Freddy deBoer: "Resilience: Another Thing We Can't Talk About"

Freddy deBoer just comes across as a likeable, thoughtful guy in everything I read by him. I think he's usually about 2/3 right and 1/3 wrong. And this is no exception. I haven't finished the Haight piece, and probably won't finish it this morning, so I'll just write this now, despite the fact that I'm foggy as hell and only read it once...brilliant decision... I don't see a lot of difference between the core of deBoer's and Haight's views. It seems--though, as a colleague of mine has pointed out, we need to see some numbers--that there is a kind of emotional crisis among young people. Or at least a notable problem. I agree with deBoer that that's a problem in itself, independently of any further, speculative effects about its effects on the nation and the economy. Contra deBoer, I do think that the shrillest and most politically-loaded reaches of this phenomenon does manifest itself as snowflakes--excessively, performatively fragile young people who exaggerate their victimhood and shriek about being in danger on university campuses when they hear that someone, somewhere, might be saying something at odds with the craziest views of the left. "YOU'RE KILLING US" is something one reads of them saying--a lot... Also contra deBoer: this is not about--or not merely about--dismissing (some legitimate) claims of discrimination. 

   Example/sidebar/interlude: 

   My university was caught on video straightforwardly indoctrinating student employees with identity politics bullshit. Straight-up just telling them that whites, men, Christians and a long list of other kinds of people--including thin people, believe it or not--are inherently oppressors, and the compliment groups are oppressed. They were not being told about this as one controversial view among others--just to be clear. The video was outed and posted on Fox news, and the administration announced a "temporary pause" in such "training" (which is what the left calls its indoctrination/reeducation sessions). The reaction to the video by most faculty was:  crickets. The reaction to the "temporary pause" was mass hysteria. Hundreds of faculty, students and administrators signed a (poorly-written) petition--composed almost entirely of fallacious arguments--insisting that there be no pause whatsoever. Even a brief suspension of indoctrination, you see, was "dangerous." It was a threat to the safety of students. Students were afraid. The employees caught indoctrinating students were sad because they couldn't "do their jobs"--suggesting that indoctrination is their job, of course... They, too, were afraid, we were told--of getting fired. (As if one oughtn't fear for one's job if one is caught misusing one's position...) Now...this is exactly the kind of thing that we know is going on at universities. And everything about it is bad. Straight-up, lunatic, leftist IdP indoctrination, and then hysterical wailing about fear and danger when challenged. If you so much as question our indoctrination--much less pause it for a week or two in order to review it--YOU'RE KILLING US!!!!!11111...

   The progressive left has many evil tricks in its bag. One of them is creating a class of shrieking babies willing to weep and shriek and quake and just generally break down at any criticism of or resistance to the rapid reengineering of society in accordance with leftist fantasies. On the gender ideology side, this takes a particularly insidious form: let us undergo sexual mutilation or we'll kill ourselves. Fail to misuse pronouns upon request: we'll kill ourselves. So much as articulate traditional ideas of sex, womanhood, etc.--believed by all people at all times and 99% of the Earth's population right now--we'll kill ourselves. Do as I say or the snowflake gets it...

   As is so often the case with the progressive left, this is partially a natural consequence of their insane views, and partially a tactical ploy. I have no doubt that there are plenty of students on campus who have been so brainwashed that they are willing to say exactly the things their leftist professors want them to say--so they can put it in their petitions. And ideas matter. No one doubts that there is learned helplessness. And that's, to some extent, what this is. There's also learned fear. There's also political performance. This is mostly just all those things combined. The reality of the phenomenon is basically beyond doubt--though, of course, we can't be sure about its precise prevalence.

   There is, indeed, a culture of victimhood. Naturally neurotic and emotionally weak people are being rewarded for becoming openly and ostentatiously more neurotic and weak. If you think this can't happen, you haven't paid much attention to human beings.

   Add to this, of course, that these students are being taught that humanity is going to go extinct from climate change--and that they themselves perhaps shouldn't have children, lest those children die horrible, burny deaths--that their country and all its institutions are literally made of racism (ditto their universities), that police are mass-murdering blacks in the streets, and that they, themselves, if they are black, might be killed merely for "driving while black" on the way to the store, that there is a "rape culture," especially on campuses, in which 1 in 4 women is sexually victimized, that COVID may kill them at any time... 

   Well, again: who will be surprised if these kids ARE in psychological crisis?

   They're being fed lies that would make anyone a little crazy, and then their fear and unhingedness are being leveraged for political gain.