Any serious analysis of the radicalization of young white unmarried women must begin with the empirical record. The shift described in the opening section is not anecdotal, impressionistic, or confined to activist subcultures. It is:
visible across multiple large-scale datasets (for example here and here)
appears in several Western countries simultaneously, (and here)
emerges on a compressed historical timeline beginning in the early 2010s.
What makes this shift distinctive is not merely its direction, but its demographic concentration, speed, and ideological intensity.
…Parallel to this ideological shift are equally striking changes in psychological self-reports. Since the early 2010s, young women report dramatic increases in:
anxiety,
loneliness,
feelings of fragility, and
perceived threat from the social environment.
Why now? Part of the answer:
The collapse of stabilizing institutions in early adulthood, especially marriage, motherhood, and religious worship, has removed sources of meaning, constraint, and emotional regulation that historically anchored young women during this life stage.
The key is to try to make the system work better for the asset-poor majority and create more wealth to distribute. By contrast, even in our supposedly populist age, the predominant conservative response to capitalism’s crises is to offer free-market bromides.
Kotkin strongly believes that economic inequality is rising and that this phenomenon is destabilizing. I think that what is destabilizing is a widespread sense of loss of status. While economic well-being can be positive-sum, status is zero-sum. If redistribution of wealth would also serve to redistribute status, then this would promote social stability. But I am not sure that perceived loss of status is can be addressed that way.
Richard A. I. Bethlehem and others write
This prosocial view of OXT [oxytocin] has been challenged by findings showing that the effects of OXT are strongly context-dependent (Bartz et al., 2011; Bos et al., 2012). For example, OXT has also been shown to increase envy and gloating (Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009), defensiveness toward out-group members (De Dreu et al., 2010, 2011) and increased in-group conformity (Stallen et al., 2012). Although this ethnocentrism might be considered prosocial within one's own group, defensiveness toward an out-group is not, and extreme ethnocentrism often leads to nationalism or even racism.
Pointer from Gurwinder Bhopal, who has many observations, including
On social media, we’re simultaneously talking to our boss, our ex, our grandma, and a jihadist in Michigan. The result is that many people lobotomize their personalities into a safe and bland PR sludge that tries to please everyone and so pleases no one. Being sincere means being misunderstood, but it’s also how you find your people.
I say that the problem with social media is that our friends try to act like celebrities and celebrities try to act like our friends. The remote world and the intimate world.
Razib Khan lectures on sex differences from an evolutionary perspective. This is self-recommending by Tyler Cowen’s definition (a project from a reliably interesting person).
substacks referenced above: @
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Re Kotkin’s plea to re-establish the New Deal:
This is a lot like a demand to re-establish medieval manorialism; pointing to a temporarily stable equilibrium from a long time ago as an ideal and then demanding that the world rearrange itself according to the magic words as if one were Merlin reassembling menhirs into Stonehenge.
The New Deal created an equilibrium from the 40s through the late 60s because it was burning through advantageous fuel: the wars, the lack of development in Asia, the destruction in Europe, and the youthful demographic bulge. This made up for its structural inefficiencies. Saying the magic words changes nothing; it’s just chanting.
I do think what you are saying about status and dignity makes more sense. The FDR era bias against transfer payments and in favor of work should be revisited even if it is either make work or military related. Our current system effectively denigrates working people by making transfer payments so accessible and lucrative.
"Kotkin strongly believes that economic inequality is rising and that this phenomenon is destabilizing. I think that what is destabilizing is a widespread sense of loss of status."
I'm not sure what "sense of loss of status" means. I am sure what is destabilizing: The government taking control of more and more of our lives. When people's first reaction to any problem, no matter how picayune, is to look to government for the fix, that's demoralizing. It engenders a sense of individual helplessness, of dependency, of uselessness, of just being a cog in the machine and having no agency, no responsibility, no control. May as well be a draft horse for all the independence you have.
Been a long time since I was a teenager, but I do remember wishing parents and society would stop telling me what to do. I may not have always made the most efficient use of my life, but the best times were when I made my own choices. I can't imagine growing up today and letting all the wokies and TDS victims and climate scaredy-cats dictate my actions and censor my thoughts.