Whenever I left the house, I received the same pithy parental advice from my father: “Don’t be stupid.”

I know many Americans wonder whether we need to start posting these words on billboards, inserting them as pop-up ads, and (when necessary) tattooing this on teenagers—when they turn thirteen.

Sometimes the stupidity is the “are you a frigging psycho?” kind. Sometimes the stupidity is the “what in heck were you thinking?” variety. Sometimes the stupidity is the “why did you believe you could trust that person?” type. Sometimes the stupidity is the “why did you imagine you could lie yourself out of trouble?” category. Sometimes the stupidity is simply the “are you really that big of a moron?” stupenda-thon of oblivious ignorance. It is an unfortunate quirk of evolution that we are born stupid and need to learn our lessons the hard way; it has been this way since one of our distant ancestors first fell out of a tree and discovered gravity is a real bummer.

The difference between the commonplace stupidities of today and yesterday is that dimwits now insist it is the job of the government and their fellow citizens to ensure that no one giggles, guffaws, or gapes when they engage in behavior that in the not-so-distant past would have turned them into objects of public derision—and a helpful cautionary tale for all. To even shake your head at a fool or cast a little side eye, much less refuse to extend heartfelt sympathy or financial support, is today a actionable hate crime in the minds of many, which helps to explain much of our slow slide into celebrating stupidity instead of condemning its most flagrant practitioners.

The words “young” and “stupid” have, of course, always gone together like peanut butter and jelly, and a huge part of maturation has always been discovering few are as trustworthy or reliable as we might hope—nor will the fundamental differences between love and lust be as easy to discern as we might hope when we are in our teens and early twenties. Sometimes the consequences of bad choices pass rather quickly; at other times they result in a lifetime of regrets and anger. However, it might be nice if we returned to recognizing our stupidity might be our own fault, so insisting on punishing everyone in our vicinity might be both self-indulgent and deeply unfair.

And, yes, I am thinking of the so-called “Cornell 7” campus sex scandal now exploding in our public consciousness, a pitiable episode of group stupidity that points to the need for far more adult supervision and mentorship on our nation’s college campuses, whose PornHub social mores are in for a long-overdue reconciliation with reality.

Drinking and drugs have been a huge part of college life for a very long time, and to presume that young people can either judge or moderate their own behavior is a ridiculous expectation, so the willful blindness of college administrators to what is occurring every weekend (and most weekdays) at dorm room parties, sororities, and fraternities across our nation, where bacchanals that would have made an ancient Roman blush are shockingly commonplace, seems supremely irresponsible. If you want fewer bad nights that later turn into lawsuits and court cases—or years of therapy—require adult chaperones at every party, establish and enforce party time cut-offs and curfews because little good happens after midnight, and risk the wrath of parents by routinely punishing students who are engaging in underage drinking and illegal drug use. It would be nice if we could return to a more innocent time when snorting ketamine off a young woman’s body was simply not done, but ignoring the terrible reality of what is happening on so many our campuses today when adult authority is absent should no longer an option. The changes that must be made will annoy many—but save more than a few.

Why do we need to ruin the fun and frivolity of college life, you might ask? Well, just in case someone has failed to notice, chivalry is kind of dead, and an amazing number of campus cuties are only too happy to forget their panties on their way out the door. It is now the law of the jungle out there, and to ignore the prevalence of predatory behavior committed by young people who have learned their social norms from decades of the anti-social dreck that passes for entertainment in America to today (not to mention a steady diet of online porn) is an invitation to more trauma, shame, and humiliation that does not readily—or ever—heal with the passage of time.

Although there are, thankfully, exceptional young men to be found across our nation who are thoughtful and responsible, many will typically be happy to take full advantage of overly accommodating women, which hasn’t changed since Adam and Eve stumbled out of the Garden of Eden. Worse yet, many of those same yearning and often clueless women will foolishly fantasize that the immature and excitable dude on top of her will fall deeply in love immediately after depositing his sperm somewhere in (or on) her body. Add in a lot of drinking, loads of drugs, and the peculiar license for licentiousness that colleges implicitly encourage by tossing condoms like confetti the moment students step on campus and expect plenty of blame to go around when the sun comes up in the morning.

I do not wish to sound harsh or unforgiving. I was young myself once upon a time and had to learn the hard way (more than once) that being an idiot often has painful and embarrassing consequences. However, few would disagree that standards of behavior have degenerated at an alarming rate over the past half century, and colleges need to adjust to a new reality of young men and women who have been left adrift in a sea of stimulating soullessness, numbing loneliness, absent role models—and empty pain.