j.r. leonard

2/This article is in a right-leaning magazine, but is more charitable to social justice kids than most such articles. It takes them seriously. As do I! And taking them seriously leads to some interesting places.

3/The writer, @darelmass, notes how the social justice kids very often talk about physical harm, physical fear, and physical safety. "We are dying" and "we are not safe" are common refrains, along with the word "violence".

4/But as Paul notes, the kids are objectively in little imminent danger. Violent hate crimes on campus are incredibly, incredibly rare. Paul has difficulty imagining what violence the kids might be afraid of.

5/Some of the kids talk about the negative long-term health effects that can result from social exclusion and marginalization. But is this what the kids are really scared of? Elevated risk of heart attack decades down the line? Maybe. But I think it's something else.

6/I think what the kids are really complaining about is not anything physical, but simply the mental and emotional pain of social exclusion. And I think American culture (like many other cultures) tends to underrate and dismiss and trivialize mental and emotional pain.

7/Because physical injury is usually visible and easily verifiable, and mental/emotional injury is not, American culture often dismisses, trivializes, and even scorns the latter. Think of George Patton slapping soldiers with PTSD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton_slapping_incidents …