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American Jews created historic summer camps. Or did summer camps create American Jews?
(JTA) — Among Sandra Fox’s most memorable finds during her years mining American archives for materials about Jewish summer camps was a series of letters about the hours before lights-out.
The letters were by counselors who were documenting an unusual window in the day when they stopped supervising campers, leaving the teens instead to their own devices, which sometimes included romance and sexual exploration.
“It was each division talking about how they dealt with that free time before bed in ‘age-appropriate ways,’” Fox recalled about the letters written by counselors at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, the original iteration of the Conservative movement’s network of summer camps.
“I’ve spoken to Christian people who work at Christian camps and have researched Christian camps. There is no free time before bed,” Fox told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “That’s not a thing if you don’t want kids to hook up. So it was just amazing to find these documents of Camp Ramah leaders really having the conversation explicitly. Most of the romance and sexuality stuff is implicit in the archives.”
The letters are quoted extensively in Fox’s new book, “The Jews of Summer: Summer Camp and Jewish Culture in Postwar America.” Fox, who earned a PhD in history from New York University in 2018 and now teaches and directs the Archive of the American Jewish Left there, tells the story of American Judaism’s most immersive laboratory for constructing identity and contesting values.
Next week, Fox is launching the book with an event at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn. (Tickets for the Feb. 23 event are available here.) Attendees will be able to tour adult versions of some of the most durable elements of Jewish summer camps, from Israeli dance to Yiddish and Hebrew instruction to Color Wars to Tisha B’Av, the mournful holiday that always falls over the summer.
“I never considered doing a normal book party,” Fox said. “It was always really obvious to me that a book about experiential Jewish education and role play should be celebrated and launched out into the world through experiential education and role play.”
Sandra Fox’s 2023 book “The Jews of Summer,” looks at the history of American Jewish summer camps. (Courtesy of Fox)
We spoke to Fox about her party plans, how Jewish summer camps have changed over time and how they’ve stayed the same, and the cultural history of that before-bed free time.
This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity. We’ll be continuing the conversation in a virtual chat through the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Feb. 27 at 1 p.m.; register here.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Given how much Jews like to talk about camp, were you surprised that this book hadn’t already been written?
Sandra Fox: There’s been a lot of fruitful research on the history of various camps, but it’s usually been focused on one camping movement or one camp type. So there are articles about Zionist camps. There are certainly articles out there about the Ramah camps. A lot of camps have produced books — either their alumni associations or a scholar who went to let’s say, Reform movement camps have created essay collections about those camps. And there are also books about Habonim and other Zionist youth movements.
I don’t really know why this is the first stab at this kind of cross-comparison. It might be that people didn’t think there would be so much to compare. I think the overwhelming feeling I get from readers so far, people who preordered and gotten their books early, is that they’re very surprised to hear how similar these camps are. So perhaps it’s that scholars weren’t thinking about Jewish summer camps that came from such diverse standpoints as having something enough in common to write about them all at once.
Also distance from the time period really helps. You can write a book about — and people do write a book about — the ’60s and ’70s and have been for decades, but there’s a certain amount of distance from the period that has allowed me to do this, I think, and maybe it also helps that I’m generationally removed. A lot of the scholars who’ve worked on camps in the postwar period went to camps in the postwar period. It makes a lot of sense that it would be harder to write this sort of sweeping thing perhaps. The fact that I’m a millennial meant that I could write about the postwar period — and also write kind of an epilogue-style chapter that catches us up to the present.
What’s clear is that there’s something amazing about studying summer camp, a completely immersive 24/7 experience that parents send children away for. There’s no better setting for thinking about how adults project their anxieties and desires about the future onto children. There’s also no place better to think about power dynamics and age and generational tension.
I was definitely struck by the “sameyness” of Jewish camps in your accounting. What do you think we can learn from that, either about camps or about us as Jews?
I do want to say that while there’s a lot of sameyness, whenever you do a comparative study, there’s a risk of kind of collapsing all these things and making them seem too similar. What I’m trying to convey is that the camp leaders from a variety of movements took the basic structure of the summer camp as we know it — its daily schedule, its environment, its activities — and it did look similar from camp to camp, at least on that surface level.
