Gumbo as much as you want.
15
What a genuine hero. I struggle sometimes feeling overwhelmed by the hateful rhetoric I hear from people who subscribe to terribly unreliable sources of information. I struggle with a sense of frustration with the failures of governments to address faults I feel are obvious in financial systems which are possible to profoundly improve with insightful adjustments that are well known. I feel I can't discuss with my grandson my true sense of where I see things inevitably headed environmentally. I despair over the values of "winning" by any means and "toughness" so celebrated in popular entertainment. And I'm going to read "Blueprint" as an antidote to these tendencies in me. Real and effective leadership comes from heroic people like Prof. Christakis who can point to the legitimately positive things for which we need to be ever grateful and mindful, and inspire us to address our challenges productively as he has done.
33
As someone who “came of age” while attending Columbia in 1968 & spent half a lifetime as a general internist I find that it has taken me a lifetime to appreciate Yeats’s observation that “the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” And, that the best we can do is to use a kind word to turn away an angry one. I am hopeful that we as humans will see how kindness & cooperation will allow us not just survive but thrive on this only spacecraft, Earth, that can support our multitudinous uniqueness despite the current limitations of our various political & ideological leaders. I mean: I have grandchildren & I have to be optimistic. Why not you too?
26
It's not just at elite schools such as Yale. A similar mob mentality erupted at my alma mater, The Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington. Students there cornered the college's president, who chose the path of apology rather than the path of calm courage -- but they didn't want to hear his apology and just browbeat him for hours, even arguing that his body posture was disrespectful. A mob is a mob is a mob -- and there are plenty of mobs that never leave the confines of their online lairs -- and we must stand up to them, resist the urge to shout down shouting, no matter what banners they march under.
71
Yale student here -- the incident happened my freshman year. While I'm generally supportive of the Christakis and felt horrible for them during the time, I also understood the outrage of the students.
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding and lack of context that make it easy to describe Yalies as "snowflakes" I want to clear up. First, yes, being at Yale itself is a privilege, but the ones that were most upset about this also came from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. To those that think none of us came from poverty or other disadvantaged states like being undocumented, so can't possibly know real issues: that's simply not true. Many of our experiences with injustice growing up sharpened our eye to injustice, no matter how slight, at Yale.
Second, the reaction to Erika's letter was the result of YEARS of struggle and frustration over racism on Yale's campus. It was a trigger, but not itself what most students were truly upset about. Rather, it was seen as representative of a larger lack of support for and understanding of students of color's experiences within Yale's institutional body. Whether the letter actually is or isn't representative or this is NOT up to you, strangers of the internet, to decide.
Lastly, what the 30-sec viral video does not show is the hours of discussions and open forums that were held across campus for weeks and the reckoning of institutional racism and positive changes it led to at Yale.
What fight for change ever looked pretty?
60
@san So the harassment of the Christakis for expressing an opinion that went against the bandwagon was justified as part of the greater struggle? In a truly free society no one has the right to not be offended by others’ opinions, however disadvantaged their state might be. Who decides what’s offensive?
51
@san I would have given anything to study at Yale, to not have to work my way through college and not have to know that every semester was a dividing line between me and my working class background. The way those students spoke to that professor was inexcusable. Sorry, I am not buying the victim excuse you propose.
49
@san Thank you for this explanation. I'm happy that students of your generation feel free to loudly express yourself instead of quietly accepting injustices and feeling like impostors like many of my generation did. But I think it's possible to understand the context of the frustration (as I'm trying to do) and also feel (as I do) there may have been better ways of handling it. May I suggest the question isn't whether the letter was representative of the lack of support/understanding of students of color, but whether this couple should have been the target of collective outrage about a much larger problem? In any event, your thoughtful comment reflects well of students at Yale.
