Does dignity still matter? In recent years, new rivals to dignity culture have emerged, and whether it is in our politics or at our universities, victimhood and incivility often seem to prevail. Dignity is not dead, though, and it can provide an alternative to recent moral trends—one that might lead to greater happiness, civility, and justice.

Bradley Campbell is a professor of sociology at California State University, Los Angeles. He is broadly interested in the study of moral conflict—clashes of right and wrong—and had written mostly about law, violence, and genocide until he began more recently to examine the conflicts on college campuses over microaggressions, safe spaces, trigger warnings, and free speech, which he will address in this lecture. He is the author of The Geometry of Genocide: A Study in Pure Sociology and coauthor (with Jason Manning of West Virginia University) of The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars.