Watch the news on any given night, or pay attention to the political realm for any stretch of time, and you’re likely to conclude that Western civilization is descending into barbarity. The rancor that people show, the ire they feel, the outrage they claim, the affronts they take, all suggest that we as social creatures have lost any sense of propriety and respect for each other. This loss of respect is demonstrated, oddly enough, by incessant and ever-expanding demands that respect be shown in specific ways. While we might think this sad state of affairs is the result of societal regression, it’s actually the result of the great successes our society has achieved.
Consider this quote from an excellent article about microaggressions by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt:
as progress is made toward a more equal and humane society, it takes a smaller and smaller offense to trigger a high level of outrage. The goalposts shift, allowing participants to maintain a constant level of anger and constant level of perceived victimization”
I suspect the takeaway from this quote for most people is the conclusion – the assertion that smaller offenses are triggering higher levels of outrage. That’s what will draw the cynic’s or pessimist’s eye. The opening assertion, though, is key to understanding and managing the phenomenon: The reason things seem so bad is because they’ve gotten so good.
We obsess over the size of soda cups, or about how much salt fast food menu items have, or about whether our 10 year old is out of our sight for more than 15 seconds. We ask our government to regulate everything to ever-more-absurd degrees. We argue about things like “cultural appropriation,” as if a white person wearing a serape is a critical societal issue. These are the sorts of things that concern us nowadays.
People with genuine problems don’t worry about “microaggressions.” They don’t care if someone uses a word that isn’t perfectly selected, and that might be somehow, some way offensive to someone else. They don’t get upset that their giant lunch has left them too sleepy to work effectively in the afternoon. They don’t stress out over the 23 choices of deodorant they have. These are “first world” problems. Our lives are so easy, so affluent and so comfortable that we have to make up nonsense to complain about. Heaven forbid we actually enjoy and express happiness at how good we’ve got things.
A good part of this is probably the result of basic human nature. Gripers get heeded, whereas the content do not. Gripers, in order to gain attention, team up with those of a similar mindset. When the gripers are paid attention to, those who are happy and at peace find that the attention and response to others’ gripes start to infringe on that peace and happiness. Those who wish to be left alone don’t get their way, so they find that they have to gripe as well merely in order to keep things as they were. In short, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Since there are fewer things to squeak about, the squeaks become about more trivial things.
Unfortunately, the trivialities that outrage some people today and the push-back from others that this outrage produces are a real and growing threat to the success that produced them. People are increasingly saying enough in response to the microaggression movement, to the hyperventilation about ridiculously small or totally fabricated “offenses,” to the absurdities of the nanny state and to the general feeling that the basic freedom to be left alone to live your life as you wish is gone. It’s good that the perpetually aggrieved be resisted when they go too far. The excessive demands the Left has put on everyone who doesn’t willingly see, speak and do things their way gave us the Tea Party, which managed to put some good people in Congress before it lost its way.
It’s bad, however, when the counterbalance swings the pendulum too far the other way. Thus, the rise in the nativist/nationalist streak that’s driven Trump to the front of the pack for the GOP nomination to the presidency. It has produced and given traction to wrong-headed theories about trade deficits, trade protectionism and jobs nativism. It has bred resentment against traditionally aggrieved/disadvantaged groups that are now perceived (with some validity) to be receiving excessive favoritism. It has created new divisions and rekindled old ones. Rather than settling in to a comfortable place, where people can finally live with the understanding that the big injustices of the past have been dealt with, society is fracturing again. As it does so, much that has been achieved is slowly being lost, and bitter tribalism is displacing peaceful harmony.
This may be the undoable natural order of things. It’s been observed that humanity’s technological and societal evolution has far outpaced its biological evolution. The DNA-encoded behavioral tendencies that evolved into us over tens of thousands of years of tribal existence are still there, and they don’t work quite so well in a time where our survival and opportunity to procreate is far, FAR more certain than ever. We don’t need tribal instincts to live happy, comfortable and prosperous lives in our modern society, but we can’t simply wish them out of our DNA. So, we’re stuck with them, and those of us who prefer to ignore them find ourselves put upon by those who embrace them. Tribalism on the Left spawned tribalism on the Right, and those stuck in the middle are forced into the fray.
What’s the answer? Thomas Jefferson (apocryphally) noted:
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
He was right then, and is right today. Much as we would simply like to live our lives in peace, unbothered by others, it’s simply not an option. Until biological evolution catches up, until the tribalistic and divisive tendencies that cause so many to demand others conform to their way dilute out of the gene pool, there’s no chance we’ll achieve a society that’s without deliberate division and agitation. No matter how good things get.
Loading ...
Active Comment Threads
Most Commented Posts
Universal Background Checks – A Back Door to Universal Registration
COVID Mask Follies
When Everything Is Illegal…
An Anti-Vax Inflection Point?
“Not In My Name”
The Great Social Media Crackup
War Comes Through The Overton Window
The First Rule of Italian Driving
Most Active Commenters