The Abusive-Boyfriend Left

By Spencer Case

Thursday, August 20, 2020

 

Many of us are familiar with the type of possessive boyfriend who tells his girlfriend that she’s betraying him by casually chatting with another man. Or the girlfriend who says she’ll engage in self-destructive behavior — go off her medication, binge-drink, or even commit suicide — if her boyfriend leaves her. In both cases, one partner says, “You’re hurting me!” or “You’ll make me hurt myself!” as a means of controlling the other. Most people consider this kind of manipulation to be objectionable in relationships. But it’s equally objectionable — and increasingly common — in political activism.

 

A case in point: Consider how the concept of “violence” has been expanded (and then, once expanded, selectively applied) so that any resistance to left-wing ideas can now be equated with violence. In a 2019 opinion piece for Inside Higher Education, for example, a Georgetown professor of philosophy said that rejecting self-identification as the sole criterion for being a man or a woman amounts to “complicity with systemic violence and active encouragement of oppression.”

 

It’s no less manipulative to say “You’re hurting others!” than to say “You’re hurting me!” if you lack justification for saying either. Many political accusations of harm, like the one I just mentioned, are plainly unreasonable. One difference might be that the boyfriend intends to manipulate his partner, whereas the activist has righteous objectives. But I’m not sure we’d think more highly of an abusive boyfriend who really believed himself to be the victim. Moreover, as we shall see, it’s unlikely that those who resort to this kind of rhetoric in politics are always guided by noble intentions.

 

This analysis is harsher than another criticism of the contemporary activist Left. In The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff argue that much campus mischief reflects enculturated oversensitivity (“safetyism”) and sincere acceptance of bad ideas. To my mind, Haidt and Lukianoff exaggerate the role of “bad ideas and good intentions.” Vice, and particularly a taste for the pleasure of controlling others, plays a larger role than they acknowledge in motivating bad behavior.

 

Exhibit A is the “Day of Absence” controversy that roiled Evergreen State College for several days in May 2017. In one widely publicized episode during this affair, assembled students shouted down the university president, George Bridges, for gesticulating normally as he addressed them. Allegedly, some students found this threatening. Someone yelled, “Stop pointing, George!” Bridges appeared momentarily stunned and then obeyed, meekly announcing: “My hands are down.” The crowd burst out in applause and laughter. Bridges held his hands up as if to say, “I surrender.”

 

In another incident, protesters surrounded the library building and barricaded the exits with furniture. Some of them interrupted a faculty meeting inside and stole a cake about to be served in honor of retiring professors. They carried it out and handed pieces to their fellow demonstrators. Others gathered outside Bridges’ office and refused to let him leave. Bridges said, “I need to pee” and was told to hold it, eliciting laughter. Two protesters eventually escorted him to the restroom.

 

These students exhibited a streak of cruelty. Clearly many of them relished controlling and humiliating others, especially authority figures. Bridges, for his part, complied as if he’d contracted an ideologically induced form of Stockholm syndrome. Both the events at Evergreen State College and the ongoing antics of the transgender-rights movement (e.g., efforts to suppress research they disagree with and discredit the academics who produce it) are extreme examples of this kind of manipulation. But it’s not hard to find milder cases of the same thing.

 

Consider a less publicized incident that occurred at the University of Colorado Boulder last fall. On October 6, a white woman who was unaffiliated with the university (and mentally unwell) entered the Engineering Center at night and berated some of the black students there, repeatedly deploying the N-word. A professor confronted her and threatened to call the police if she didn’t leave. She left and was later charged with misdemeanor harassment.

 

A video of the unpleasant exchange appeared on social media, putting the university in a negative light. The student on the receiving end of the woman’s tirade told Inside Higher Education, “I’ve been in this country for the past five years and have been attending this school for the past three years, and I must say this is the first time I’ve experienced such a thing.” Others, however, insisted that this was no anomaly, but an illustration of a systemic problem: Drastic, university-wide remedies were necessary for nonwhite students to feel safe on campus.

