I see the trend in self-identification with mental illness and certain sexuality categories as a reflection of the central importance of having a meaningful identity. In generations past, individuals often had both a strong family identity and a religious identity to structure their experience, direct their actions, and provide a sense of purpose. In lieu of these things, which offer not only belonging but attendant responsibilities, many are turning to more shallow forms of identity.
A response to your 2nd to last paragraph, and claiming the identity like "high-functioning autistic" I think it is important from recognizing conditions or diseases that you may have and have to address and making it your identity. As someone with some learning disabilities and a high-functioning autistic son, I think it is very important to understand your challenges and how to compensate for them (alternative study approaches, planning extra time for certain tasks, etc.) vs saying they are an identity and and thus I or my son deserves to be seen as a special or oppressed class.
The woke quasi-religion is all about domination by the "oppressed" as justice against the "oppressors". Just like the Liberal axis of the Three Languages of Politics. Neither coercion nor barbarism are considered; it's not that they're not considered bad, they're not part of the conversation, they're beneath the radar, they're not thought about at all.
Your moral dyad, from The Mind Game, is an excellent fit - people (minds) can either be active agents, or passive victims (and essentially blameless). Thus bad behavior is excused because of victimhood, and one can choose an identity so as to be a more comfortable victim.
Inside of religion, there is a mild form of Christianity/ religions belief called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. There's a nice, loving, forgiving God who wants us to be nice to each other and be nice people. I learned about this from one of my FIT picks, Rod Dreher - who writes even more voluminously than Freddie. Rod is one of the few FI folk who who voted for Trump, while frequently being quite critical of him .
How to fight wokeism? Perhaps follow more the example of Victor Orban of Hungary, who recently won reelection in a free, fair election, with no censorship about likely bribery (unlike the US 2020).
" Orbán won overwhelmingly with a campaign and record that was conservative, nationalist, anti-immigration, pro-traditional family, and firmly against military intervention in Ukraine. There is a lesson there for the GOP, should they be inclined to learn it."
Insofar as the Left, and Democrats, are against families - they are against civilization. And they'll inevitably support a lot of coercion. But as true crybullies, their barbarous violence will be justified because they're victims AND they favor "social justice".
Social justice crybullies. Only family & nation & religion have any hope of stopping them from destroying civilization.
Re: "I had not thought to connect therapeutic culture to Woke culture, but now I see the fit. Both use the moral dyad, in which one person can have either agency or feelings, not the two together."
Does the moral dyad fit? Woke culture is activist and militant. Cancel culture -- a key component of Woke culture -- seems to involve plenty of agency; for example, taking initiative (entrepreneurship) and acting as a swarm (solving a collective-action problem). Identity culture -- another key component of Woke culture -- also seems to involve agency; witness the expression, "I identify as ... ," and deliberate choice of pronouns.
Interesting, though it seems that choosing depression (or any mental illness) as an identity is specifically experienced as an agentic act. "I am authentic to myself in being who I am." Perhaps privilege (and its power) is a better descriptor of the 'moral dyad'?
Saw a sign today with the following pearl of wisdom:
"Life is hard; it's harder when you're stupid."
We live with a culture more interested in debunking claims of the authorship of this quote than considering the merits of the statement. And that explains who we are as a people and why our modern society struggles so much to do simple things.
I strongly recommend Carl R. Trueman’s book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. It’s framework is a discussion of Philip Rieff’s idea that we live in the age of “Therapeutic Man.” But it explores the philosophical and cultural development of the modern fluid internal identity, the sexualization of identity, and politicization of sexualized identity - all foundational to our neurotic “woke” culture today.
I wonder how much the rise of social media and the merging of group institutions into huge blobs lends itself to this. In a small scale society it is easier to be distinct and different yet meaningfully in the group, whereas in a bigger group it is harder to stand out and get attention and making smaller, sub-Dunbar groups becomes more necessary to feel included. In the former case we can get sufficient attention and be interesting more easily because there is less competition in the main group, but in the latter you need something "special" to be interesting, and there is a lot of pressure to form subgroups around those things to lower competition. Claiming a mental illness that gets you attention as different and thus interesting, yet having special needs that must be respected, and creating an obvious sub group of people to ally with does seem to be a natural down stream effect.
I see the trend in self-identification with mental illness and certain sexuality categories as a reflection of the central importance of having a meaningful identity. In generations past, individuals often had both a strong family identity and a religious identity to structure their experience, direct their actions, and provide a sense of purpose. In lieu of these things, which offer not only belonging but attendant responsibilities, many are turning to more shallow forms of identity.
