Cambridge University and Another Example of the “Outrage Society”

UK’s Cambridge University physical sciences professor came under fire this week from mental health campaigners and students after he suggested undergraduates will have to work hard and abstain from drinking to pass the course.

Eugene Terentjev draw [sic] the fury of students and mental health activists after sending out an email last week to first-year natural sciences undergraduates at Cambridge, telling them the course will be difficult and thus they should refrain from drinking and other social activities if they wish to succeed, according to an email leaked to student-run publication Varsity.

“Physical sciences is a VERY hard subject, which will require ALL of your attention and your FULL brain capacity (and for a large fraction of you, even that will not be quite enough),” Terentjev wrote to the students.

“You can ONLY do well (ie achieve your potential, which rightly or wrongly several people here assumed you have) if you are completely focused, and learn to enjoy the course. People who just TAKE the course, but enjoy their social life, can easily survive in many subjects — but not in this one.”

He added: “Remember that you are NOT at any other uni, where students do drink a lot and do have what they regard as a ‘good time’ — and you are NOT on a course, as some Cambridge courses sadly are, where such a behaviour pattern is possible or acceptable.”

The professor’s comments caused an uproar among activists and students, who called his email “extremely damaging” and neither “appropriate nor acceptable”, with one other university vice-chancellor accusing Terentjev of “frightening impressionable undergraduates”, the London Times reported.

A mental health campaign at the university, Student Minds Cambridge, said the message sent by the professor “could be extremely damaging to the mental well-being of the students concerned, and potentially others as well,” the Times reported.

Good grief! What is wrong with academia? Cambridge is one of the world’s most prestigious schools. If people working there say it’s “damaging” to the mental well-being of students to caution them not to drink too much and to study hard while at Cambridge, what’s in store for the future of Western civilization? Future prime ministers, bank presidents, scientists and other significant people will graduate from Cambridge.

What in the hell is a “mental health activist”? I know what a mental health professional is. I am one, and have been for 30 years. No mental health professional would call it mentally “damaging” to encourage young people to avoid excessive use of alcohol while in college. What qualifies one to be a “mental health activist” if such a role consists of reacting against statements of obvious good advice and fact?

We’re told that Professor Terentjev’s sound advice drew “fury”. The question is who becomes furious over such things.

We have become an outrage society, on both sides of the Atlantic. Too many of us are looking for things to be outraged about because, quite frankly, modern capitalism and science have so advanced our lives and well-being that there’s precious little to be upset about, most of the time.

Educators from K-12 and above are turning young people into helpless snowflakes. Think about it. Great Britain survived terror and bombing at the hands of Hitler’s Nazis back in the 1940s. The British came through it all stronger than ever. And now students at Cambridge in the early 21st Century are told they face probable mental collapse when a teacher tells them to study hard and put away the alcohol. It’s truly like watching a society commit the equivalent of suicide.

The reason we’ve become an outrage society is because of schools like Cambridge that constantly peddle this intellectual and psychological crud.

It also shows you the true nature of political correctness. These politically correct “mental health activists” are not interested in anyone’s mental health. Their true goal is to discourage achievement because that will cause some to stand tall — academically and otherwise — in contrast to the average and the poor achievers. This is the thing they cannot and will not tolerate. It’s an instance of psychological projection. When they shriek it’s “extremely damaging” to state the obvious, as this professor did, what they’re really saying is, “I can’t stand the idea of working hard. Stop encouraging people to do so. It will make me uncomfortable. And some will do better than others. We can’t have that!” The psychological damage these “mental health activists” worry about in others already exists in themselves. Sad, but also dangerous.

And to think we let people like this run loose at some of the world’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning! Something has gone terribly wrong.