Thomas Zimmer pokes (many) holes in Packer's discussion on college protests.
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America’s mainstream elites have reacted with consternation, frustration, anger, and fear. Why on earth are these young people doing this? George Packer believes he has figured out the answer. Packer is one of the nation’s best-known journalists, essayists, and commentators. From the center-right through the center-left, he is almost universally regarded as a key chronicler of American life and politics in the twenty-first century. Unsurprisingly, when Packer presented his grand interpretation of the events in an essay in The Atlantic a week after the escalation at Columbia and harshly condemned not only the students, but the larger leftwing forces he sees at work here, those who have been aghast at the sight of young student rebels defying order have accepted his word as gospel.
The only problem is that Packer’s interpretation is completely off. As an empirical analysis, it doesn’t hold up to the least bit of scrutiny. His essay is still valuable, however – as a window into the elite anxieties and grievances that are driving so much of mainstream politics in America today.
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