Student Gaza Protestors Are The Foot Soldiers Of The Cultural Elites

Sociological analysis of the current wave of campus protest – Why Gaza is incidental to it.

It is essential to delve into the developments that provide a context for the current wave of campus protest in the Anglo-American world.

Several commentators have compared these protests to the ones associated with the student movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Others have asserted that the contemporary solidarity movement with Palestine is but the latest version of the mass anti-war demonstrations that erupted in response to the war in Vietnam during the 1970s.

Superficially the protest movement over Gaza resembles the anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970s. In both cases the movements directed their anger at Western imperialism – although in the current era the principal enemy is Israel  rather than the United States or Britain. On the surface these movements appear to be fueled by a similar dynamic. But the outward manifestations of these protests notwithstanding their main drivers are qualitatively different. Why? Because the university and the academics and students that inhabited it in the 1960s are very different to that of the present time.

To grasp the unique features of the contemporary wave of protests and campus occupations it is important to appreciate its different historical context from that of the 1960s.

During the past fifty years higher education has become transformed in several respects.

These decades have seen the massification and industrialisation of higher education. It is difficult for anyone who has entered higher education in recent times to appreciate the qualitative difference between being a faculty member and student today to that of the 1960s.

The massification of the university has altered the relationship between academics and students. In the 1960s and 1970s students were regarded and treated as qualitatively different to school children. The ethos that prevailed in this era was distinctly anti-paternalistic. Once they entered the academic world they were presumed to be adults rather than children. Today when institutions of pastoral care, students’ welfare, counseling and guidance have an all pervasive presence on campuses it is worth recalling that in the 1960s students were expected to more or less able to fend for themselves. In contrast, we live in an age where universities highlight their commitment to student welfare and promise parents that they will keep their children safe.

Academics of course took an interest in the life of their students, but they did not play the role of amateur therapists. For their part, most students would have resented attempts by campus authorities and academics to intrude into their personal life. Indeed, there were numerous student revolts in the 1960s against the pre-existing assumption in many American colleges that the administration possessed the role of acting in loco parentis. The 1960s and 1970s undergraduates saw themselves as man and woman and not as boys and girls. Not only parents but also administrators and academics had no authority over personal life of students. It was assumed that students possessed the maturity to conduct their personal affairs and that if things turned wrong they were expected to live with their consequences.

The 1960s campus was a parent-free zone. Today institutions of higher education organize Open Days for parents and produce advertising literature designed especially for them. In turn many fathers and mothers take it upon themselves to exercise a degree of surveillance over the progress of their children. Many of them expect that the university operates like a primary and secondary school and exercises a duty of care for their children.

Today’s undergraduates are not expected to cope with life on their own. From the moment they enter higher education they are presumed to be ‘at-risk’ of a variety of psychological and social afflictions. Anyone reading the websites of universities will be struck by the numerous links and helplines that declare their concern with students’ well-being. The default assumption that underpins these services is that students are likely to lack the moral and especially the psychological resources necessary for the mature conduct of their affairs. In this respect the pre-existing distinction between a high school pupil and an undergraduate has become all but eroded. The contemporary undergraduate tends to be regarded as a biologically mature child.

The infantilisation of campus life is arguably the most dramatic change that has occurred during the past five decades. There are of course many students who reject the imperative of infantilisation. However, regardless of their personal disposition all students are subjected to the infantilising ethos dominating campus life.

The ethos of infantilisation is most strikingly communicated through the institutionalisation of what I have characterised as Therapy Culture.[ The most tragic consequence of the therapeutic turn in higher education is the normalisation of mental illness. Virtually every existential problem confronting normal students life has been reframed through the medium of a psychological diagnosis. This has encouraged a growing number of students to embrace a psychological diagnosis, which in turn is responsible for what’s often referred to as a campus ‘mental health crisis’.

The institutionalisation of therapeutic norms runs in parallel with the infantilised turn of the university. These two trends have created a culture where students are regarded as children that must be insulated from adversity, criticism, and pressure. A system of concessions in many universities makes it all but impossible for a student to fail. Undergraduates are under less and less academic pressure and academics are warned against doing anything that makes their students feel ‘uncomfortable’. In part grade inflation and the lowering of expectations regarding what students are meant to achieve has led to a regrettable lowering of academic standards.