A response to your 2nd to last paragraph, and claiming the identity like "high-functioning autistic" I think it is important from recognizing conditions or diseases that you may have and have to address and making it your identity. As someone with some learning disabilities and a high-functioning autistic son, I think it is very important to understand your challenges and how to compensate for them (alternative study approaches, planning extra time for certain tasks, etc.) vs saying they are an identity and and thus I or my son deserves to be seen as a special or oppressed class.
The woke quasi-religion is all about domination by the "oppressed" as justice against the "oppressors". Just like the Liberal axis of the Three Languages of Politics. Neither coercion nor barbarism are considered; it's not that they're not considered bad, they're not part of the conversation, they're beneath the radar, they're not thought about at all.
Your moral dyad, from The Mind Game, is an excellent fit - people (minds) can either be active agents, or passive victims (and essentially blameless). Thus bad behavior is excused because of victimhood, and one can choose an identity so as to be a more comfortable victim.
Inside of religion, there is a mild form of Christianity/ religions belief called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. There's a nice, loving, forgiving God who wants us to be nice to each other and be nice people. I learned about this from one of my FIT picks, Rod Dreher - who writes even more voluminously than Freddie. Rod is one of the few FI folk who who voted for Trump, while frequently being quite critical of him .
How to fight wokeism? Perhaps follow more the example of Victor Orban of Hungary, who recently won reelection in a free, fair election, with no censorship about likely bribery (unlike the US 2020).
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/are-there-american-viktor-orban-jeremy-carl/
" Orbán won overwhelmingly with a campaign and record that was conservative, nationalist, anti-immigration, pro-traditional family, and firmly against military intervention in Ukraine. There is a lesson there for the GOP, should they be inclined to learn it."
Insofar as the Left, and Democrats, are against families - they are against civilization. And they'll inevitably support a lot of coercion. But as true crybullies, their barbarous violence will be justified because they're victims AND they favor "social justice".
Social justice crybullies. Only family & nation & religion have any hope of stopping them from destroying civilization.
Spot on. Every woke institution needs to hear this. What we have is literally the inmates running the asylum.
Re: "I had not thought to connect therapeutic culture to Woke culture, but now I see the fit. Both use the moral dyad, in which one person can have either agency or feelings, not the two together."
Does the moral dyad fit? Woke culture is activist and militant. Cancel culture -- a key component of Woke culture -- seems to involve plenty of agency; for example, taking initiative (entrepreneurship) and acting as a swarm (solving a collective-action problem). Identity culture -- another key component of Woke culture -- also seems to involve agency; witness the expression, "I identify as ... ," and deliberate choice of pronouns.
Interesting, though it seems that choosing depression (or any mental illness) as an identity is specifically experienced as an agentic act. "I am authentic to myself in being who I am." Perhaps privilege (and its power) is a better descriptor of the 'moral dyad'?
Saw a sign today with the following pearl of wisdom:
"Life is hard; it's harder when you're stupid."
We live with a culture more interested in debunking claims of the authorship of this quote than considering the merits of the statement. And that explains who we are as a people and why our modern society struggles so much to do simple things.
I strongly recommend Carl R. Trueman’s book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. It’s framework is a discussion of Philip Rieff’s idea that we live in the age of “Therapeutic Man.” But it explores the philosophical and cultural development of the modern fluid internal identity, the sexualization of identity, and politicization of sexualized identity - all foundational to our neurotic “woke” culture today.
https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Triumph-Modern-Self-Individualism/dp/1433556332
I wonder how much the rise of social media and the merging of group institutions into huge blobs lends itself to this. In a small scale society it is easier to be distinct and different yet meaningfully in the group, whereas in a bigger group it is harder to stand out and get attention and making smaller, sub-Dunbar groups becomes more necessary to feel included. In the former case we can get sufficient attention and be interesting more easily because there is less competition in the main group, but in the latter you need something "special" to be interesting, and there is a lot of pressure to form subgroups around those things to lower competition. Claiming a mental illness that gets you attention as different and thus interesting, yet having special needs that must be respected, and creating an obvious sub group of people to ally with does seem to be a natural down stream effect.
"Regardless of what the Florida law actually says, some people feel hurt by it."
Of course the law is aimed at preventing other people from being hurt by the ideas it is anathematizing.