OPINIONS

Un-ironic, Wise Old Man advice

I receive a plethora of emails every week from fellow Stanford students asking me for guidance. I try my best to listen considerately and respond with only my most thoughtful counsel, but I almost always end up giving the same suggestions. So I’ve decided to make a list of my top 10 pieces of general advice for all the confused souls out there, especially for all my fellow liberals at Stanford. Listen up, kids.

  1. Ride a motorcycle to look cool and feel alive, even though getting into fistfights with emasculated, middle-aged men at local dive bars on weekends would probably provide the same sense of thrill without the need to risk your life every time you go to buy cigs at the convenience store.
  2. Let’s be real. This is Stanford. Focus exclusively on getting rich at the expense of others and leave your sense of ethics at the door (I’m looking at you, Future Pharmas of America). You can worry about all the social and political issues that affect poor people after you join the one percent, because the best way to help other people is to worry about yourself first and foremost.
  3. Cigarettes are bad for your health, but marijuana has no negative consequences and will actually make you smarter and a harder worker. Furthermore, weed is totally non-addictive. It is purely my voluntary choice to smoke it every day and spend thousands of dollars every year on a dried herb that makes me feel good temporarily even though working hard and improving my character would prove to be an infinitely more beneficial investment of my money, time and effort.
  4. Guys: stop jelqing ASAP. It gives you nerve damage. Instead, just wait for eight-inch bionic penises to flood the market of the neo-Capitalist future. I give it 10 years, tops. Til then, just focus on obtaining as much wealth as possible in order to make yourself more attractive. Oh, and start lifting weights (this is real advice; go to the gym).
  5. Bernie Sanders is a good guy and genuinely wants to help people, which is why he is organizing an election campaign instead of a popular movement among young people that will sustain itself after Hillary Clinton inevitably becomes president. Bernie 2016!
  6. I heard Mike Brown, a 6-foot-4, 290-pound black man, stole cigars from a convenience store, assaulted the store clerk and charged at a police officer who then shot him to death in self-defense. Naturally, we should use Brown as the prime example of police brutality against black people for our racial equality movement, even though all the available evidence and reliable witness testimony validates the police officer’s account of events. (Yeah, I said it. It’s about time someone did.) Then we should arbitrarily shut down bridges and highways as though that will actually convince people to join our cause instead of just make them pissed off that they’re going to be two hours late to work. That makes sense. We are not shooting ourselves in the foot at all, and any white scum who try to persuade us to pursue a more reasonable form of protest with effective historical precedent need to check their privilege. I care about people, which is why I scream “burn everything down” and “shut this shit down” any chance I get at a Black Lives Matter rally and villainize the people whom I want to start caring about the social movement I represent.
  7. Want to get invited to the headquarters of a major tech company like Google or Facebook? No problem: Simply take a standard digital alarm clock from the 1980s, remove its internal electronic parts, throw them into a box without actually doing anything too complex or intelligent and bring your brand new invention to school.
  8. I am a proud feminist, and it is for this reason that I will be voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016, because the pointless achievement of a female president no matter her track record or the efficacy of her policies certainly outweighs actually improving the lives of women.
  9. Any liberal who criticizes the questionable tactics and generally childish behaviors of other liberals and not just those of conservatives and moderates is a threat to all that is good. We do not need to acknowledge our own faults or unreasonable beliefs, and anyone who encourages us to do so is a fascist who just doesn’t get it.
  10. Monday through Saturday I will proudly proclaim that freedom of speech is an unalienable right by which open debate in a forum of ideas can guide us to truth in the human context. But on Sunday I will say fuck that shit and call the Political Correctness Gestapo to confiscate your Confederate flags, shut down your newspaper for publishing a moderately positioned op-ed, and demand retribution for your Kanye West-themed party. I stand for liberal ideals, which is why I try to stifle the Constitutionally protected rights of others. I have no idea what cognitive dissonance is, but if I did, then I would probably deem it an incredibly bigoted notion.

And remember: never improve, stay smug and keep that stick up your ass.

 

Contact Ian Knight at isknight ‘at’ stanford.edu.

  • Ruairi AK

    Wow. I’m really surprised that this passed through the Opinions section editing process. Not even regarding the occasional grammatical errors (“any white scum…needs to check their privilege” <- any is singular, but their is plural), this column is far from what one might expect to be written by a Stanford-student columnist. While there are indeed many inconsistencies in popular liberal rhetoric (some of which you fairly pointed out), many of your selections are gross mischaracterizations or very poorly supported disagreements. This one column discusses a wide range of issues with little depth in any, and yet the satirical tone seems to suggest that you, the author, are, for some reason, above partisan absurdity and have a clearer perspective than others on controversial topics. In a modern twist of the Biblical proverb, I think you should pull the log out of your own ass before you tell others to check the sticks up theirs.

    (By the way, citing MLK to oppose Black Lives Matter protests–I've never heard that one before. http://wapo.st/1QNr0LB )

  • The guy above me is dumb

    “their” is used as singular since it’s being used for a gender-neutral term because there is no gender-neutral term in English.

