Transcripts For RT Worlds Apart 20240713

That you see in other parts of the world as well. We 1st started looking at cases and the United States Oberlin College. Elite universities thats where we were seeing these kinds of. New moral claims a new moral language being used its certainly. Elsewhere weve weve seen. Britain and australia certainly and in other places in europe so its something that certainly in the west has become more prominent recently a lot of the ideas go back and kind of are old but nobody had heard of them and now theyre becoming more prominent with people talking about micrograms sions even. In Mainstream Media. Safe spaces and all these these other new concepts well i can tell you that you know. Russian ear it all sounds strange and russia is obviously a country with i would say little restraint for verbal aggression russians take out their frustration on very easily so some of us would rather deal with microaggression is than the macro aggressions that we encounter on an almost daily basis. From my Vantage Point things that you describe in the book they stand from human mandation rather than too much history am i wrong yeah i mean it sounds strange to a lot of american errors too i think these are still pretty relatively new ideas even though theyve become more mainstream and it sounded strange to me at 1st to i had never heard of a micrograph shown before 2013 and i you know 1st heard the term and i think i was approaching it as a sociologist of morality so im interested i mean 1st its not you know that i wasnt so much like thinking of it as a critic or enthusiasm but just someone from the outside looking at these activists subcultures and seeing new kinds of moral claims and as a sociologist morality thinking well whats the contacts for that and what do these things mean and why are they occur so you know i hadnt heard of a micrograph but then there were i 1st came across oberlin microaggression is website and this was at Oberlin College very Progressive College and students would document because micrograph sions and the idea was that micro greshams were small slights against an ethnic group like a Minority Ethnic Group or women and that even though they were small and sometimes unintentional they added up to great harm and so i mean i had grown up being told sticks and stones may break my bones words will never hurt me to write so i you know its like you brush off offenses and certainly like if people unintentionally offend you you dont you dont take offense so its kind of interesting that people are putting going to so. Much effort to document these offenses for our International Audience who may not be familiar with the phenomenon can you give a couple of examples so wide and my correct direction would be a typical one there was a list put out by by the university of california system that they were using as part of their faculty training that listed had a list of a couple dozen i think micro possible microaggression zz and some of them are things that. Would seem pretty offensive mostly to anybody or least like not maybe not extremely offensive but something you obviously shouldnt say you know saying to an asian person that you know youre asian so you must be good at math or Something Like that right but other others of them were things like asking say an asian person or a spanish person where you from well of course where you from is kind of a staple of conversation thats small talk but the idea was that it makes people feel like they dont belong in the country because its a guy where youre from youre not from here and its only in the eyes of the beholder from what i understand and they attend doesnt matter its how the person perceives it because it the idea is it has the same a fact regardless of the intent that it that these micro greshams add up over time to further peoples oppression to further the oppression of disadvantaged groups thats the idea behind it and so almost anything could be a micro gresham those are some of the examples and also just kind of you know it said if you say i think the most qualified person should get the job like you have criticism of affirmative action programs that would be micrographs and so its a lot of Different Things from from kind of obviously bad manners to do things that are unintentional and kind of normal things people say to just more conservative political opinions being labeled as micrographs jones and because again theres not any kind of objective standard its whats perceived as one of them now correct me if im wrong you are so see this phenomenon 1st and foremost with University Life students policing to faculty full potential bias disenchanted disinviting controversial speakers and essentially equating any sort of emotional discomfort to violence how do you. Think because i said they dont remember anything of this or and when i was studying in the states almost 20 years ago yes its some of the ideas that were already there among left wing activists on campuses so the word micrographs. Kind of goes back to the seventys but again nobody had ever heard it and it hadnt been widely used so its a fairly new its a fairly new phenomenon in being with so widely used it is it kind of was 1st concentrated among activists on College Campuses and in certain kinds of ethnic studies programs Cultural Studies these things so its its based on itself its a framework that sees that interprets behavior in terms of oppression right so youre looking at the oppression of blacks or women or days and but the idea is that its not just you know big things like that oppressed but unintentional nonobvious things that are furthering the oppression these groups and it is its recent that its become mainstream it came from College Campuses now its more widely used and you see it in Mainstream Media and in other things but it kind of it originates from. A left wing activist called subculture i see now psychologist especially existential psychologist like you say that we are all recovering children so deep down we are all victims of you all have internalized negative events in our lives as a judgment on our own southworth do you see the sunrise if culture as