Saturday, April 11, 2009

It's Fun to be Aggrieved

The layers of hostile ignorance on display in this training video put out by Penn State University's Counseling and Psychological Services office are beyond my patience to dig through. This is also a must-see for anyone who doesn't believe it's seriously unhealthy that significant portions of our society are completely insulated from contact with military servicemembers.



James Taranto fleshes out the complete absurdity of the vignette. Here's the crux: a veteran student believes he's being treated unfairly because of his service. The narrative of the video tries to present this as completely unreasonable for him to believe, and yet here's the opening dialogue between his professor and her supervisor:
Instructor: Actually, I kinda wanted to talk to you about something else? Um, I'm still having problems with that student I mentioned.

Chairman: The Veteran.

Instructor: Yeah.
There are so many more angles to look at this, but I just get too depressed or angry thinking about it. It's probably my PTSD making me unpredictable and vaguely threatening.

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