7
When we take a look at where we were five hundred years ago, burning people at the stake, there are grounds for optimism. When we take a look at current political representatives apparently mainstream, I am not sure optimism is so realistic
33
@miguel solanes
Oh right Donald Trump and burning people at the stake are somehow conflated. Only in the mind of a liberal
Along with the resurgence of white supremacism and the incipient normalization of anti-Semitism, one of the big throwbacks testing American society today is this culture of intimidation by mob rule. It’s being called shaming culture or call-out culture, but those engaging in it might realize more clearly what they’re doing if they heard it called lynch culture.
Thank you for sharing Prof. Christakis’s civilized and civilizing thoughts. This is another welcome against-the-grain column.
74
@Longestaffe
What would you say about a student who placed a noose outside black classmates' doors? You probably wouldn't be surprised if the Yale administration sought to find who was responsible and then punished them, perhaps even expelling them from the university. Yet that's also free speech. Would it have been all right for for students on Halloween to dress up as Nazis or minstrels? The university's letter didn't prevent that, but discouraged it. Because such costumes would also be intimidating and hostile to those at whom they were aimed.. And these days, people might well have worn such costumes. Students wishing to make their college environment a calmer place for learning are not 'snowflakes.' Colleges have always been somewhat removed from the real world and a safer place where people of different backgrounds can get to know each other and explore new ideas. And that's not a bad thing.
@BDS
Thanks for your reply. I'm not sure whether you're arguing with me or expanding on my comment, but since I see no inconsistency between the two I assume it's the latter.
Anyway, the statement, "Students wishing to make their college environment a calmer place for learning are not 'snowflakes'" is certainly unexceptionable.
I can't imagine any literate person taking offense at the notion that something as simple as Halloween should stay a self-policed event rather become yet another arena where the state's heavy hand must intervene to protect us all from ourselves. Such delicate student-authoritarians -- fragile little Napoleons run amok.
Thank you for introducing us to Professor Christakis' scholarly endeavors. And even more for the wonderful sentence that most of us "content...with a pork chop and rice pudding at the buffet of knowledge, while Christakis pillages the carving station and the omelet station and the soup array and the make-your-own-sundae bar." Gonna have to remember that one.
54
@raven55 "Simple as Halloween" - An ancient festival rooted in our fear of death and evil and the attempt to banish their shadow through mockery?
Reading and learning used to be about expanding one’s knowledge. For college students today it is about consolidating one’s know-it-all-ism. Anything that confronts is to be denounced and derided, ad hominem. All sides do it. Any amateur is an expert. Can you imagine these folks in a workforce?
50
It is heartwarming to know that he has been honored.
It is depressing to know that his wife lost her job and has not been vindicated.
Maybe Yale does not have as effective an admissions process as it needs. Maybe the students are too homogeneous. Just take a bunch of outlier kids who think for themselves before they go to college or who make big mistakes and show signs of coping and learning. Perfect scores do not make the best students. People have to want to learn.
34
She did not lose her job. She quit. I’m not clear how that this makes her a victim. What is clear is that the media continues to victimize a young woman who momentarily lost her cool and was surreptitiously videotaped doing so.
1
@HLR
The students were African American!
1
@Ncsdad
You're right. There seems to be not much data about what was actually happening on Halloween on the campus. Reading between the lines in the following article, however:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/414810/
I'm making an educated guess that there were likely some 'politically incorrect' costumes that students' wore on and off and that the administrators were circulating some guidelines on costumes, and that Erica Christakis was actually defending the students' right to express themselves.
I'm thinking some hyper-liberal students took offense and incorrectly extrapolated her intent as condoning the 'insensitive' costumes...
18
Here's something that would certainly help restore my faith in the essential goodness of humankind and the capacity of people to rise above their petty impulses: I'd love to know whether any of those students who accosted or denounced Professor Christakis three years ago have ever matured enough to come back to him and apologize.
95
@Dave Rosenblatt
They are making Banks somewhere and trying to bribe their kids into Ivy league grammar schools
11
I very much look forward to reading "Blueprint" as I have been greatly influenced by the following verse and brilliant advice from the bible: Philippians 4:8 Finally, think about: whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable -- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me -- put into practice."
20
@Dr_No
The Bible also says, those who dont believe in Christ are children of darkness, are condemned and will be condemned.