primarily a political or educational phenomenon or is it more of a statement on these generations psychological resilience it could be generational this is something that. The psychologist jonathan hi along with greg whos whos a free speech activist have written about in the coddling of the American Mind and their idea is that that the more recent generations of students having kind of grown up being coddled essentially but the idea being supervised by parents constantly and kind of developing independence and and being used to conflict. And hardship you know not being not not being used to those things have become become less resilient and more likely to complain to you know to authorities to man and you know action when bad things are said about them and these things so that could be part of it in terms of what it is its certainly a Political Movement its you know it comes out of activists subcultures and its and the claims arent just that peoples feelings are hurt or that like its not just that people should should be more sensitive to others its all interpret in a framework of whos the oppressed and who is privileged so its not that you know its a micro greshams arent slights against you know whites or men for example theres slights against women or or nonwhite so its always you know the idea is that statements the directed toward a Privileged Group are interpreted differently than a statement directed toward a oppressed group and so thats kind of the whole framework and its a its a political framework thats used the result is of course focusing at least on certain kinds of minor slights and saying well rather than a northern northern we need to call attention to them but its not all slights so its very political in this context now as you point out in your book a lot of this outreach lays claim to social justice and has Nelson Mandela Martin Luther king as as the heroes but the key difference here of course is that mr mandela and dr king had a heightened sense of personal responsibility they suffered for other suppliers this new generation of social warriors as you suggest in the book. Usually appeals to a 3rd party to take action do you think they will outgrow that with age or is it something that is likely to travel of them to their workplaces and to their own families i think its something thats likely to travel so i mean the thing to realize is that people that these are serious moral claims people are making. So i mean i you know whether youre critical of them or not i think people the activists who are making the claims that micro aggressions further a oppression that safe spaces are needed to protect minority groups and so and so on they are serious theyre not simply kind of people who are are whining or cant deal with things they are the framework that theyre interpret in the world with so when they leave campuses when they go elsewhere theyre taking that with them and theyre going already to take it into the workplace and other places this is they see. This kind of oppression victimhood framework as the key way of Understanding Society and social relations and understanding American History and history of the west 5 and everything so theres no theres no reason that they would suddenly discard it. Because you know i think again to take them seriously they this is what they believe is right and this is and they believe they are improving the world and fighting for justice for young people in many cultures time to rebel against authority thats almost a rite of passage but whats interesting about put culture on the u. S. Campuses is that there are 3 and shes the College Administrators stand to play along with it and as you suggest even create administrative incentives for these kind of outreach why is that campuses they appeal to authority as an appeal to administrators to campus president s and other things to do something so you see a lot of the protests directed against them that theyre not doing enough and youve already often see them as very apologetic and very kind of quick to appease activists are in the in the demands and a lot of people have been puzzled by that and i think there are several reasons for it one is just that theyre sympathetic to the arguments most and then a straight hers are on the left themselves and so they see themselves also as fighting for. Social justice and they want to be on on the right side so when they see activists making demands they dont want to be there you know people going against the activists the other thing is that theyre just overly theyre often overly cautious. Administrators you know they would be they often a they often appease. Right wing complaints to which they usually come from outside the university but when people get outraged at something a professor is sattar something theyre often likely especially if the person isnt isnt 10 theyre likely to fire that person too i mean so they theyre often just quick to give in to any kind of demands and that part of that is the growth of administration that they you know have more say in universities that theyre overly cautious looking at the university as a business sometimes instead of you know instead of having these kind of the ideal of it as a place where there would be debate and free speech just sort of very sensitive to any kind of criticism and wow and i actually have my own theory on this but lets discuss it after a short break that will be back in just a few moments. If. I were him will. Not trouble. You. Know who are. Not as you. Keith. And you are doing. To the some extraordinary phenomenon. To higher commodity tied to using to do. Just. That every. One of them with your house on their own. Backs geysers financial survival guy. Housing bubble. Oh you mean theres a downside to artificially low mortgage truth dont get carried away thats cause report. Welcome back to worlds apart with Bradley Campbell associate professor of sociology at California State University on call for of the rise of victimhood culture my grad aggression safe spaces and the new culture wars professor campbell before the break we were talking about this extreme sounds that david of the administrators have. What some would see