Stanford Student Reads Famous Book, Other Students Freak Out
Read to the end for a note about the Daily Mail article about me.
Hello cats and kittens!
In 2008, the New York Times published an article headlined “It’s Not You, It’s Your Books” about a hot new trend among its readers: breaking up with someone because of the books they read. This was the era of Dan Brown and the story, written somewhat tongue in cheek, is mostly about snooty intellectual snobs sharing their personal struggle over discovering their romantic partner enjoyed the DaVinci Code.
The entire premise was ridiculous not just because the subjects of the story just come off like the most unlikable people on Earth, but because no one actually breaks up with someone for something like that. It might annoy them. They might even think it’s why they broke up with someone. But they’re wrong. They were looking for a reason to get out of that relationship and the book was the excuse that came along. If you’re in a healthy relationship with someone you’re really nuts about, you’re going to brush off them reading anything short of kiddie porn. The same goes for the music they listen to or the movies they like or any other pop cultural preference.
I say this as someone who for the last 15 years has been doing an unscientific study, which has included me asking the hypothetical question to people. “You meet someone, you fall for someone, you go back to their apartment and sleep with them, you wake in the morning with a giddy smile on your face matched by one on theirs, they kiss you, they get out of bed, they go take a shower. You put on your pants and spend a few minutes aimlessly looking at their apartment; the art on their walls, the famed photos on their dresser, the books on their shelves. What book could you possibly in that moment that would make you change your opinion of them entirely and blow them off when they try to see you again?”
Virtually everyone says the same thing: “nothing.”
But that’s not a fun answer so I always prompt them with suggestions. They always find a reason to give this hypo ethical lover the benefit of the doubt.
“What about How To Make A Bomb?”
“Maybe they’re an engineer! I’d probably politely find a way to ask them about it.”
“What about the Unabomber Manifesto?”
“Maybe they’re just a student of history.”
And then I pull out the big gun.
“What about Mein Kampf?”
Every single person has said some variation of, “A lot of people read that. It’s a really famous book. Maybe it’s for research or they are just interested in WW2. Everyone finds Nazis fascinating. As long as their weren’t hearts drawn on Hitler’s face I probably wouldn’t even ask them about it.”
I’m Jewish. I was on the Upper West Side when I read that NYT article. I know a lot of Jews. Jews are heavily represented in the survey sample. However, I am not a college student in 2023. And I don’t know any college students in 2023. And perhaps in 2023 college students are less generous about Mein Kampf consumption.
According to the Standford Daily, a student in one of the residential halls was reading a copy of Mein Kampf. They were then photographed and that photo was uploaded to Snapchat. Then someone who received the photo on Snapchat took a screenshot and shared it with a broader group of students. Some number of students were offended by this photo and at least one of them submitted a formal complaint through the university’s Protected Identity Harm reporting system. That system is, well, exactly what it sounds like. A complaint line for people who feel like they were harmed because of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, etc.
The university has not actually acted on this complaint yet, but the Office of Student Affairs typically pressures the offender and the offendee to have some DEI therapy sessions together.
“We hope to provide a path to resolution for the affected individuals or communities who need to heal” by having the students participate in one of a “menu” of exercises like “mediated conversations, restorative justice sessions, or Indigenous circle practices,” to “help move towards resolution.”
From my reading of the school website, it sounds like the worst thing that could happen here is that the person who read the book could be strongly advised to do some nonsense struggle session. And since it hasn’t been acted on yet, maybe that won’t even happen. No one’s lives are at stake here.
BUT:
This is profoundly stupid.
(If you’re interested in how programs like Stanford’s PIH can incentivize frivolous nonsense like this, FIRE has you covered. But I want to stick with this specific incident for a minute.)
The facts of the case so far are directly from the Stanford Daily student newspaper and let’s just assume they’re true. The story does not include the photo. That editorial choice could be for good reasons, like to protect the Mein Kampf reader’s identity, or for bad reasons, like to protect the newspaper reader's delicate eyes from such an offensive image. But the story does say that the paper did obtain a copy of the photo so let’s also assume that the student journalists haven’t left out some key element that would make this worse than it sounds, like the student was not just reading Mein Kampf, but reading it aloud at the top of their lungs outside of a Temple while dressed like a member of the SS.
Like so many people I have posed the hypothetical question to have pointed out over the years, reading Mein Kampf does not necessarily make you a Nazi. You might be studying it. Indeed, commonly assigned in classes. All of this is happening on a college campus of course so it’s not impossible to imagine that’s what happened.
Even if that isn’t true and this person actually is reading Mein Kampf because they are a Nazi and they want to be reminded of what they don’t like about Jews, Nazis are also allowed to read books. You know who thought people weren’t allowed to read books? Nazis.
If you’re offended by someone reading Mein Kampf in public, you need to see a psychologist. One of the reasons why is just for yourself: one of the famously common images on book covers is the swastika. Publishers have learned over the years that lots of people who aren’t Nazis, do harbor a fascination with them and WWII and the Third Reich and they famously find reasons to put swastikas on book jackets because it catches your eye in Barnes & Noble. If you’re offended by a book someone appears to be reading, you’re going to die young from an aneurysm. Central Park is lousy with people reading books that Nazis might read!
I’m going to give you some further alleged details about this incident which are not from real reporters and so I don’t think you should take them as necessarily true. Now that I have made that warning, I pass on some second-hand social media gossip (that might be bullshit).
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