7
@D
And? It asks precious little to parse your fragment as being the Phiippians line turned inside out. In what is that belief? What is the price of disbelief or, in the first quote, of not thinking about and putting into practice those good things?
Some thinkers (like Christakis) see humans as inherently good, others see us as inherently evil (perhaps demonstrated in a small way by the students who hassled Christakis). During our evolution, forces producing both capabilities were promoted at different times. Long peaceful stretches gave us the tools for cooperation. Brief, but evolutionally significant, intervals gave us the tools for competition. We each come with a mixed toolbox, then experience tells us which tools to pick up. Sure, we each have a different mix of tools in there, some may have two hammers and one wrench, while others may have two wrenches and one hammer. But most of us have both hammers and wrenches.
5
Frank Bruni presents this as a case of student madness and professorial calmness. But look at the video he cites: there are maybe 20 students milling around, interested, and one student - one! - yelling at him. This is supposed to be the next new wave of campus intolerance? It's absurd. That one student felt comfortable and empowered enough to yell - good for her. I teach at a university too and would feel proud to have a student push back like that, passionate, enamored. And the rest of the so-called mob (Bruni doesn't use that word but sure implies it) are just there, listening, wondering for answers, and probably just asking the professor their searching questions outside of the video. Shame on Bruni for denouncing "students" for this, contributing to the totally false narrative of some new student intransigence.
25
@DOst This is not correct. Most people have only seen that famous snippet of one student yelling at him, but there are about 40 minutes of video that give you a much better idea of how the group of students abused the man, and how well he handled it.
43
@DOst Let's remember that the egregious sin that Prof. Christakis committed was that he failed to denounce his spouse for suggesting that students at one of the most prestigious universities in the world were intelligent enough to decide what to wear on Halloween without direction from the university administration. In other words, she was defending their right to decide without interference. The students were not attacking someone who wore an offensive costume, they were attacking the spouse of a professor who had suggested the students could decide for themselves. What is absurd is how disproportionate the students' responses are to the ostensible transgression. Is that what you are defending--the right of students to behave like hooligans?
84
I went to Cornell.....if you are so proud who are you, what do you teach, and where? This video was offensive and indicated a child not a free thinker deserving of a yale diploma. I wonder if you would have responded as graciously as Christiakis If a student at your university had views so vehemently opposed to your view. There were several articles in various journalistic media around this time about Yale and “safe spaces at Yale” that were actually places where students were supposed to be safe but used that space to bash other groups. I adhere to the university of Chicago principle of no safe spaces if we were to create future leaders thoughtful people and discourse that will improve our society. If you teach my beloved alma mater I would hope that you would embrace this as well?
1
I would like to know what led up to all this. Why did the administration think it needed to issue some guidelines on Halloween costumes in the first place? Had some students’ choice of costume led to a clash of some sort? Were there indications that some group of students planned to dress up in ways that would offend other students? In short, give us the context in which these events occurred so that we can better evaluate them.
21
@Ncsdas That story has been covered. This (very short) article was about the book - or at least points to the message of the book.
12
I read several articles about the clash and none of them answered the questions I asked. If you can refer me to pieces that provide that context, please share it. In particular, I’d like to know if the administration believed that something that would offend some students had either taken place in the recent past or was being planned.
4
@Ncsdas
Some students (4? 400?) actually decided that they were going to declare hate-war on anyone dressing up like a Native American UNLESS they actually were a member of that group.
This insanity then extends, for example, until a dress that Chinese women have long-ago borrowed from another culture must ONLY be worn by a Chinese person since these dolts who ''got accepted?'' at the school have no concept of history.
I kid you not.
Universities are places for open debates that lead to excellence in critical thinking. It's unfortunate that the increasing amount of administrators consider students customers who need to be cater to for the sake of increasing profits to pay for their high salaries at the expense of decreasing faculty salaries and benefits and who blamed for everything that does not keep students happy.
The other problem is that the current generation of students are so spoiled by their parents that they cannot tolerate anyone disagreeing with them and not accepting their limited perspective of the world. Yelling at professors is the same as throwing a tantrum. These students also accuse professors of yelling at them when they are expected to behave in a civilized manner and are challenged in the classroom.
