Are we “Raised in Captivity”? Pt. 1
In this series, we’re reviewing short stories found in Chuck Klosterman’s book “Raised in Captivity”. The book originally intrigued me, as it crosses the boundaries of reality and fantasy within most of its stories. By crossing this border, Chuck is able to formulate interesting and sometimes absurd ideas or concepts. The criteria through which the ones reviewed were chosen is simple: the stories had to provoke some interesting thought in me. Each entry will cover one of the stories, sorted by the sequence they appear in the book.
Toxic Actuality
The first story is about two professors strolling through a campus. The first professor is complaining about an incident with a student, that stormed out of the classroom because he thought the professor created an “unsafe environment” by talking about racism. The conversation quickly moves from the specific case towards a more general concern about universities today allowing students to live in a “false reality”, making them unprepared for life. Life being a place where students will have to confront ideas that contradict their worldviews or where their boss is going to “eviscerate” them. The second professor argues though, that the “false reality” is actually going to be the “real world” for these students. They will never have to deal with the world that the first professor wants to prepare them for. The story ends with the following sentences: First professor: “I’m just supposed to let some kid accuse me of things that aren’t true, because he gets to decide what’s real because he’s young and I’m not. Is that how it works now?”. Second Professor: “Yes. That’s how it works now, and that’s how it has always worked. You need to get over this.”
To be honest, I have shared the same viewpoint as the first professor. He wants to prepare the students for the reality he experiences by challenging them in the way he seems right. He wants to prepare the students for what they will face in reality, even if that means upsetting them in the short term. But the point of the second professor is engaging and I have never thought about it in that way. What happens, if you create your own world and never have to leave it? What happens if the dream castle/bubble you build, is actually a viable existence to spend your whole life in? For some individuals, this “false reality” is the reality they can spend their whole life in.
This reminds me a bit of Rob Henderson’s “luxury belief” concept where certain "beliefs” people are held by affluent people as a sign of their wealth. It is a sign of wealth because the affluent will never have to experience the full consequences of their beliefs and the less affluent, who are adopting the same beliefs are worse off for holding those. The students in the story fall into the affluent category.
I still think that the “real world” is out there. The “real world” is unforgiving and the students would be underprepared to face it. But just because this “real” world exists, doesn’t mean the students will need to face it. Similar to how a lion exists in the world, but we are generally protected from the consequences of ever facing one.
There is enough wealth in the western civilizations to allow whole existences to exist in a bubble. Highly educated westerners are seldomly forced to get exposed to the harsher sides of the world. They are able to stay within their bubble forever.