View original postThough in fairness, part of that may be because America places (placed?) the limits on freedom of speech further to begin with. In here, Holocaust denial is an actual crime, and racism can be as well under certain circumstances. Homophobia is heavily frowned upon and religion isn't an accepted excuse; though on the other hand, I see much less debate about transgenderism, non-binary gender identities and so on. It would be a mistake to think Western Europe is always more liberal or more progressive on all issues than the US. It's usually less polarized though, because there is more of a consensus on many topics, with the people whose views radically differ from the consensus too small in number to have much of an impact. Abortion is a typical example - very little controversy about it by American standards, but the laws in most countries are more restrictive than in the US, being based on negotiated compromises rather than Roe v. Wade.

View original postAnother big difference is that America's political system is highly conducive to polarization into two camps, whereas most continental European countries have political landscapes with a larger number of viable parties. You still have radicalization, people railing against PC oppression, or people ranting that everyone who dares to question their socialist utopias is a fascist, but it's a bit more complex and different groups or parties may be allies on one front, opponents on another.

View original postBut anyway - admittedly I left college some years ago already and things do change quickly, but I don't think I'm that far out of touch. And I wouldn't even know what the Dutch word or equivalent is for concepts like 'safe spaces', 'microaggression', 'millennial snowflake' and the like. They aren't really things that people here talk about - not the college students themselves, and not the outsiders criticizing them. Which anyway doesn't really happen; the opinions or behaviour of college students isn't really a topic of public controversy here.