When my grandson first joined a
soccer team some years ago, he was the worst player on the field; he had never
played the game, didn’t know the rules, and had no clue which goal was
his. Yet, at the end of a losing season
he still got a “participation” trophy.
His generation is now the one that doesn’t understand that losing is
part of life.
At universities
across the country, coddled students traumatized by the realities of life
wallow in self-absorbed pity at the dire prospects of a Trump presidency. They seek shelter in the safe spaces of
academia, in the comforting arms of professors as detached from reality as they
are.
Fr. George Rutler, pastor of St.
Michael’s Church in Manhattan mockingly says it best: “In universities across
the land…these “safe spaces” [are] supplied with soft cushions, hot chocolate,
coloring books, and attendant psychologists… [and] friendly kittens and puppies
for weeping students to cuddle...What will the frightened half-adults do when
they leave their safe spaces and enter a society where there is no one to offer
them hot chocolate during their tantrums?”
Fr. Rutler points out that among
many youthful historical figures, Alexander Hamilton was a fighting
lieutenant-colonel at the age of 21, Joan of Arc a heroine at 19, and Don Juan
of Austria only 24 when he halted the advance of the Ottomans in the battle of
Lepanto. There is no record of their
moral maturity having been molded (or delayed) by the intellectual pretenders
of their day. And no record of their ever having received a participation
trophy.
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