The Hitlerian vocabulary of Studies professors suggests that although we hear so much about the dangers of the “alt-right,” we ought to learn more about the “ctrl-left.”
The counterpart to all this policing of others’ expressions for the crime of offending one’s amour propre is self-obsession. The deadpan Twitter account New Real Peer Review passes on screenshots of actual published academic articles. A particularly comic genre is “autoethnography,” in which “researchers” tell their readers (if any) how they feel about things, such as:
“A FemmeNist ManiPedifesto
“Kari Lerum
“This is an autoethnography about the role of nail salons in relation to my own evolving feminist and femme consciousness…” (…)
Ironically, during this era of hate and violence on America’s campuses, they have never been more opulently landscaped nor more luxuriously outfitted with amenities. A distant relative of mine is in the business of equipping college campuses with elaborate swimming-pool complexes. She visits the most expensive hotels in the world, and then replicates their facilities at state flagship universities.
Despite her best efforts to make old State U. look like a Dubai resort, student activists on her campus denounce the microaggressions they claim to endure and complain that the paradisiacal campus isn’t a safe space.
Yet few seem to be in any hurry to leave.