If you look at the daily schedules in comparison, they might have a lot of the same features but they’ll be called slightly different things depending on if the camp leans more heavily towards Hebrew, or Yiddish, or English. But the content within those schedules would be rather different. It’s more that the skeletal structure of camp life has a lot of similarities across the board and then the details within each section of the day or the month had a lot of differences.
But I think what it says is that in the postwar period, the anxieties that Jewish leaders had about the future of Judaism are really, really similar and the solution that they found within the summer camp, they were pretty unanimous about. They just then took the model and inserted within it their particular nationalistic, linguistic or religious perspectives. So I think more so than saying anything about American Jewry, it shows kind of how flexible camping is. And that’s not just the Jewish story. Lots of different Americans have embraced summer camping in different ways.
So many people who have gone to camp have a fixed memory of what camp is like, where it’s caught in time, but you argue that camps have actually undergone lots of change. What are the most striking changes you documented, perhaps ones that might have been hard for even insiders to discern as they happened?
First of all, the Israel-centeredness of American Jewish education as we know it today didn’t happen overnight in 1948, for instance. It was a slower process, beyond the Zionist movements where that was already going on, for decades before 1948. Ramah and the Reform camps for instance took their time towards getting to the heavily Zionist-imbued curricula that we know.
There was considerable confusion and ambivalence at first about what to do with Israel: whether to raise an Israeli flag, not because they were anti-Zionist, but because American Jews had been thinking about proving their loyalty to America for many generations. There were some sources that would talk about — what kind of right do American Jews have to raise the Israeli flag when they’re not Israeli? So that kind of Israel-centeredness that is really a feature of camp life today was a slower process than we might think.
It fit camp life really well because broader American camps used Native American symbols, in some ways that are problematic today, to create what we know of as an iconography of camp life. So for Jews, Israel and its iconography, or Palestine and iconography before ’48, provided an alternative set of options that were read as Jewish, but it still took some time to get to where we are now in terms of the Israel focus.
One of the reasons I place emphasis on the Yiddish summer camps is to show that in the early 20th century and the mid-20th century there was more ideological diversity in the Jewish camping sphere, including various forms of Yiddishist groups and socialist groups and communist groups that operated summer camps. Most of them have closed, and their decline is obviously a change that tells a story of how American Jewry changed over the course of the postwar period. Their legacy is important, too: I have made the argument that these camps in a lot of ways modeled the idea of Yiddish as having a future in America.
What about hookup culture? Contemporary discourse about Jewish camps have focused on sex and sexuality there. What did you observe about this in the archives?
I think people think of the hookup culture of Jewish camps today and certainly in my time in the ’90s and 2000s as a permanent feature, and in some ways I found through my research and oral history interviews that that was the case, but it was really interesting to zoom out a little bit and think about how Jewish summer camps changed in terms of sexual romantic culture, in relationship to how America changed with the sexual revolution and the youth culture.
It’s not it’s not useful to think about Jewish hookup culture in a vacuum. It’s happening within America more broadly. And so of course, it’s changed dramatically over time. And one of the things I learned that was so fascinating is that Jewish summer camps were actually their leaders were less concerned in a lot of ways about sexuality at camp in the ’40s and ’50s, than they were in the late ’60s and ’70s. Because earlier premarital sex was pretty rare, at least in the teenage years, so they were not that concerned about what happened after lights out because they kind of assumed whatever was going on was fairly innocent.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, that’s when camps have to actually think about how to balance allowance and control. They want to allow campers to have these relationships, to have their first sexual experiences, and part of that is related to rising rates of intermarriage and wanting to encourage love between Jews, but they also want to control it because there’s a broader societal moment in which the sexuality of teenagers is problematized and their and their sexual culture is more public.
There’s been a real wave of sustained criticism by former campers about the cultures that they experienced, arguing that the camps created an inappropriately sexualized and unsafe space. There’s been a lot of reaction to that and the broader #MeToo moment. I’m curious about what you can speculate about a future where that space is cleaned up, based on your historical research — what is gained and what, potentially, could be lost?
Without being involved in camping today — and I want to really make that disclaimer because I know a lot of change is happening and lot of organizations are involved to talk about this issue better, to train camps and camp leaders and their counselors to not create a pressured environment for camper — I think what the history shows is that this hookup culture did not come about out of nowhere. It was partly related to the broader changes in America and the sexual revolution.
But it was also partly created because camps really needed to have campers’ buy-in, in order to be “successful.” A huge argument of my book is that we think about the power of camps as if camp directors have campers as, like, puppets on strings, and that what they do is what happens in camp life. But actually, campers have changed the everyday texture of life at camp over the course of the decades in so many different ways by resisting various ideas or just not being interested.
So hookup culture is also part of making campers feel like they have freedom at camp and that’s essential. That’s not a side project — that is essential to their ability to get campers to come back. It’s a financial need, and it’s an ideological need. If you make campers feel like they have freedom, then they will feel like they freely took on the ideologies your camp is promoting in a really natural way.
The last part of it is rising rates of intermarriage. As rates of intermarriage rose in the second half of the 20th century, there’s no doubt in my mind from doing the research that the preexisting culture around sexuality at camp and romance at camp got turbo-boosted [to facilitate relationships that could potentially lead to marriage between two Jews]. At that point, the allowance and control that camp leaders were trying to create for many decades leans maybe more heavily towards allowance.
There are positives to camp environments being a place where campers can explore their sexualities. There’s definitely a lot of conversation about the negative effects and those are all very, very real. I know people who went through horrible things at a camp and I also know people who experienced it as a very sex-positive atmosphere. I know people in my age range who were able to discover that they were gay or lesbian at camp in safety in comparison to home, so it’s not black and white at all. I hope that my chapter on romance and sexuality can maybe add some historical nuance to the conversation and give people a sense of how this actually happened. Because it happened for a whole bunch of reasons.
I think there’s a consensus view that camp is one of the most “successful” things the Jews do. But it’s hard to see where lessons from camp or camp culture are being imported to the rest of Jewish life. I’m curious what you see as kind of the lessons that Jewish institutions or Jewish communities have taken from camp — or have they not done that?
Every single public engagement I do about my work has boiled down to the question of, well, does it work? Does camp work? Is it successful? And that’s been a question that a lot of social scientists have been interested in. I don’t want to oversimplify that research, but a lot of the ways that they’ve measured success have been things that are not necessarily a given to all Jews as obviously the right way to be a Jew. So, for instance, in the ’90s and early 2000s, at the very least, a lot of research was about how, you know, “XYZ” camp and youth movement were successfully curbing intermarriage. A lot of them also asked campers and former campers how they feel about Israel, and it’s always if they are supportive of Israel in very normative ways, right, giving money visiting, supporting Israel or lobbying for its behalf — then camps have been successful.
I’m not interested in whether camps were successful by those metrics. I’m interested in how we got to the idea that camp should be successful in those ways in the first place. How did we get to those kinds of normative assumptions of like, this is a good Jew; a good Jew marries a Jew; a good Jew supports Israel, no matter what. So what I wanted to do is zoom out from that question of success and show how camp actually functions.
And then the question of “does it work” is really up to the reader. To people who believe that curbing intermarriage is the most important thing, then camps have been somewhat successful in the sense that people who go to these heavily educational camps are less likely to marry out of the faith.
But I am more interested in what actually happened at camp. And in terms of their legacies, I wanted to show how they changed various aspects of American Jewish life, and religion and politics. So I was really able to find how camping was essential in making kind of an Israel-centered Jewish education the norm. I was also able to draw a line between these Yiddish camps over the ’60s and ’70s that closed in the ’80s and contemporary Yiddish. The question of success is a real tricky and political one in a way that a lot of people have not talked about.
And is camp also fun? Because you’re creating a camp experience for your book launch next week.
Camp is fun — for a lot of people. Camp was not fun for everyone. And so I do want to play with that ambivalence at the party, and acknowledge that and also acknowledge that some people loved camp when they were younger and have mixed feelings about it now.
The party is not really a celebration of Jewish summer camp. People will be drinking and having fun and dancing — but I want them to be thinking while also about what is going on and why. How is Tisha B’Av [the fast day that commemorates the destruction of the ancient Jewish temple in Jerusalem that falls at the height of summer] commemorated at camp, for example?
Or what songs are we singing and what do they mean? I think a lot of people when they’re little kids, they learn songs in these Jewish summer camps that they can’t understand and later they maybe learn Hebrew and go, whoa, we were singing what?! My example from Zionist summer camp is singing “Ein Li Eretz Acheret,” or “I Have No Other Country.” We were in America and we obviously have another country! I don’t think anyone in my youth movement actually believes the words “Ein Li Eretz Acheret” because we live in America and people tend to kind of like living in America and most of them do not move to Israel.
