In many ways, I don't respect my university students.

The other day I was thinking that I don't respect my university students in many ways - or, perhaps I should say, I don't disrespect them, but I don't automatically respect them somehow either (though I think that *they* think people respect them for their CVs of endless accomplishments, which is another topic altogether).

Overall, their experience in early ed and higher ed militates against them attaining the fullest forms of human realization as I see it, a deep and visceral concern with social issues and the body politic.

For one, their high schools train them to do charity and show on their resumes that they "get it", and many of them seem actually seem to believe the hype.  That feeds into the biggest threat to true sympathy, thinking you're sympathetic, even when you're not....  This generation loves to say they accept everyone, so they don't seem to see the many ways in which they don't (mostly on the basis of class).

For another thing, their college experience doesn't seem to challenge their complacency.  If anything, it just deepens it, by giving them an appearance of diversity and collision of viewpoints so they can say they've been challenged and improved though it's not clear how much actual challenge to who they are is going on.

I don't want to generalize, there are many nice students out there, but I doubt many of them will thrive in the ways that I think are important.

I'm talking of the kids at the university where I study, of course, not the art school kids.