66
@ART
Good enough reason to go with Bernie's plan for free college education, then. You know, those places where the students come to learn, not to flaunt their privilege and their parents' cash.
16
@WOID -- Students are not in the business of flaunting their parent's cash. They come to study and get an education. When there is no tuition, you don't study earnestly as there is no downside, and if you study, it will be a fluff subject or it would be just to receive a degree - and not to perform hard work needed to receive a useful education.
9
@Mohsenie
This is like asserting that without religion there would be chaos and immorality. There is no correlation between paying for a university education and diligence of studies. Universities in most of Europe are free to those who qualify and Europe produces some excellent graduates in many different fields.
34
This is the second important new book titled "Blueprint" published within the last year! Robert Plomin's book "Blueprint" is about how our range of life outcomes (income and education levels, drug dependency or its absence, mental health) are strongly genetically determined before birth. This new book by Christakis, also titled "Blueprint", takes a very different perspective, but is also based on the growing consensus from the genetics literature on the importance of genetic hard-wiring in understanding human outcomes. This is an interesting new trend in our understanding of ourselves.
13
Given that I took three classes feom Plomin back a while, let me say that “determined,” is not a word I think he’s use in this context.
@Robert
You are right I should have used "influenced" or "impacted" rather than "determined."
I was taught in History that the Enlightenment
allowed for the freedom of thought and speech.
That "True Ideas" would win out in due time.
A Naive View, but an admirable one.
It never would have occurred to me to speak to an older
person, let alone a professor, the way some of those students
did at Yale. I do know that my father would have told me to come home and work for a living until I grew up and learned how to properly engage in a civilised conversation.
If, supposedly, some of the brightest undergraduates in the world cannot engage a Professor, who is doing his best to listen to them and understand and support them, in civil
discourse, then something is very, very wrong with the Admissions process at Yale and with Yale - itself.
I wonder if any of the students have apologised to Professor
Christakis and his wife, Erika ?
169
@John Brown As a college prof at 60 I see increasing numbers of students fully predisposed to being disrespectful of every opportunity they're given and everything they receive. More and more I'm thankful my career is nearing its end; I've loved teaching, but once these types of students become the majority I want to be far, far away from neo-academia.
78
@John Michaelson You, sir, are right about this growing trend. Perhaps this is a result of the popularity and implied invitation to give one's not-so-well thought out 'opinions' on social media? It creates a pathway for people desperate for attention which typically goes to the most outrageous and controversial respondents. I pray that his book 'Blueprint' illuminates our collective thoughts about how to lead satisfying and successful lives.
26
@John Michaelson
Perhaps it is the High Cost of College
and the pressure to get the Dream Job
right out of College.
I also suspect that the Student's know
the typical Administrator will side with
them over an Professor, especially those
who are not PC to the max and wholly
deferential to the students.
It is as if we are in 1967 and the
"Cultural Revolution" is taking place
once again.
2
Humans have the capacity for goodness and cooperation, sure. No reasonable person would argue with that. That said, anyone who thinks human beings are inherently good has never tried to raise a two year-old child. That people still speak in such ridiculous terms after so many generations of parents have covered this same ground leaves me with little hope for us as a species.
8
@Rob G Two year olds, much like new-born infants, are very dependant on our care, and more importantly love. Those who are blessed with such upbringing turn out, on average, to be better adults and much more likely to be the type of people that contribute rather than detract from this world.
Nicholas Christakis may be a brilliant scholar. He and his wife may be good people. But, their jobs as Head of College in Yale’s residential college system were inherently political jobs. That is, their jobs were about navigating and managing relationships. They utterly failed in that role. Their forced departure was appropriate and deserved. When a leader loses the confidence of those s/he are supposed to lead, it’s time to go.