 

On October 7, CU Boulder’s Black Student Alliance released a list of five “demands” from the administration. One was that “the university develop a system-wide initiative that names and condemns racism, racial profiling and all other forms of white supremacy in any manifestation.” The university was, of course, already stridently opposed to even subtle racism. Its Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance classifies “identity-based jokes or comments that create a hostile environment” as harassment. The statement acknowledges none of these efforts, and makes the further demand that

 

the University, in collaboration with the Black Student Alliance and ally organizations, develop an initiative to better train staff, faculty, CU Campus Police, and current and incoming students on the school’s commitment to anti-racism, de-escalation of hostile situations, and reporting procedures.

 

This is a proposition that needs to be debated, since the BSA and “ally organizations” don’t seem politically unbiased, to put it mildly. But these are demands, not proposals up for discussion. The statement ends with: “We give the university and its leadership 48 hours to respond to our demands.” Immediately beneath are an image of the iconic raised fist of solidarity and the signatures of the BSA leadership. This raises the question: “Or else what, exactly?”

 

We’ll probably never know, since Chancellor Philip DiStefano agreed to meet with them within the specified time. The day before that meeting, DiStefano condemned the incident in a speech and promised to work with students for reform. Many students in attendance were unimpressed that he devoted a mere five minutes out of an hour-long speech to the incident (how much time would have been enough?). About half walked out in protest. When DiStefano finally met with the BSA, the two sides swiftly, in his words, “reached agreement on a path forward.” On Twitter, the BSA triumphantly enumerated the concessions that DiStefano had made.

 

On November 16, the Boulder Daily Camera ran an opinion piece by DiStefano rolling out a sweeping new diversity initiative, the IDEA Plan (the title stands for “Inclusion, Diversity & Excellence in Academics”). DiStefano connected the plan to the Engineering Center incident, blandly adding: “Following that incident, a collaboration arose between my administration, the Black Student Alliance, the CU Student Government and other student groups and allies.” According to a university statement, the IDEA Plan would, inter alia, “move accountability for diversity and inclusion from the periphery to core institutional functioning” (emphasis mine).

 

This episode, in all likelihood, wasn’t entirely a matter of the administration capitulating to the BSA; the mini-crisis afforded it an opportunity to roll out a plan that was already in the works. The administration appeared to jump at the opportunity to gain favor with student activists. The BSA, for their part, didn’t seem worried that their disrespectful tone — indeed, statements that could be construed as threatening — would backfire. They must have known that they could have simply requested a meeting and gotten one.

 

The cycle then repeated itself. On May 29, 2020, CU Boulder students and BSA members Ruth Woldemichael and Olivia Gardner circulated a petition that made several more demands, with the word “DEMAND” in capital letters. These include that “the University of Colorado Police Department ceases any partnerships with the Boulder Police Department immediately” and “the University of Colorado reinvest 1% of the endowment in supporting businesses and initiatives run by formerly incarcerated people.”

 

The petition ends: “We DEMAND a reply to this concern within 24 hours of receipt.” Soon afterwards, the two students told the CU Independent that DiStefano had emailed them, again making concessive noises. The chancellor was apparently short on specifics, however, and it’s unclear whether his email satisfied their exacting schedule. Nevertheless, the university has since shown its seriousness about intensifying its commitment to “anti-racism.”

 

In June, CU Boulder issued a statement expressing solidarity with the protests that followed the slaying of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Some of its language implies that no disagreement with this position will be tolerated. For example, we learn that “real changes to our campus culture to combat systemic racism and bias-motived behavior” will inform the “community values” that are put forward as “a bottom line, non-negotiable condition of enrollment and employment.”

 

Perhaps such tactics are justifiable in truly desperate times when the stakes are high. But this kind of manipulation has become routine and predictable. Everyone is reading from a tired script. The identarian Left has settled into a calcified habit of saying things like “We don’t feel safe!” and “Stop hurting us!” to get their way, just as Bridges, DiStefano, and others like them habitually abase themselves and grant concessions. It’s an awkward arrangement, not least because it’s hard to convincingly pose as powerless rebels when the people in charge of important institutions are so eager to comply with your wishes.

 

It’s too late to stop the normalization of this behavior. It has already become essentially institutionalized at universities and, increasingly, elsewhere. But we’d do well to remind ourselves that it’s vicious in relationships and politics alike.