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John Cleese Warns Campus Political Correctness Leading Towards 1984 (washingtonexaminer.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Ashe Schow writes at the Washington Examiner that, "The Monty Python co-founder, in a video for Internet forum Big Think, railed against the current wave of hypersensitivity on college campuses, saying he has been warned against performing on campuses. "[Psychiatrist Robin Skynner] said: 'If people can't control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people's behavior,'" Cleese said. "And when you're around super-sensitive people, you cannot relax and be spontaneous because you have no idea what's going to upset them next." Cleese said that it's one thing to be "mean" to "people who are not able to look after themselves very well," but it was another to take it to "the point where any kind of criticism of any individual or group could be labeled cruel." Cleese added that "comedy is critical," and if society starts telling people "we mustn't criticize or offend them," then humor goes out the window. "With humor goes a sense of proportion," Cleese said. "And then, as far as I'm concerned, you're living in 1984." Cleese is just the latest comedian to lecture college students about being so sensitive.

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  1. Re:What are the babies going to do in the real wor by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1, Troll

    Living as a coddled adult-child in your parent's basement until you are 27 is like being a plant that for some reason got covered up by a piece of yard furniture that you discover when you move the lawn chair. It's pale and wilted and you wonder if it will grow up if you expose it to the sunlight that it's been denied.

    Except we are here talking about a life form that has been deliberately coddled, and that has preened and finely tuned it's sensitivity to normal amounts of sunlight, and considers it's pale whiteness and lack of growth to be a good thing.

    To the last question, yes, they are planning on living in their parents' basement forever. To the degree that they've ever planned anything at all.