Erika Christakis’ e-mail appears reflective and candid. It was also politically tone deaf. Private citizens can navel gaze all they want. Public leaders must take responsibility for the impact their words have on others. The reaction of some students may have been inappropriate, but it was hardly surprising. The Christakises were naive, perhaps even pseudo-innocent. I think the punishment fit the crime.
20
@Robert My guess is Erika and Nicholas were hired as educators, to challenge those under their tutelage. It seems to me like they did exactly that.
117
@Robert -- House master is not a leadership position and it is not about catering to spoiled pseudo-adults. Neither is it a democratically elected position. Think of them as a "marriage counselor". Hardly any leadership. If a 'leader' was subject to the whiff of a tiny highly radical and organized special interest group living in an echo-chamber, then they would not be a 'leader' in the first place.
26
@Robert "politically tone deaf" In other it said what some people didn't want to hear and they lashed out. I lament that the 200+ year liberal tradition of the West seemingly is disappearing.
10
University students are still growing up. How embarrassed they must be looking back at their behavior 15 years from now or then.
64
If a portion of the university student body felt so wronged by a publicized competing opinion on halloween garb that it compelled them to throw the kind of fit they did, then we’ve got more to worry about in this country than tRump.
71
Tribalism is becoming the norm among a society addicted to social media. The tribe can form in an instant without even having had a formal meeting and exchange in person of shared feelings and ideas.
Flash mobs form with a seminal undeveloped slogan, direction,or collective wishes.
31
The witch hunting is becoming more pronounced, not less. We are all required to take purity tests. Good peoples’ lives are being ruined.
Did none of these kids read The Crucible in high school? Read it now.
68
@Paul H S Did you read this entire article? The flattering article written about the man who's life was "ruined", published in one of the best papers in the country, advertising the book he's written?
The last paragraph mentions that Christakis is not only still employed at Yale, but "Yale awarded him the Sterling Professorship, the school’s highest faculty honor".
If being honored by my place of work, getting a book deal, and being flattered in print is having your life "ruined", sign me up immediately.
1
This incident, once again, reminds me that wisdom and tolerance can not be taught and come to most people in hindsight.
I wonder just *what* these Yale students did learn, if anything other than growing their personal sense of entitlement.
34
It's so interesting that the Halloween protest of 2015 is just as timely and controversial now as it was then.
There are multiple elements/issues:
The nation's history of racism and college students' trying to rectify contemporary acts.
Free speech.
Halloween costume: If only safe, what's the point?
Treating each other with respect.
Four years ago, I definitely saw the professor's point of not getting so offended over a silly halloween costume and allowing students to make own choices.
But now that those very privileged students who 30 years ago chose to dress in blackface, etc. are under fire, losing jobs, etc., it seems as though the cautionary lesson may have been appropriate. How can we still side with the'free speech' call when we've seen that free speech, when years later deemed unacceptable, can ruin a career?
24
@Barbara
Very good point! It seems the professor is giving a cautionary tale and one is seems should be heeded.
14
@Barbara, College is a good place to consider the differences between mockery, homage and cultural appropriation. Subsequent growth of individuals often results in efforts to mitigate early behavior with sincerity, apologies and good works.
I am looking forward to reading "Blueprint."
2
Ironic, isn't it, that 50 years ago, the students who shouted Dr. Christakis down would have been strong advocates for free speech in the face of censorship by the University. When students want to censor any speech that offends them and are supported by University administrators, and the only free speech advocates are professors in late middle age, I despair for the future of our society.
66
@Scott Hammer In the ‘60s, the Leftists were in the minority, so they advocated for free speech to prevent the majority from silencing them. Now that they’re in the majority (especially in blue-state colleges, media, etc.), they can obtain more power by stifling speech. In whatever era, this type of person espouses that they follow a universal principle, but, whether they consciously know it or not, they’re just choosing the path that provides the most power to themselves / their group at that time.
10
Nicholas Christakis embraces Light and Truth as he processes fundamental elements of social realty...
Well done, professor!
28
Universities are hierarchical societies which have accepted norms of behavior. Or at least they are supposed to have such norms.
What the students of Yale did to Prof. Christakis was inexcusable. What Yale tolerated was inexcusable.
