How did our world, culture and politics become such a mess? A simple explanation can be found in the best-selling children’s picture-book series “If You Give . . .” by Laura Joffe Numeroff. In each story, indulging a creature’s unreasonable requests—be it for a cookie, muffin or pancake—stimulates an appetite for more. So it goes in real life:
• If college students ask for safe spaces, you might give affinity groups their own centers. Then they’ll want to feel safe in classrooms and will ask for trigger warnings to protect them from ideas they don’t like. When you agree that certain ideas can be dangerous, students will occupy buildings and demand that speakers be canceled.
When you apologize and disinvite speakers, students ask you to excuse tardy and incomplete assignments because they were busy protesting. When you give them an A for no effort, they will graduate with honors and think they don’t have to work hard to succeed.
Then, when you give them a job, they’ll ask to work only 30 hours a week. If you say yes, they’ll use their extra time to organize a union. If you recognize their union, they’ll ask for extra paid days off and eight weeks’ vacation.