In this Federalist essay, Mary Grabar discusses the latest great problem to beset our college campuses, namely microaggressions. Many schools are taking this hobgoblin very seriously, setting up all sorts of policies to heal with the students who claim to be suffering as a result of all the microaggressions they perceive, and to deal with the perps who, knowingly or not, continue to speak and act in ways that do “great harm” to “sensitive populations.”

She has a Swiftian modest proposal to solve the problem — a device (not yet invented, but let’s make it a top national priority) that would detect microaggressive thoughts and immediately administer an electric shock to the individual.

I fear that someone will actually land a federal grant for the creation of such a device. Would a bureaucrat be able to tell a hoax in the making?

Seriously, I wish someone would ask where there is any evidence that people in these “sensitive populations” actually suffer any harm from “microaggressions.” Did Thomas Sowell suffer harm when he was growing up, in an era when racial hostility was often overt and microaggressions against black people were a big part of life? Don’t most of us learn to ignore annoying comments or behavior from others? Why is that old saying about sticks and stones now tossed aside in favor of a crusade to cleanse America of every possible hurt feeling?

I think it’s because there is money to be made in all the workshops and therapy groups that will supposedly cure us of harmful thoughts.