The assumption that students should not feel uncomfortable and certainly must not be offended dominates the working of campus life. Yet it was not that long ago that academic life was underpinned by the assumption that serious discussion in a classroom was likely to offend some undergraduates and placing students under pressure with the likely consequence that they would feel uncomfortable was integral to their university experience. When students were  placed under pressure they  were not only expected to cope with the experience  but also flourish.

Today, a system of trigger warnings and the policing of speech serves the purpose of ensuring that students are not offended. These measures are justified on the ground that feeling offended can cause trauma and other forms of mental distress. Not surprisingly the socialisation of undergraduates into this therapeutic worldview means that many of them have embraced the assumption that not being offended is their right and vigorously support the policing of language. That is why the slightest hint that a text or someone’s word is offensive frequently leads to an outbreak of outrage and protest.

It is not possible to fully understand the conformist turn of campus life and the lack of respect for free speech without locating its roots in the infantilisation of campus life. Historically the university was more hospitable to the exercise of free speech and debate than any other public or private institution. Students in the 1960s actually mobilised to promote free-speech and academic freedom. In a climate of debate bordering on fierce arguments there was little attention paid to whether or not someone was offended by the words directed at them. Unlike today, students did not feel they had to ‘watch their words’ or censor themselves.

In the 1970s there were heated debates amongst undergraduates and in students unions about a variety of issues such as war in Vietnam. There were at least two sides to these debates. At meetings advocates of the war clashed with those who opposed it. Often arguments over tactics and strategy broke out even amongst protestors occupying a building. This was an era when those possessing a minority view did not get cancelled. They might have been unpopular, and in some instances ostracised by friendship groups, but they did not get cancelled. In these circumstances it was even possible students to possess friends from different sides of the political divide.

Today, an intense level of polarisation prevails. Debate and free speech has lost its authority. Those who are committed to demonising Israel are not prepared to argue against their opponents. There is not even a pretence that debate is valuable in its own right. The politics of censorship resonates with a campus culture that regards the expression of a divergent view as offensive and its communication as a cultural crime. Cancel Culture and the political ideals that it promotes are underpinned by a therapeutic worldview. This is a worldview that contrary to its apparent touchy-feely image readily adopts an authoritarian and intolerant approach towards public life.

The ascendancy of an intolerant orientation towards campus affairs could not have succeeded without the acquiescence of academics and campus administrators. Academics, particularly of the younger generation of teachers have become totally socialised into the infantilised therapeutic worldview. As I noted in my book – What Happened To The University: A Sociological Exploration Of Its Infantilisation- this worldview readily converged with identity politics, which in turn encourages hostility to Western Culture. The demonisation of Western society influences the university curriculum and any movement that questions Western Cultural norms and academics and students alike are expected to conform to it. That is why many students who are indifferent to the situation in the Middle East or are opposed to the cause symbolised by Hamas are likely to keep their opinions to themselves.

In effect, for students the cost of opposing the anti-Israeli movement are far higher than the risk of participating in the protest movements. Today’s infantilised and conformist sensibility spontaneously leads to the sporting of a Palestinian scarf. For many white students the act of wearing a scarf and a mask serves as a ritual of purification. Through joining the crowd chanting ‘From The River To The Sea’ they hope to wash away their feeling of White Guilt. Amongst non-Muslim protestors it is the impulse to conform rather than the plight of the people of Gaza that drives the current pro-Palestinian movement. Once this movement exhausts itself, the new generation of infantilised activist will spontaneously move on to support the next movement heralding an anti- western civilizational cause.

One final point. The 1960s movements represented a challenge to prevailing forms of cultural authority. Theirs was a counter-cultural movement that called into question the dominant norms of western society. The eventual triumph of this countercultural movement means that its progeny now plays a commanding role in public life. They have captured cultural institutions like the media and the university and regard the campus protestor as one of their own. That is why the student protestor of today is best characterised as a foot-soldier of the western cultural elites.

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