It is nice that Prof. Christakis was able to turn his experience into research and even nicer that Yale appointed him Sterling Professor.
Yale and its student body however owe an apology to Erika Christakis who had the gall to assume that students could act like adults. Or perhaps not. They did not and could not act like adults.
154
@Joshua Schwartz: The self-proclaimed elite, seldom are.
@Joshua Schwartz Your post is in direct opposition to everything Prof. Christakis and his wife stand for. The offense was by some students, and one student in particular, and not the entire "student body." Moreover, Yale tolerating, or, in other words, refusing to censor, those students, is entirely in keeping with Erika Christakis appeal to let the same students deal freely with possibly insensitive costumes. You really should listen to what the Christakis' are saying-- you might learn something.
1
What frightens me the most is that this student at Yale who berated and belittled Professor Christakis has enormous privilege and potential to become a leader in our society. A Yale degree leads to often unlimited privilege and access to positions of power. I hope that this student learns from her childlike behavior and becomes a true leader not a pedagogical person who crushes free thought and open honest discourse. The crushing of opposing views is happening on our university campuses today at an alarming rate and is only aided by safe spaces and politically correct thought in ivory tower bastions of liberalism. Kudos to University of Chicago for NO SAFE SPACES. The type of behavior that the student exhibited is what I would expect from a petulant child like senator like Mitch McConnell or Maxine Waters.
I just watched the video. Shocking, really. When some callow undergraduate starts shrieking at a distinguished professor, this seems like a situation that needs referral to a psychiatrist. It's not a social or political discussion, it's about one unhinged individual who needs help. There are other videos that show (I think) later segments of the confrontation that seem fairly civilized and almost rational. The substance of the students' complaint seems to be that the professor, as den mother, should focus primarily on the tone, the sincerity, of their concerns. To me that sounds somewhat reasonable, if a little immature. He is saying that they should focus on the content and not the tone of his response. And furthermore they should trust the integrity of his character and his intentions. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. It's a misunderstanding, not a political crisis. It sounds like a domestic spat. A marriage counselor might be useful. If the one shrieking student were the extent of our problems, then Professor Christakis certainly has grounds for optimism. Unfortunately, outside the precincts of the academy the feast of unreason burns with ever greater intensity, and we are, in fact, at very great risk indeed.
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@Paul
I’m bemused. I thought of Yale as one of those highly exclusive universities, but when I see Yale undergraduates shrieking about Halloween costumes, I’m forced to conclude that one need not be intelligent to get in.
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@Paul This is both a social & political issue, because people are promoting this outrageous behavior using socio-political idealogies, and for socio-political ends. This isn’t a single isolated incident; many others have occurred throughout the US, especially at colleges.
Even if every student spoke in a respectful tone with the professors, censoring expression (costumes) is inherently socio-political. This censorship isn’t limited to just this one incident; it has been promoted through the US.
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@Paul This is both a social & political issue, because people are promoting this outrageous behavior using socio-political idealogies, and for socio-political ends. This isn’t a single isolated incident; many others have occurred throughout the US, especially at colleges.
Even if every student spoke in a respectful tone with the professors, censoring expression (costumes) is inherently socio-political. This censorship isn’t limited to just this one incident; it has been promoted through the US.
Also, the sincerity of someone’s position is nowhere near as important as its correctness. Someone could sincerely believe that the world is flat; that doesn’t mean that their position is worthy of any respect.
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Another interesting and well written piece from Frank Bruno.
I admired Christakis then and I admire him even more now. I look forward to reading his book—there’s a lot to learn from him.
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As a recent-ish Yale alum, I remember watching this event unfold from the pages of the Yale Daily News, and always admired Professor Christakis' resolve and calm in an extremely turbulent time.
His book sounds fascinating, especially after I read the following summary of his argument: "Complex societies are possible and durable only when people are emotionally invested in, and help, one another; we’d be living in smaller units and more solitary fashions if we weren’t equipped for such collaboration; and human thriving within these societies guarantees future generations suited to them."
