Our University-Culture: Chapter 1 (Part 2)

EARLIER: Introduction; Chapter 1 (Part 1)

IV. The Category Imperative

The problem ultimately lies in people treating others as members of groups rather than as individuals. And people think of others as members of groups rather than as individuals when they treat people as means rather than ends in and of themselves. I find it hard to believe that reinforcing group-based thinking is the way to get out of group-based thinking; it is as absurd as thinking that finding a racial slur for privileged whites, for example, is the solution to eliminating racism. But it is consistent with the history of egalitarian thinking. We have seen it with Rousseau, and we have seen it with Marx. We see it in all of these categories which have been handed down to us from our university-employed self-appointed aristocratic cultural elite.

Aristotelis Orginos argues that this world view has come to full fruition in the Millennial generation. He observes that

As children, they were told that they could be anything, do anything, and that they were special. As adults, they have formed a unique brand of Identity Politics wherein the groups with which one identifies is paramount. With such a strong narrative that focuses on which group one belongs to, there has been an increasing balkanization of identities. In an attempt…