So at the party we’ll be working through the fun of it, and at the same time the confusion of it and the ambivalence of it. I want it to be fun, and I also want it to be something that causes people to think.
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The post American Jews created historic summer camps. Or did summer camps create American Jews? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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In the Social Media Age, What the Torah Teaches About Gossip Is More Relevant Than Ever
Social media apps on a smart phone. Photo: Jonathan Raa/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” This often-quoted line is usually attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, although ironically, there’s no proof she actually said it. This makes it a fitting introduction to a discussion on gossip, truth, and our tendency to repeat irresistible stories — real or not.
Modern psychology has devoted a surprising amount of attention to the study of gossip, and its conclusions are rather more nuanced than one might expect. Far from being merely idle chatter or malicious whispering, gossip turns out to serve a meaningful social function. It helps people bond and creates the kind of informal networks that allow individuals to navigate the complexities of social life.
In other words, when people engage in what we dismissively call tittle-tattle, they are often doing something constructive — strengthening connections and quietly laying the foundations of lasting social relationships.
And yet, research underscores a vital caveat: While gossip can build social bonds, its malicious form erodes trust and achieves the opposite effect. When gossip sours, it distorts reality, encourages harsh, often unjustified judgments, and breeds suspicion.
What starts as a seemingly harmless exchange — “Did you hear what happened with so-and-so?” — can swiftly become a narrative with far-reaching consequences, echoing widely and lingering long after the original words.
That has always been the case. But recently, the scale, speed, and stakes have increased. Social media has supercharged gossip, making it far more potent and dangerous. What once occurred in private circles now unfolds publicly, amplified by algorithms favoring outrage and sensationalism. Gossip isn’t just local — it fuels widespread conspiracy and can fracture societies.
The wave of conspiracy theories proliferating online in recent years — claims about hidden forces manipulating events, and viral rumors about public figures spreading faster than corrections — has seeped into mainstream conversation. News of public shootings or assassination attempts quickly sparks theories of “false flag” operations or that those arrested are merely patsies.
Such narratives start on the fringes but spread quickly because they tap into a deeply human urge: to feel privy to hidden knowledge, to believe we see what others do not. By the time facts emerge, the damage is done — and facts are dismissed as cover-ups. Reputations inevitably suffer, and the harmful consequences outlast the true facts.
What all of these examples have in common is not merely their inaccuracy, but their emotional appeal. Gossip, whether ancient or modern, thrives on a particular kind of pleasure — the satisfaction of being “in the know,” coupled with the subtle reinforcement of one’s own worldview.
In a polarized environment, that pleasure is intensified. We are far more inclined to believe, and to repeat, information that confirms what we already think, especially when it casts the “other side” in a negative light.
All this signals a broader societal shift. Modern, digitized gossip now powerfully drives polarization. It is no longer just people speaking ill of each other; it has become a process where entire communities build parallel realities, each sustained by its own ecosystem of rumors, half-truths, and falsehoods.
Given these developments, the Torah’s treatment of gossip in Parshat Tazria–Metzora feels less like an ancient curiosity and more like a strikingly relevant corrective. The metzora — one afflicted with tzara’at, a discoloration that appears on skin, clothing, or walls — is traditionally seen by Chazal as suffering the consequences of lashon hara, harmful speech.
Remarkably, it is not just about the harmful speech producing a physical manifestation, but also the response to the condition: The metzora is isolated (Lev. 13:46): בָּדָד יֵשֵׁב מִחוּץ לַמַּחֲנֶה מוֹשָׁבוֹ – “he must sit alone, outside the camp.” The social fabric once woven by innocuous gossip is now withdrawn; the result of malicious speech is, quite literally, social isolation.
Lashon hara does more than harm its immediate target; it undermines the integrity of the entire community. It distorts reality, erodes trust, and creates divisions where cohesion should prevail. In a society built on shared values and mutual responsibility, that kind of corrosion cannot simply be ignored.
But the Torah does not merely punish — it educates. The isolation of the metzora is not an act of rejection, but an opportunity for reflection. Removed from the constant chatter and the endless exchange of words, the metzora is forced to confront the true power of speech — what it can build, and what it can so easily destroy.
