Alas, university culture is often as crazy as the stereotypes one hears. This is my latest column for the American University Eagle.

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Hearing the complaints of college students, one might imagine himself to have wandered into the ghettoes. Now, it may be confusing at first glance to think that one of the most expensive universities in the country harbors anyone other than the luckiest twenty-year-olds on Earth — or, in their own words, the most ‘privileged’ — but this is silly talk. To understand the collective psyche of university political culture, one has to realize that one walks among the oppressed, the damned, the downtrodden.

Most of us who have managed to remain grounded in something resembling sanity are familiar with someone who walked into college a political moderate and emerged as a radical one year later. It’s inevitable, really. From the second the freshman stumbles onto campus, he is introduced to one million and one reasons why he should feel slighted by fate. The mild-mannered DLC Democrat is transformed into a postmodern radical once he learns that the world is out to get him; the mainstream liberal woman becomes a “radical queer feminist” once she understands that she is about to get raped (if not physically, metaphorically). The vicious offenders at hand — The Man? — are everyone and no one; the problem is is “institutional,” not anyone’s fault in particular. (Huh?)

For some bizarre reason inexplicable by standard logic, people want to be victims. When I explain the statistical fallacies of feminist grievances, one would think that this would be a relief to the activists, but, well, it’s not. Example: It is objectively incorrect to claim that women make twenty-five cents fewer than men for the same work. It is not a “debate.” One side is correct and the other side is incorrect. The figure at hand is obtained by averaging the annual incomes of all men and comparing the result to the average income of all women, the problems of which should be obvious to anyone who has ever taken STAT-202 — or has a functioning brain. Shouldn’t the proper response to such a revelation be “Oh, I didn’t realize that. Thank you for clearing that misconception up”?

Alas, that would remove the impetus to march. One must understand that campus activists are not fighting for social justice, but for ice cream socials. Campus activists stand for the interests of campus activists, not of the oppressed. Pinatas are constantly being constructed to hit: smash them and your guilt gets relieved! Feminists march for “a world without rape” because they know — as well as everyone who witnesses their march — that a world without rape is impossible. But this assures that their club — and their grievances — will never perish. The war against human nature doesn’t end. (On second thought, concealed-carry laws would assure that rape is at least improbable, but feminists hate guns, the one Great Equalizer of the sexes.)

The grievance lobbies are interlinked. Queers and Allies advertises the coming of the president of La Raza, Women’s Initiative sponsors S&M seminars with Queers and Allies. But little gets done for people who have real problems. More money is spent on gaudy drag shows and the trashy Vagina Monologues than on education — the one thing that can actually improve people’s lives. The rationalizations that they make — “it raises awareness!” — are as cynical as they are transparent. I might — might! — have a modicum of respect for them if they just came out and admitted that this is a giant charade to allow them immerse themselves in identity-based subcultures. That’s no evil in itself. But please, please, let’s stop this patronizing nonsense about “social justice” being the impetus behind the recreation.

Talk to Alex Knepper at apkkib@aol.com.