I am briefly back from my travels around Europe including to the CTBTO in Vienna and then the UN System Staff College in Turin. Next stop? Back to Warsaw and the Polish Institute of Diplomacy.

Anyway, in the past few weeks the students of UK Universities have been grappling with their various exams, no more so than at brainy Cambridge. However, even there (or maybe it should be especially there?) the dry-rot of dumbed-down collectivism is now spreading busily. One college Common Room has put out this startling ‘welfare’ notice:

Welfare Week 7!

A big ‘good luck’ to those still exam-ing, and a big congratulations to those who’ve finished! Whichever crowd you’re a part of, whether it’s post-exam wind-down or mid-exam chill break, we’ve got a healthy dose of welfare lined up this week!

Friday 5th: Par-Tea in the JCR, 4-5:30pm! For the day of the frube and the chocolate shall come once again, and all shall nom, and it shall be good.

Saturday 6th: The Welfare Nerf War! Meet at the plodge at 4pm, and we’ll head across to Parker’s Piece for an epic shootout for the ages. We’ve got an armoury of 12 nerf guns of various sizes for general use, and feel free to bring your own weaponry (any non-water-based nerf guns are allowed!)

Sunday 7th: Welfare Picnic! 4-6pm on the Bursar’s lawn this time; join us for blankets and cake, grass and (hopefully) sun! (Note to weather: be nice plz.)

Monday 8th: The Cookie Jar Returneth! You know the drill: Know someone who needs a cookie? Pop their name in the jar, along with any special dietary requirements, and the Mighty Wizards of the Cookie Order shall cause a cookie to appear in that person’s pidge (assuming we can get them to stop playing cookie clicker for 5 minutes).

Tuesday 9th: Bubblewrap and Blankets (B&B) in the JCR, 2-4pm! Join us for a chill out, there shall be blankets, therapeutic bubble-popping and relaxing music. Come and flop for a bit!

Wednesday 10th: Yoga in the Bursar’s Garden 5-6pm! A nice end-of-week cool down. As always, 12 mats available, pop your name on the spreadsheet to bag one, first come first served! (No need to sign up if you have your own mat!)

We’re heading into the final stretch of exam term now, so good luck to all, and remember to take care of yourselves, take breaks and relax from time to time! 🙂

Lots of welfare love,

Your friendly neighbourhood welfare team! x

Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t this communication beyond depressing?

It’s not just the banality of the expression and the plethora of over-excited exclamation marks. It’s the sheer weirdness of their idea of ‘welfare’ for intelligent students as a sort of infantilised space where everyone is cuddled and warm and ‘safe’: note the repeated references to blankets/mats and cake and sweets, just the thing to comfort an anxious child. What about the welfare that comes from self-reliance and achievement? From individual ambitious activity, not collective passivity?

The smug retort is that not everyone is able to be an ambitious achiever, even at Cambridge, and that this sort of ‘welfare’ is aimed at helping those who value and enjoy it. If you don’t see that that is a valuable and meaningful activity, you’re part of the problem!

So be it. Back in real life plenty of Cambridge students ignore this onslaught of simpering cloying ‘welfare’ and head instead to the jolly activities of Suicide Sunday, when generalised larking about takes place amidst lots of unwelfarised beer once exams are over.

But wait! That name is just so … insensitive, because out there are people who have had actual suicidal thoughts and so are demeaned and belittled by that nasty term:

The propagation of a celebration called “Suicide Sunday” implicitly says “suicide isn’t a real problem”. It does this by belittling the very real risk of suicide attempts at Cambridge, and also contributes to a broader and very damaging culture of trivialisation …

… It is worth pointing out that a decent picture of my relationship with my ex can be achieved by examining all the major tropes of abuse except physical violence, and he displayed disgusting ableism towards me, despite the fact that my mental health really started falling apart due to his behaviour during and after our relationship. But his attitude to my suicidal behaviour is definitely a product of our culture’s trivialisation of suicide. I was very lucky my friends didn’t have this attitude.

This is how it works. Anyone who is now feeling unwell asserts the right to demand that others agree with them on their diagnosis of their own situation, since any other attitude is ‘disgusting ableism‘ or ‘micro-aggression’. Or something. Whatever micro-minority you belong to can demand that everyone else recognise it as legitimate and honourable.

What? You refuse to take me seriously and accuse me of screaming and crying and making myself ill just to attract attention? You don’t care. And you’re attacking my feelings. You’re the real problem, not me. My very irrationality is ALL YOUR FAULT.

Does all of this matter? Probably, because these undemocratic, stupid and belligerent demands sneak out from top universities into wider public discourse and gnaw away at free speech and free thought. This process is accelerating in America where many universities appear to have surrendered basic logic and due process under fire from a deranged minority of student activist snowflakes. The exciting attempts by philosopher Christina Sommers to express sensible views, only to be shouted at by sundry fanatics who can’t bear to have their absurd views challenged, are more than instructive.

Underlying all this is an important philosophical problem: how far should any society define itself by success or by weakness? Is it really wise to try to protect every single member of society from words or ideas that might ‘trigger’ someone into feeling unhappy or stressed?  If those who are unable to cope feel themselves entitled to clamour for blankets and cake or other ‘welfare’ provided by the hard work of the rest of us, what obligation do they in turn owe us? Are the ‘abled’ in fact the serfs of the ever-petulant ‘unabled’?

As usual, it all boils down to two questions. Who decides? And who decides who decides?