Are you kidding me?
Many of you may have heard of the "Tunnel of Oppression" exhibit that has become so popular on college campuses (or is that campi) over the past 10 years or so. But as Michael Medved revisits the issue of academia's most PC thrill ride, i thought I'd join in with my two cents.
The desire of most freedom loving Americans to liberate the nation of bias and bigotry has become hopeleesly confused with the notion that we should be required to tolerate the intolerable and forced to embrace any and all behaviors as if they were all equal and equally acceptable.
Yet another example of the push to completely remove moral judgement from society can be seen in the emergence of the "Tunnel of Oppression". At first glance, the tunnel, an interactive experience designed to create an emotional atmosphere in which student participants can feel the pain and frustration of discrimination, seems like a reasonably forward-thinking idea. It's goals are not intellectually based nor are they aimed at promoting discourse but they are designed to stir the feelings of attendents so that they profoundly feel the cause of the girl who suffers from having to endure an illegal backroom abortion or the pain of a young man who is harrassed for choosing a gay lifestyle.
In addition to promoting a distinctly liberal morality by victimizing abortion participants and homosexuals, the tunnel goes even further in pushing it's agenda. Driven by a desire to create hate-crimes legislation, the program relies on stirring the feelings of 18-24 years old youths. It is precisely the emotion focused individual who carries out "hate-crimes". Wouldn't it be infinitely better to take aim at the minds of these college kids and change the paradigm within which they THINK. Change is a choice that is made consciously when reason compels us to move in a different direction. To push the emotional buttons of tunnel viewers only serves to shift the strong emotions from one target to another. Now, instead of hate for the discriminated, they are filled with rage against any perceived bias - real or otherwise.
It appears that the emotion driven activity is designed to compel acceptance of everything. You can erase insitutional discrimination without denying moral judgement. You can love the sinner and hate the sin. However, it appears as though The Tunnel would remove those distinctions and completely eradicate morality from the mindset.
Heaven help us if we are not bound by our own inhibitions and if we find nothing objectionable except objection.
A scene from one "tunnel"
Bringing top light the oppression of the
