Thursday, July 23, 2015

Screaming and Cheering a measure of entertainment

Passing by a kindergarten or elementary school one can observe that the children are no longer capable of talking to each other or to anyone else. Instead they make sounds more meaningless than a flock of crows or a pack of barking dogs, competing to make the loudest noise. But now this malaise has spread to university students as shown on a video of a welcome for new entrants by the students of Thammasat University; See http://www.bangkokpost.com/vdo/thailand/632560/youth-gone-wild
This is glorified idiocy. Perhaps one can excuse it on the ground that any rational and sensible exchange between students and new arrivals would be suspect. Thammasat students have a glorious history, perhaps their present day avatars are screaming in frustration at the anomaly of pursuing an education in an atmosphere of illiberal repression. A few days ago I visited a political prisoner; a student prisoner walked by but turned to greet us with a three finger salute. All hail, student, your salute was more eloquent than the screams of the mass of frenzied Thammasat neophytes.