In our world, we rarely experience that kind of enforced pause, especially in an age of addictive smartphone use. We scroll endlessly through emails, messages, videos, and social media, caught in a relentless information stream.
The pressure to respond is immediate, and the urge to share something that is particularly evocative or provocative is ever-present. There’s always another headline, a salacious rumor, or some kind of “inside information” demanding attention and ready to be passed along.
The medium may have changed, but the core dynamic remains. Words still shape reality; they influence how we see others, interpret events, and position ourselves in society. The only real difference is that the ripple effects are now far greater.
Our goal shouldn’t be to eliminate social chatter — which is neither possible nor desirable — but to act with more responsibility. The fleeting satisfaction of spreading sensational news is often outweighed by the long-term cost to truth and trust.
One should certainly resist being the first to repeat a story; instead, be the person who ensures accuracy and fairness. This discipline, difficult in a culture favoring speed over nuance, is what the Torah seeks to instill.
Millennia before social media and modern polarization, the Torah revealed a simple truth: Speech is not neutral. It leaves a mark and, when misused, can fracture people and communities.
Every time we want to share that intriguing, unverified detail, we aren’t just making harmless conversation. We are shaping the world we and others live in. That’s a responsibility to take seriously.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
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Europe’s Counterterrorism Strategy: How Laws and Intelligence Cooperation Strengthened Security
French police and members of French special police forces of Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI) secure the area near Iran’s consulate where a man was threatening to blow himself up, in Paris, France, April 19, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
Over the past two decades, Europe has faced evolving terrorist threats that required a comprehensive and coordinated response. From lone-wolf attacks to transnational extremist networks, European states have been compelled to rethink their security frameworks. In response, the European Union and its member states have developed a multi-layered counterterrorism strategy centered on legislation, intelligence cooperation, and institutional coordination. This approach has significantly enhanced Europe’s ability to prevent and respond to terrorism, although challenges remain.
At the core of Europe’s counterterrorism efforts lies a robust legal framework. European countries have introduced extensive legislation aimed at criminalizing terrorism-related activities, including recruitment, financing, incitement, and travel for extremist purposes. These laws are designed not only to punish acts of terrorism but also to prevent them before they occur. By harmonizing legal standards across member states, the European Union has reduced legal loopholes that previously allowed suspects to exploit differences between national systems.
One of the most important aspects of this legal evolution is the emphasis on preventive measures. Authorities now have greater powers to monitor suspects, disrupt networks, and intervene at earlier stages of radicalization. This proactive approach reflects a shift from reactive policing to anticipatory security, where the focus is on identifying threats before they materialize.
However, legislation alone is not sufficient. Intelligence cooperation has become a cornerstone of Europe’s counterterrorism strategy. Given the transnational nature of modern terrorist networks, no single country can effectively combat terrorism in isolation. European intelligence agencies have therefore intensified their collaboration through formal and informal mechanisms that facilitate the exchange of information.
A key platform in this regard is the Counter Terrorism Group (CTG), which brings together intelligence services from EU member states to share assessments and coordinate responses. In parallel, agencies such as Europol and Eurojust play a crucial role in operational coordination and judicial cooperation. Europol supports law enforcement by providing intelligence analysis, while Eurojust facilitates cross-border prosecutions and legal coordination.
The importance of information sharing cannot be overstated. Timely and accurate intelligence allows authorities to track suspects across borders, identify emerging threats, and prevent attacks. Systems such as the Schengen Information System (SIS) enable member states to share alerts on individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism, enhancing border security and law enforcement effectiveness.
In addition to intra-European cooperation, transatlantic collaboration has also been a key component of counterterrorism efforts. The United States and European countries have worked closely to exchange intelligence, track foreign fighters, and dismantle terrorist networks. For example, data sharing initiatives have enabled European authorities to identify individuals returning from conflict zones and assess the risks they pose.
Another critical dimension of Europe’s counterterrorism strategy is the effort to cut off funding for extremist groups. Terrorist organizations rely on financial resources to operate, recruit, and carry out attacks. European governments have implemented strict measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, including enhanced financial surveillance, regulatory oversight, and international cooperation. These efforts aim to disrupt the financial lifelines of extremist networks and reduce their operational capabilities.
