University of Chicago Tells Incoming Students: Don't Expect Safe Spaces or Trigger Warnings

[whatthehey]

46. Probably the wrong place to ask, but this is a good opportunity so I'll risk it.

I am addicted to TTC/TMS lecture series and a while ago finished one on the revolutionary half century period in the Americas. I understand that because of the mass audience and compressed time they have to skim details and keep it simple but most of the course was quite informative with the exception of the Paraguayan revolution. The professor, Eakin of Vanderbilt, seemed either unsure about or uninterested in why Paraguay essentially chose to be an insular, poorly self-sufficient dictatorship during a global revolutionary wave that was built on the lofty cosmopolitan and egalitarian ideals of the Enlightenment. About the only reason slightly implied was that Ascuncion had a reflexive desire to oppose what Buenos Aires was doing but while that explains the rejection of a combined territory, it seems a pretty thin reason to choose a centory or so of autocratic rule when they didn't have to, even though when it comes to benign dictators Francia is probably the closest we've seen since Peisistratos.

Any quick insight you'd care to share, or references for further sources, on why they chose such a unique inedependence (for anybody not up on the subject at all, Francia was elected as a dictator) would be greatly appreciated.