It’s on the internet, in particular, that the beliefs of others are policed, their heresies loudly punished. It occurred to me that this might be the next irresistible step on the road we’ve taken: if we are all gods, then our feelings are sacred, and if our feelings are sacred, the people who hurt them must be sinners. It felt as if, at the heart of all this, there was something inherently narcissistic – that our perspective is so precious we feel justified in silencing or punishing those who don’t share it.

One remarkable feature of this new discord is the language students are using to denote injury. They speak of challenges to their points of view as acts of ‘violence’ or ‘abuse’ which leave them ‘unsafe’ and ‘traumatised’. It’s as if their inner self, their ‘soul’, is so precious as to be sacrosanct.

Also notable is the me-focused direction of much of their political activity. Whereas older generations protested in empathy with distant peoples – in apartheid South Africa, in Vietnam, in Biafra and in solidarity with those in Latin America or the Caribbean who were suffering as a result of US foreign policy – today’s privileged, angry students seem far more preoccupied with changing the world for themselves and those near them.