From “Animal House” to a House of Animals? Middlebury and Today’s Students

Last updated on: March 16, 2017 at 6:32 pm by Megan Schmidt

From “Animal House” to a House of Animals? Middlebury and Today’s Students 2017-03-16T18:32:23-04:00 Megan Schmidt

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

by J. Nick Pitts
Previous generations’ college experiences were satirized by the film Animal House, but today’s college campus seems more a house of animals. While Animal House depicted college as continual party that promoted promiscuity and debauchery with little time for learning, today’s college experience seems more like a continual protest. These demonstrations are caused by a distrust in institutions, endemic to the millennial generation, and an overarching lack of historical understanding.

Last week, a mob attacked conservative author Charles Murray and a college professor as they left a campus building following an attempt at a lecture. Murray, known for his work “Coming Apart,” was invited to the campus to discuss the findings documented in his latest book. However, when Murray rose to speak, he was shouted down by the more than 400 students packed into the room. Many turned their backs to him and chanted, “Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Charles Murray go away!”

Unable to speak, event organizers took him to a video studio in the same building to broadcast the event online, but protestors pulled fire alarms, which temporarily shut off power to the live stream. Exiting the building with Professor Allison Stanger, a group of protesters wearing bandanas attacked the group, pulling Stanger’s hair and injured her neck. Once Murray and Stanger got into the car, it was reported that protestors violently rocked the car, pounded on it and jumped on it to try to prevent it from leaving the campus.

From sea to shining sea, college campuses are morphing from humble places where young curiosity meets sage wisdom to haughty havens where snobbery and radical mistrust seek to upend these foundational institutions of the American experiment. One might expect such protests at such places like the University of California at Berkley, but the unrest ripples across the country, from Yale to the University of Missouri.

The protests demonstrate a lack of trust in institutions, but the broad accusations reveal a lack of historical understanding among millennials.

Millennials’ mistrust of institutions has been thoroughly documented and publicized. According polling by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, 88 percent of millennials say they only “sometimes” or “never” trust the press. Eight-six percent of millennials express distrust with Wall Street. Seventy-four percent don’t trust public schools, and 50 percent say they trust the police to only sometimes or never to do the right thing.

This lack of trust is not limited to institutions but extends to individuals. Only 19 percent of millennials believe other people can be trusted.

Millennials don’t trust institutions because institutions have failed millennials. In the too big to fail era, many millennials grew up in broken families, which are the bedrock institutions of any society. They entered a less than desired marketplace that resulted in a 51 percent underemployed young workforce. They were promised lucrative careers after going to college, but they were given significant student loan debts.

The lack of trust compels the protests, but the lack of historical understanding fuels the derogatory epithets and broad accusations. According to the Nation’s Report Card, only 12 percent of high school seniors are considered “proficient” in U.S. history. Millennials may be the most educated generation in the American experiment, but education does not equate to understanding.

According to one international report, millennials in the U.S. fall short when it comes to the skills employers want most: literacy (like the ability to follow instructions), practical math and “problem-solving in technology-rich environments.” Students increasingly cannot tell you what happened four score and seven years ago, but they can tell you what color “the dress” is. Without an understanding of history, and the context implicit within it, everyone turns into Hitler and everything is a civil rights issue.

The college campus is an incubator of new ideas, exercising free speech to question the past and consider the new. However, a Gallup poll showed that 69 percent of college students said they would be in favor of prohibiting “intentionally offensive” speech on campus. No word on who defines offensive. Forty-one percent of Americans 35 and under think “the First Amendment is dangerous.”

Intellectual curiosity is essential on the campus. But unfortunately, the millennial cat seeks to kill curiosity and replace it with conformity. The days of seem distant. Instead of Toga parties, there are protestors’ torches. But the words of Dean Wormer still apply: “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

J. Nick Pitts is the director of cultural engagement at The Denison Forum on Truth and Culture.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

March 9, 2017

Why We Need the Benedict Option and How It Doesn’t Have to Return to Fundamentalism

Next Post

March 23, 2017 Thoughts on a Church Closing

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Culture Slideshow Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2026 October 2025 July 2025 April 2025 February 2025 October 2024 August 2023 June 2023 March 2023 February 2023 November 2022 April 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 January 2020 December 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 January 2019 October 2018 August 2018 June 2018 May 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz