Trump, the University of Chicago, and the Collapse of Public Language

When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualising you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. In recent years, in my reporting, I've come to uncool conclusions. For one thing, I've begun to think that instilling public purpose into private communities is the hardest thing in the world. Last week, the University of Chicago's college dean of students riled the Internet when he dispatched a welcome letter to freshmen that declared the university to be a space safe from safe spaces.