Based on nothing more than my own gut, I agree, which is why I wonder if Professor Christakis has examined the decline in home ownership amongst young adults, and the consolidation of property into hands of both domestic and international "investors" as a potential reason for increased polarisation amongst age groups, and accelerating wealth inequality? I don't have a policy suggestion for how to address this because 100% LTV mortgages obviously aren't the answer because that just shifts ownership to the banks.
However, what does seem clear to me is that emotional investment in one's own community requires certain physical and capital investments to encourage cooperation. As a renter in London, I only do the bare minimum for my immediate community because my own physical permanence is at the mercy of a landlord.
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@Kyle Bajtos Home ownership, even renting a home, provides a sense of community that results in neighbors looking out for each other. But in apartments there is no sense of community. I have neighbors I can't communicate with because they understand very little English and each speaks a different dialect of Spanish. Instead of speaking English at home to improve their communication skills they speak their native tongues. It isolates them and, in turn, isolates me.
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@Kyle Bajtos
Phooey! Being a renter in no way prevents one from being a good neighbor. Persons need not wait for others to make the first neighborly move. Kindness and smiles need no translation and can greatly increase everyone's sense of community, a good start.
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@Kyle Bajtos Your lack of community investment is probably not because you’re at the mercy of the landlord; it’s probably because (thanks to technology, economic development, and freedoms) you & your neighbors are not at each other’s mercy, and because you & they, as well as your collective families & friends, haven’t all known the entire neighborhood for your whole lives.
You can easily obtain necessities & amenities transactionally from strangers.
You can move away.
You can participate in multiple distinct non-neighborhood communities (such as colleague, family, friend, interest group, etc.), which you can generally leave at will, if you become estranged.
There probably is very little geographically-based community in most non-impoverished modern population centers.
If someone has a geographically fixed investment, they are more at the mercy of their neighbors, and they derive more benefit from organizing a community.
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We are basically good people in our daily existence we just do not understand how to stop the institutions around us from doing evil things. So it’s the military,the corporation,and other societal inventions that are distorted by powerful corrupt elitists who run our systems and are basically amoral in the sense that the world is theirs and they set the rules.
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@richard What evidence do you have that people are good & institutions are bad? Institutions can curb bad behavior. Compare the crime rates & living conditions in countries with weak institutions (Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, etc.) to those with string ones (Western Europe, North America, Australia, etc.).
While the news features death & destruction, global suffering has been greatly reduced in the modern era.
People probably only seem so good to you because institutions made them so, and because you want to blame nefarious forces for the ills of the world.
The capacity we humans have for love, and for decency, is amazing.
What we are forgetting is the singular importance of our natural world - our cities and their systems, which thrive because we have been good to each other, devour what keeps us alive. Our earth.
Our divides over religion, economics, gender, race, and politics are nothing compared to the danger we are putting ourselves in as we kill our planet - which does not resemble decency of any sort.
We need to get over ourselves, our talents, and what drives us - and figure out that we are destroying the most important element of our lives.
We are biological beings first; before intelligence, before economics, before politics, before religion - yet function as if this fact doesn't matter.
Yes, we should love, be good, and be decent. And that will mean something only when we also love the planet we live on, and that gives us our lives. To love.
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The 2015 incident also highlights the perils of junking the idea of merit in admitting students, which many American Universities have done for some time. In this incident, the students were not willing to evaluate the merit of ideas in the memo, but were more than willing to look at how the ideas could be interpreted to work up a sense of outrage. For those who think that all concepts of merit favour the privileged, they probably need to understand the definition of merit. Legacy is not merit and neither is deprivation ( though in a few cases the latter can be considered along with accomplishment). Scoring high in standardized examinations ( SAT, ACT etc) too is not a measure of merit. The American system of standardized examinations is generally considered too easy in many countries, is easily coachable and generally does not reflect merit. If the level of difficulty in the intake process is elevated to a high enough level, the privileged kids simply give up despite the possibility of coaching. In such conditions, those who will get into Colleges/Universities based largely on merit, will appreciate the same in others and the ideas of others.
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