as perhaps very minor slides and my own theory here is that most administrator is a faculty members would be a raised bed then a different moral culture what you call dignity culture and what struck me when i was reading your book is that even though when the culture is violated one can expect a more measured more restrained response whereas within the victim food framework you can never predict how bad a reaction would be to even the slightest misstep wouldnt ask create a sort of an inverted moral hazard where the administrators feel the pressure to overreact to every complaint to minimize their risk of studio. Outrage yes and you know that ministers are under under pressure often from activists from outsiders and weve seen a like a lot of cases where they they havent stood up kind of even for basic free speech rights of faculty and it is more its usually not faculty and it is more the administrators who are quick to give in on free speech and these other other things and often just. Reacting quickly weve seen at Evergreen State College which was one of the sort of extreme cases of an outbreak of what we call victimhood culture here there was a professor brought weinstein who was accused of he had he had taken on some of the left wing activist in various ways and had a kind of a different vision for they had a day of absence where they had asked whites to leave the campus to make a statement he had disagreed with that and saw that as racist itself so activists protested him and kind of surrounded him made demands. The university the College President sort of sided with the activist immediately and apologized to them and it was you know and many people kind of were were shocked at that right how quickly he gave in and weinstein eventually left the campus and there was a threats of violence and all kinds of things one of the sort of main key macit just of the American South how to literature as well as the american ethos in general is that you cannot control what life throws at you but you can control your actually cheated and victimhood culture seems to be totally at odds about not only microaggression is everything you perceive as even mildly on plans and but it also rather than training your psyche to hugh sort of minimize. Its negative in fact on you you are encouraged to nurse your grievances is that not the way to cripple a person or a whole generation for years to come yes and i think. As i was saying i didnt you know we mainly started out to analyze this as sociologist and we werent necessarily critics or or enthusiastic of it and just looking at a new moral phenomenon but if youre kind of understanding what is the problem with it which is what a lot of people would answer i would just point to just the idea that there are alternative ways of looking at things as youre saying so there is what we have called dignity culture which really is if if i were you know kind of deciding which you know which way of looking at things as better i think dignity culture is an incredible cultural achievements that we were able to move out of old the old on our cultures where people took offense at slights and fought duels and often killed one another and got into fights and moving to dignity culture where the idea was ignore slights if you if you know usually and again this idea that words wont hurt me sticks and stones will break my bones but words wont hurt me and as youre saying like you can control your reaction to words you cant if people use of violence against you then that harms you regardless of how you think about it but you can choose how you react to insults to slights and it really was was an achievement to be able to think that way and i think its something again that psychologist appointed pointed to like as youre talking about and selfhelp movements and other things that this is the way toward happiness to realize that you can you can control your reaction to things and youre not and its not dictated by others i come from a country that in the beginning of the 20th century actually tried to build a whole state based on the precepts of victim victimhood culture in the Early Soviet Union even had the saying that the one who was nothing will be everything and. You know these 5 against privilege turned out to be very very brutal experiment for millions of people so i think its a very dangerous but also a very tempting raftery for the masses do you think the United States has built enough institutional resilience to withstand that because you mentioned before that its not only about the campuses anymore it made its way i think even to the american political discourse because i mean half of the americans see themselves as victims of russian electoral and interference and the other half believes that migrants are still in doubt of jobs and how he cares so there is a lot of victimhood narrative floating around you know these things are a matter of degree and so the question would be is there any kind of stopping point so this this kind of oppression victimhood and narrative can be useful in certain situations we all want to end and oppression and discrimination and things like that but is there is there any kind of stopping point for this kind of narrative and will as youre saying like will then become. Their way of governing other institutions so you know it starts you know with with that this kind of activism i dont know the answer to whether the u. S. Has the institutions in place im to resist what could could possibly happen the facts of trying to organize a whole society around fighting fighting inequality but. For now you know it seems to be holding but the question is about the future right so if people who embrace this kind of narrative and this kind of moral culture then become judges and become you know you know in positions of power and those kinds of things that i guess my fear would be that they would. You know reinterpret you know the things that are in place now to put some limits on it right now free speech jurisprudence is very solid in the United States for instance so its there wont be censorship but. There could be in the future if people decide well actually thats an exception to free speech