Despite these advancements, Europe continues to face significant challenges. One of the most pressing issues is the phenomenon of radicalization, particularly among individuals who are born and raised in Europe. Online platforms have become a major tool for extremist propaganda, making it easier for groups to recruit and indoctrinate individuals. Addressing this challenge requires not only security measures but also social and ideological interventions that tackle the root causes of extremism.
Another challenge is balancing security with civil liberties. Expanding surveillance powers and preventive measures has raised concerns about privacy and human rights. European governments must navigate this delicate balance to ensure that counterterrorism efforts do not undermine the democratic values they seek to protect.
Moreover, the return of foreign fighters from conflict zones such as Syria and Iraq poses an ongoing security risk. European countries must decide how to handle these individuals, whether through prosecution, rehabilitation, or monitoring. This issue highlights the complexity of modern counterterrorism, where legal, ethical, and security considerations intersect.
In conclusion, Europe’s counterterrorism strategy has evolved into a comprehensive system that combines legislation, intelligence cooperation, and financial controls. By strengthening legal frameworks, enhancing information sharing, and fostering international collaboration, European countries have significantly improved their ability to combat terrorism. However, the dynamic nature of the threat means that these efforts must continue to adapt. Future success will depend on maintaining this balance between security, cooperation, and the protection of fundamental freedoms.
The author is a political analyst specializing in Middle East affairs, with a focus on political Islam, regional security, and minority rights.
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Gen Z Canceled Critical Thinking
Illustrative: Thousands of anti-Israel demonstrators from the Midwest gather in support of Palestinians and hold a rally and march through the Loop in Chicago on Oct. 21, 2023. Photo: Alexandra Buxbaum/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
As a society, we haven’t reckoned with the impact that cancel culture has had on Gen Z, and we need to.
Starting in 2020, cancel culture was implemented through social ostracization, major media campaigns, online bullying, and toxic one-sided debates used to demean individuals for their perspectives. For developing brains, cancel culture created a very real fear in their life: the fear of social death.
Because cancel culture doesn’t care about your morals or values, it is used as a form of social control that latches on to anything different from the dominant political ideologies. Social death will be performed through ostracization.
For Gen Z, cancel culture taught us not to share our own perspectives, not to post our own ideas on social media, and, saddest of all, to stop talking with one another about conflicting ideas. Cancel culture has led to a form of self-suppression, effectively silencing ourselves. This in turn has led to the decline of critical thinking and allowed for a mental void to take the spot of a once-busy analytical brain.
Critical thinking has become dangerous in a society that platforms specific ideologies above democratic debate.
As a society, we have not truly realized what cancel culture has done to our generation, starting in 2020. Professors and teachers continue to ask students, “What do you think about this?” and expect an authentic answer, not realizing the student can only give them a safe answer from within the accepted ideological bubble. Because if a student steps outside of what has been deemed “moral” by the virtue-signaling police, they will be shunned and a social death will ensue.
I’ve experienced this firsthand at the University of British Columbia (UBC), a university with over 60,000 students but no room for different views.
The dominant social justice warrior ideology on campus has become anti-Israel, and wearing my IDF hoodie draws vicious UBC Reddit and social media attacks. When I discussed a translation assignment with an English professor and said I’d like to translate a Hebrew prayer, I was pulled aside and asked if I “work for Zionist entities?” Through social isolation, my peers and professors alike have shunned me for my support of Israel, simply because it doesn’t align with the dominant woke ideologies of our generation.
Unless we reckon with cancel culture, which has been branded as a purity test for moral clarity, we can’t begin to discuss how to get children to think critically again.
As a society, we allowed this disease to affect the brains of my generation. Unless we do something about it, we will become Generation Zombie, and the mental apocalypse will be upon us.
I used to feel afraid to share my own opinions when I started university, because for a while, cancel culture won, and I muzzled myself. But this is anti-democratic; intimidation of thought has become a tool to control our young, impressionable generation. We must reckon with this before moving forward and taking accountability for a solution.
My solution to this disease is to ask questions. We have to revert back to our pre-school cognitive development stages, when we asked, “why, what, when, where, and how.” We have to revert back to searching for answers and hearing a difference of opinion.
This sounds simple at its core. However, to Generation Zombie, we have to reteach these fundamental cognitive capacities. I say this as a Gen Zer who has lived experience inside our Canadian university system since 2020 and can attest that academic rigor and the ability to grapple with complex ideas are going the way of the dodo bird.
Be curious. Ask questions.