Offenses in life are inevitable. It's rare that a day goes by when I'm not offended by someone or something, whether it's a rude driver on a cellphone weaving in and out of traffic, a snide comment from a supposed friend, or Stormy Daniels revealing yet another sleazy detail about her encounter with our president. (How will the history books explain this tawdry episode to our kids in the sure-to-be-written volume 45 of American Presidents?)
I've learned that the trick is to not let any of these offenses spoil your day or your life. Offenses can be traps that eat away at your optimism, your belief in the basic goodness of people, your self-esteem, and your ability to be the best version of yourself that you can be. It comes down to our having choices about how we handle offenses — the big and the small and the real or perceived. The important thing is to steer clear of unhealthy responses that only make us bitter and regretful.
The above approach to handling offenses was at the heart of a recent message series we had at our church. Too many people stride through life angry at the world. Some have their fires stoked by family or co-workers. Others are plagued by ingesting media whose stock in trade is stirring up resentment and antipathy. But can you believe there are some among us who are actually tutored on how to be offended? And get this! Their parents are paying the bill. That's because such instructions are increasingly taking place in our academic institutions.
The right-leaning Washington Times reported last month that Simmons, a women's college in Boston, has counseled students not to say "God bless you" after a classmate sneezes. The college called this benediction a "microaggression" because it invoked "racial hierarchy at the individual level (person to person)." As such, the "blesser" was assuming "One's Own Religious Identity as the Norm." You see, the fear is that the "sneezer" might be an atheist or a Muslim (the transgression falls under what the school terms "anti-Islamomisia"). Of course, by these rules, wishing someone a "Merry Christmas" is almost tantamount to starting a holy war.
This is folderol of the highest degree and gives ammunition to those always willing to lambast "politically correct" thinking. Simmons administrators should be ashamed of themselves. Besides "anti-Islamomisia," the college describes six other "anti-oppression" categories using such tortured language as anti-ablism, anti-queermisia, anti-sanism, and anti-transmisia (verbal and behavioral indignities against the transgender community). I understand why epithets involving a student's religion, physical abilities, sexual persuasion, mental health and race should be out-of-bounds. But being forbidden to utter a caring "God bless you?" Since Simmons is in the heart of New England, is the punishment for such an infraction the dunking stool?
It doesn't end here. The college's guidelines also condemn such innocent statements as "We're all just people," "#AllLivesMatter," "I don't care if you're black, white, green or purple-polka-dotted," and "We're all part of the human race." I assume the last would be offensive if E.T. is booked as a guest speaker at the college.
This outbreak of idiocy should be quarantined and only proves that both the right and left are guilty of gross ideological excesses. The aberrant thinking has even crept across the border. At the University of Ottawa, they've canceled a yoga class because of concerns that the practice had been co-opted by the British in India, a country that "experienced oppression, cultural genocide and diasporas due to colonialism and western supremacy."
All of this is crazy enough, but professors are also issuing "trigger warnings" in classrooms whenever something is about to be taught that depicts content that may cause trauma. This broad category includes incest and sexual violence, military combat, child abuse, racism, eating disorders, suicide — all topics at the heart of great literature.
With this kind of thinking, students would be deprived of the richness of Euripides' "Medea" (adultery, murder and infanticide), Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" (adultery and suicide) and Stephen Crane's "The Red Badge of Courage" (military combat). Some teachers are indeed skipping such works or advising their students that they are free to leave the classroom and go to a "safe space" to avoid hearing a discussion that might disturb them.
One bright spot among all of this was a University of Chicago letter sent to freshmen back in 2016. It pledged "Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called trigger warnings … and we do not condone the creation of intellectual 'safe spaces' where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own."
Amen and God bless to that!
Frank Batavick writes from Westminster. His column appears Fridays. Email him at fjbatavick@gmail.com.