    “Somebody left their hat here. Would they please go get it?”

    Dunce.

  • Ruairi AK

    That’s acceptable. However, since two of Ian’s points reference gender as a binary, it’s hard to believe.

  • CommonSense

    A+, liberal hypocrisy is rampant

  • tree_alum

    Actually, I think Ian is one of the most interesting and skilled writers for The Daily opinion section right now, and I’ve been reading the columns here for a while. The sports writers are pretty good too.

  • Ian Scott Knight

    You know what? You’re completely right. MLK would have loved to live to see Black Lives Matter protesters storm the stage of presidential candidate speeches using straight-up bully tactics even the most juvenile 8th grader would consider over the top. I’m sure he also would have loved to see his groundbreaking Selma Bridge protest be perverted beyond recognition into a nonsensical farce such as the Stanford 68 incident. It was truly a brilliant idea to arbitrarily shut down a bridge just because MLK did something similar 50 years ago in a completely different context and for different purposes. But you’re right; MLK also would have been ecstatic to see his loyal followers start shouting “burn everything down” in the face of oppression, which is why he preached non-violence (both in practice and in spirit). Also, MLK wouldn’t have been able to control his ecstasy upon learning that the completely justified killing of a black man was used as the prime example of unjust violence against black people. Furthermore, anyone who points out the preposterousness or smugness of liberal rhetoric and beliefs using the incredible hurtful tool of irony is himself/herself/[any other conceivable gender or lack thereof]-self a smug fucking bastard that should be tried before a court of 12 Reddit users, found guilty, and summarily executed.
    In summary, stop smoking weed (obviously) and start lifting weights.

  • Marcos Nguyen Lopez

    Well written…

  • unnamed

    Being this condescending is almost never effective in writing. It’s weird that you criticize BLM activists for villainizing the people who need to support them when you’re doing the exact same thing. If you want people to listen to your points and not have knee-jerk reactions to them, fix your rhetoric.

    That being said:
    -The BLM protestors in Seattle were at least effective. Sure it wasn’t “nice” but Bernie solidified his stance on social justice directly afterwards and is helping pull the rest of his party to the left.

    -Quite obviously the context was different between Selma and the Stanford 68. But MLK’s protests (not only in Selma) were significantly more disruptive to every day people than being stuck in traffic for an extra half hour. You’re misleading yourself if you think MLK wasn’t wildly hated for his activism. What’s the tipping point that justifies inconveniencing others for your protest movements? I’m not sure if the Stanford 68 protests met that criteria, but to be fair, there were plenty of peaceful, correct, non-disruptive protests in public places that didn’t garner nearly as much attention. How many people across the nation discussed current racial struggles after tens of thousands of people marched peacefully in DC for the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March? How many people even paid attention to the tens of thousands protesting in Baltimore before everyone flipped their shit when they saw footage of a CVS burning in Baltimore and used it as evidence to villify all BLM protestors? It seems as if people don’t talk about these issues unless you make a scene.

    -Maybe MLK wouldn’t be a fan of chanting “burn everything down”, which is something that such an insignificant portion of protestors chant, but there’s no way you go to Stanford without hearing MLK’s numerous quotes on being most afraid of the White moderate who “agrees” with your protests but despises your rhetoric. He was dealing with the same shit of people critiquing his rhetorical choices, telling him to calm down, use more polite words, etc.

    -The Mike Brown thing has almost no point. Even if you completely agree with the officer’s account of what happened (how bad at your job do you have to be to let someone charge you like that), is it not still fucked that he was left in the road for 4 hours with no medical attention? Is it not fucked that the description of 6’4”, 290 pound black man is supposed to be inherently scary for some reason? Is it not fucked that Darren Wilson got hundreds of thousands in donations, telling him to “keep killing the trash, shoot 50 more of them”, etc? Haven’t you noticed that BLM uses a shit ton of examples for unjust violence against Black people, like Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Walter Scott, and it’s weird that instead of being angry that there are so many examples with clear unjust video evidence that people are harping on one slightly more debatable example? Yeah, I suppose MLK would have loved noncommittal moderates harping on rhetorical choices of a movement rather than caring about the bigger picture.

    -Are you surprised that when you write a pretentious, smug op-ed, people will call you pretentious and smug? Yeah college liberals are pretentious, but so are you, so don’t write as if you’re talking down to them. The material itself borders on ridiculous enough (really, you don’t think equally as many people won’t vote for Clinton because she’s a woman) without using the same smug rhetoric you criticize your opponents of using.

    Ruairi’s criticisms are very fair and you should take them to heart if you want people to trust you as a writer.

  • Ian Scott Knight

    Yep, I’m so smug for writing satire and caring enough about these issues to provide criticism where it is due. A guy like me shouldn’t be allowed to call myself a Liberal cuz I recognize inconsistencies where they exist. Please forgive me for using facts to point out absurdities. Also, I am so sorry for the color of my skin. If a 6’4, 290-pound black man ever charges at me after trying to grab my gun then I’ll simply let him barrel into me and take me out for the Greater Good™.
    Lay off the weed, ASAP.