Amherst professor Austin Sarat explores how the pervasive presence of war, violence, and graphic content—especially through social media—has shaped the mental health and worldview of the current generation of college students. Professor Sarat argues that educators must acknowledge these traumatic influences and develop strategies to help young people navigate a world filled with conflict, despair, and cynicism in order to cultivate resilience, critical thinking, and hope.
Cornell Law professor Joseph Margulies explains why social media is, by design, inimical to the idea of a forgiving society. He points out that, in general, we appreciate that a person makes choices not in a vacuum, but in the context of a combination of individual and societal factors, but social media eliminates this nuance and forces us to ignore what we ordinarily accept as the lesson of universal experience.
