And because being beaten or killed has never been considered something to be desired or sought after, all it took to keep people in line throughout history was merely the threat of violence. 

However, because we're somewhat more enlightened today than we used to be — most of us, anyway, I like to think — those tactics are no longer acceptable for the most part. At least not in this country. 

But there's an old saying that Nature abhors a vacuum. So do people bent on controlling other people. And so it shouldn't be surprising that two other kinds of violence have been developed by such folks to serve the same purpose. They're what I call “administrative violence” and  “social violence.” And their natural habitat is today's college or university campus. 

Let me tell you what I mean by each. 

By “administrative violence” I mean the establishment and implementation by campus authorities of speech codes, with the accused being deemed guilty of insensitivity until proven otherwise. 

And by “social violence” I mean student peer pressure manifested by excluding wayward students from all normal campus activities as punishment for exercising their right of free speech. 

The irony of it all is that these campus watchdogs seem to believe that suppressing freedom of expression in the name of sensitivity is totally consistent with the best democratic traditions of the Founding Fathers. But from what I've read, those old boys didn't seem to be the least bit concerned about each other's sensitivity all the time they were hammering out two of the finer documents ever to see the light of day — the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. 

Which brings to mind the process by which clams produce pearls. They've gotta be irritated into doing it. 

Think about it.