On Sunday, October 27, 2019, 10:07:24 AM PDT, Peter Fairbrother
   <peter@tsto.co.uk> wrote:

   >Ho hum.  Or perhaps Hokum.
   >No, Oxford University didn't ban clapping. Or anything else.
   >If you read your own quote, the student union (not the University
   authorities) voted to "encourage the use of silent clapping". At
   student
   union events only, not at University meetings, lectures etc.
   >That's it. They didn't ban non-silent clapping (which they couldn't
   have
   done anyway).
   >I agree it is a little nutso, but let's not blame a
   somehow-authoritarian "University" for something some bored
   wanna-be-radical students set up for the first week of the year (when
   lots of the starry-eyed brand new students go to their first and only
   SU
   meeting and vote for almost anything to show solidarity with their new
   colleagues).
   Maybe these kids need to be reminded that being convinced to blindly
   follow a leader to solve a non-existent problem, and inventing
   "enemies" in the process, and eventually victimizing innocent people is
   a long-established practice of Communism, Socialism, National
   Socialism, and other Totalitarian and Authoritarian regimes.
   Clapping is not a problem.  (Find any reference between, say, 1900 and
   2010 that says clapping is a problem.)
   Those who clap are not enemies.
   And eventually punishing people who clap will follow.
           Jim Bell