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  • Essay / The difference between being intolerant or sensitive

    Over the years, people have increasingly taught their children that they should be kind to each other and generally strive to be good people . It was a fantastic idea in theory. However, at some point, being a good person turned into being overly sensitive and judgmental towards anyone who isn't. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Greg Lukianoff and Jonathon Haidt's article discusses this phenomenon in detail. They claim that students are attempting to “cleanse campuses of words, ideas, and topics that might embarrass or offend” (1). Harvard professors are even being asked not to teach rape law because it might offend some students or cause them distress. Many comedians also began refusing to perform on college campuses, claiming that "too many of them can't stand jokes" (2). There are two main terms that are used a lot more on college campuses. The first concerns microaggressions, which “are small actions or word choices that appear at first glance to have no malicious intent but are nevertheless considered a type of violence.” (2). Microaggressions often happen by mistake, in fact, more often than not, the perpetrator doesn't even realize what they are doing that they may be offending until the victim speaks out about it. The other term is a trigger warning which “are alerts”. that professors are supposed to issue if something in a lesson could provoke a strong emotional reaction. (2) The types of things that professors are expected to warn students about are generally works containing themes of suicide, war, physical violence, rape or sexual assault, racial violence, or other topics offensive. Some people think that this is all just “political correctness insurance.” (3). While this may be partly true, it is not exactly the same as what happened in the 1980s and 1990s. What happened then was restricting hate speech, but also to broaden minds to see things as they were and for people to better understand diversity. What’s happening today is less about broadening horizons and more about people’s emotional well-being. This can do more harm than good, because creating a space where the goal is to protect everyone simply because there is a risk that some will be uncomfortable if that were not the case does not is not the solution. Keeping everyone safe makes it very difficult for people to express themselves freely, because “this movement seeks to punish anyone who interferes with that goal, even accidentally.” (4). This phenomenon is called vindictive protection and can cause people to be more narrow-minded even if they try to be what they now believe to be open-minded. Instead of using the wisdom of others to challenge their beliefs and learn to better understand the world, they try not to offend or be offended by anyone and often dismiss new ideas very quickly. This also “prepares them poorly for professional life”. (5). In the workplace, one must do one's job regardless of what might be offensive and therefore being too sensitive could make it difficult to find a job. One of the hypotheses for how people became this way is what happened in the generation gap. The children used to run outside and play after school and generally speaking they were safe and that was how things were...