if it if it furthers and justice now one of the most troubling parts of the soul of the efforts to eradicate privilege for me is that certain point people stopped differentiating between privilege more favorable conditions and achievement you know the after is that a privileged person still has to undertake in order to succeed and in the soviet context. Of expertise no laich talent scientific freedom were the 1st victims of this war against privilege do you see a risk of that in the United States yes and i think part of whats happening is that there is as i said theres a framework for understanding of and its not just its not just a moral framework its also like to explain differences in society so if you look at any kind of inequality i think if you ask most people why are some people you know making more money than others in certain positions i think most people would say like well theres theres luck involved theres discrimination and also theres you know individual achievement and talents and things like that right but i think most people if you press them would realize that all those things can matter but but what happens is in certain realms of the academy is that the only thing that you can look at is discrimination that the assumption is basically that any kind of inequality is due to some sort of institutional discrimination or Something Else and therefore is bad and thats you know its a framework you can use to try to understand things but its a limited so its yeah its potentially very dangerous its not now its something that i dont see as the biggest threat now the biggest threats are to free speech on campus and things like that but if it continues to spread it could be much bigger threat what do you say its not now and yeah i think one example of how far reaching and politicize. Victim culture has become with the 2018 controversy surrounding the confirmation of the Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh who after hes nominated was accused of inappropriate sexual behavior 30 i think 36 year years prior and you know a lot of that narrative was focused not on his professional record of his expertise as a judge but rather on whether or not an accuser. Had to be believed even though their cues are had to wait more than 3 decades to come forward you said that these victims with culture is a relatively new phenomenon but in the american context at least it seems to have no statute of limitations the with the more recent movements for social justice for dealing with Sexual Harassment and all these kinds of things this is one of the issues that again i think in terms of her thinking in moral terms theres often people often dont think of like where are the limits of things that you know how far back in the past we should we go all these things are are relevant i think but i would also just want to kind of point out distinctions you know so whether people are talking about you know. An accusation of you know an attempted rape or Something Like that is somewhat different than somebody you know just just complaining about a slight to that it was unintentional whatever ill we are trying to combat whether its Sexual Harassment or or rape or anything theres always the danger that you will try to Due Process Rights and those kinds of things but i mean i wouldnt write off the whole Movement Like the me too movement against Sexual Harassment and other kinds of things i wouldnt consider all that like extreme victimhood culture it certainly has the potential if its kind of if its so wedded to victimhood culture ideas that you know that. 2 could cause a lot of damage but its also i think that got a lot of potential for good i heard you say that march of the this essentially an expression of dignity college for women willing to be and insisting to be treated as you know. Being inherent worth and yet when it comes to remand to core sexual interactions many if not most me to activists seem to place whole responsibility not only for can sound but also for you know the amount of pleasure or displeasure a woman experiences on 2 men and that seems to me very infantilizing that i think as well as the claim that one has always to believe their cues are especially tends to be a woman i mean if we are all equal dont share equal responsibility for what is transpiring between that would include you know reporting the potential Sexual Assault rather than waiting for 36 years to bring those charges forward theres always the potential and some of it is there i think the need to make movement is a big Movement Involving lots of people and some of it is certainly you know some of the arguments are framed and this terms of the suppression of victimhood approach where men are oppressing women where women have to be believed because theyre victims and those kinds of things but a lot of it is people complaining about things that are serious offenses that were known by people a long time and covered up simply by demanding that they not be abused in the workplace and people sharing their experiences so its a little you know its a little different than people you know talking about you know slights if theyre talking about you know physical groping and and all the other kinds of. Things that people are complaining about its so i think its a. Its a big movement compazine lots of different kinds of complaints and some of it is rooted just as you were saying and the idea of dignity culture that that women and men equal dignity and women shouldnt be objects you know for men in the workplace professor campbell our time is up thank you very much for this enlightening discussion thank you and thank you for watching hope to syria again next sunday on world apart. This is a story of women women was troubled histories and complex cold cases you know some really believe. The person that. The cheesiness of the day are considered the most dangerous of criminals shes in a still. All the off 23 hours of the day tell me that its not enough punishment it will do for women on death row. Among the weeks big stories the struggle in israel to get everyone to stick to the law especially. Virus red zone after ignoring the advice. There which started