Best of the Web Today: Harvard to Be Humble - WSJ.com: ""The wonks in training at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government will soon be subjected to a new and touchy-feely line of inquiry: Checking Your Privilege 101," reports Kat Stoeffel of New York magazine. "In response to growing demand from student activists, administrators committed Friday to adding a class in power and privilege to its orientation program for incoming first-year students."
The ideological basis of the new course is familiar: "Privilege," Stoeffel explains, is "a catchall term for the perks an individual enjoys in society because of his race, gender, or class." The idea is "enjoying something of a moment, thanks to social-justice bloggers and their critics." One such critic is Princeton undergraduate Tal Fortgang, who last month wrote in a much-discussed op-ed for the Princeton Tory that telling someone to "check your privilege" is a fallacious argumentum ad hominem.
If you think there's something dissonant about elite institutions advertising their discomfort with "privilege," you're certainly not alone. But if you look a little deeper, it makes sense."
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