The Daily Beast's Olivia Nuzzi thinks "the oh-so-fragile class of 2014 needs to STFU":
... Today marks the second time in a month that a powerful female figure has pulled out of delivering a commencement speech because of opposition from a seriously uptight and holier-than-thou student body.Yeah, maybe that's the problem -- although my generation, which programmed in FORTRAN, was similarly intolerant of ex-government officials we regarded as war criminals.
Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, has decided not to serve as commencement speaker for Smith College's May 18, 2014 graduation, after students started a petition protesting her selection.
... God forbid these delicate students should be exposed to an idea or an organization with which they disagree -- at college.
... Earlier this month, former U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, pulled out of delivering a commencement speech for Rutgers University in New Jersey (for which she would have received $35,000 and an honorary degree), following protests from students and faculty....
Rice occupied one of the most important offices in the whole country. But you’re right, kids, she probably has nothing interesting to say or any good advice because she was involved in a senseless war....
Millennials have grown up in a world where you are never forced to see, hear or read anything that you haven’t personally selected. 7,000 TV channels, a DVR to skip commercials, millions of websites -- we have been able to curate our own little worlds using technology, wherein nothing unpleasant or offensive can creep in. So when we're forced to sit through a commercial or, heaven forbid, listen to someone talk who isn't Mary-freakin'-Poppins, we can't handle it....
And so what? Nuzzi thinks millennials are spoiled by their ability to shut out certain messages -- but the fact is that millennials can't silence people with whom they disagree. You may choose not to listen to warmongers in the federal government or policymakers at the IMF, but, even if you're a millennial, you'll have to live in the world they make. If you disapprove of them from the left, it's overwhelmingly likely that you'll never be able to influence what they do. You may become a Pulitzer-winning journalist or a prominent left-leaning policy wonk or even a high official in a nominally liberal presidential administration, but chances are you'll never be able to exert leftward influence on the institutions of which you disapprove, because of the entrenched power of conservatism, and because of how much selling out and compromising you and your superiors will already have done just to get into a position of apparent influence.
So if you're still in school and one of these people wants to speak on your campus, you have what's probably the last opportunity you'll ever have to rebuff someone with this much power and actually make it stick. So what the hell -- be intolerant. These people run everything off campus -- when they decide to set foot on campus, you may as well tell them to bugger off.
