The Care and Breeding of Docile Students

Imposing docility by expelling troublemakers

by Robert Weissberg

The American people have increasingly become docile and reliant on government largess. I see a parallel between this burgeoning dependency and the breeding of dachshunds. 

The dachshund was bred as a killing machine to burrow and eradicate badgers, rabbits and, in the United States, prairie dogs. Its body is muscular with paws adapted to digging, and it has a keen sense of smell. Its large lung capacity allows it to dig underneath its prey to catch it by surprise. Packs of dachshunds were even used to hunt wild boar and wolverines. Thus, in their natural state they are not pets suitable for small children.

But little money is to be made breeding subterranean killing machines no matter how cute or adorable. Professional breeders have therefore wisely bred out the dachshund’s hyper-aggressive traits to arrive at an animal that more closely resembles a submissive toy poodle. It does not take much. Just cull out the snarly ones and voilà—you have a cute, tame wiener dog. 

We don’t yet breed people into lapdogs, but the contemporary university is doing all it can to accomplish such a goal—creating a citizenry that instinctively looks to the federal government for its protection and sustenance. What is perhaps most remarkable about manufacturing this “new person” is that it seems normal to the point of not even being noticed. Today’s college students are now liberated from nearly every responsibility that once constituted growing up. It is no wonder that among today’s college graduates, adolescent behavior persists well into the 30s.

A few obvious campus examples must suffice. Want friends who share common interests? In the pre-modern universities students themselves shouldered this responsibility. Nowadays the Dean of Students heads up a vast bureaucracy that facilitates dozens of university-funded, university-supervised affinity groups, everything from a safe house for lesbians of color to supplying basement rooms for chess aficionados. 

What is notable here is how “forming an affinity group” has become “getting the university to support the group,” as if seeking friends outside university control was physically and financially impossible. Civil-rights groups have evolved into organizations where the key question is not how best to solve a problem but rather, “How can we get government funds to tackle a problem?”

This slow slide into almost unconscious dependence was made clear to me via an exchange of views with a student who complained that his university imposed secular values on his school-funded religious group. I advised him to sever all ties to the university—raise funds privately, rent a meeting space at the Holiday Inn, and drop the university’s name or logo. My advice barely registered. His rejoinder assumed that independence was not feasible even though the costs might only be a few hundred dollars a year for everything—a pittance for religious freedom. 

Consider recreation, hardly a commodity that only a university can supply. Surely there are local gyms, bowling allies, pool halls, and YMCAs happy to have student business. In contemporary schools, however, this responsibility is now part of “Student Affairs.” The same pattern holds for entertainment and spectator sports. Again, no need to make budgeting choices let alone “pay,” since everything is “free.” Even dining services have been upgraded to discourage students from finding, let alone cooking, their own meals. (This continues the policy of “free” government-subsidized lunches and breakfasts that begins in grade school.) The university’s “free” healthcare service not only dispenses condoms gratis, it supplies “free counseling” for the gender-confused.

These examples of domestication could be multiplied, but three points are clear. First, this campus socialism needlessly drives up tuition and encourages further reliance on government to foot the bill. I suspect that if all these “free” nonacademic extras were removed, tuition costs would drop by a third and thereby reduce student debt. Without this debt, there would be less money owed to Uncle Sam. Moreover, sky-high tuition now makes it almost impossible to work one’s way through school. Try finding a part-time job that pays $20,000 or more a year. Far more tempting is to sink a bit further into government-supplied debt.

Second, these abundant university-supplied services multiply the opportunities to fill young minds with the latest PC nonsense. University divisions of housing are among the most PC entities on campus. College dormitories offer excellent opportunities to spread the PC gospel via dorm policies (what you can post on room walls), resident advisor-led meetings (the importance of sympathizing with your transvestite roommate), and handling “offensive” behavior (calling a rowdy a “water buffalo”). Why else would today’s universities demonize fraternities? I suspect that Deans of Student Housing are terrified that if students were allowed to live without university supervision, they could actually choose their own housemates, tell racist jokes, get drunk, and put up Ron Paul posters without any fear of punishment.

But of all the dependency-generating mechanisms, the most important is inhibiting youngsters’ ability to make real-world decisions like adults. Imagine if today’s university sold off all of its nonacademic functions. Goodbye dorms, health centers, divisions of recreation, free computer services, the campus bookstore, tutoring and writing centers, free concerts, free lecture series, and all else. Even sell the library to Google. This would be a bare-bones medieval-style university, one consisting solely of professors, classrooms, science labs, and whatever else was necessary for imparting knowledge. 

Would campus life collapse? Would eighteen-year-olds starve absent a dining service? Hardly, and these youngsters would benefit immensely. Nearly all college students have mastered craigslist and other online venues to find whatever they need. Let youngsters learn to make important choices and then suffer the consequences. Let them visit Walmart’s convenient care for their runny nose rather than the university’s facilities and thereby learn about choosing a healthcare provider. Let them shop the housing market and survive all the charlatans and crooks. This is what “growing up” means. 

Like aggressive dogs that are kept from breeding, students who demonstrate excessive independence are culled out from university life as troublemakers. Imagine the fate of students who openly contested today’s campus orthodoxy by mocking diversity or pointing out that Africa devolved after colonialism ended. Like any good breeder with an eye on potential customers, university administrators would keep this troublemaker student from reaching the market. This is what speech codes and all the rest of the PC apparatus are about—imposing docility by expelling troublemakers. After a point, the word would get out that if you want to be adopted by a nice family, then don’t bite strangers.

I can imagine the school president giving the following graduation speech:

Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the class of 2015. All have had their shots, been wormed, and are paper-trained and ready to go. Each, I assure you, will make a wonderful addition to our fine society.