The Primacy of Subjectivity
Individualism to the Point of Insanity
We’re the first human culture to emphasize personal feelings and experiences to this extent… and it’s not going well.
As I look around at so many trends (extremist critical theory & social justice rhetoric, bad therapy, the ascendancy of identity politics, political hysteria, the drive for representation and ‘being seen’, worthless social “science”, the pathologies of social media, gender ideology), I see a culture which has become comfortable and disconnected enough to indulge the whims and sentiments of the individual to an unprecedented extent. Could it be that all of these ills have a common cause?
Cultural Context
We tend to treat our culture, our values, our outlook as the objective grounding. It pays to keep in mind that our culture is actually a radical outlier, branching off from practices and ideas which have served humanity for thousands of years. Our disconnection from the biological and cultural constraints of the past have made us deeply pathological in many ways.
Look at the ‘Stoned Ape’, or the bicameral mentality, hypotheses. Consciousness remains a black box, fundamentally mysterious to us. It’s probably our greatest unsolved scientific problem. The ‘bicameral mind’ idea speculates that humans (possibly into the classical Hellenic period) didn’t attribute their interior dialogue and their emotions and impulses to their own minds. They invented religious explanations for these phenomena, attributing their sentiments and ideas to gods or divine messengers or spirits. The author of this idea claims that there are indications in literature and culture from the classical period onward that bolster this hypothesis. I don’t think that’s likely to be correct, but it is a useful reminder: consciousness is probably universal among human cultures, but the way we contextualize our feelings and thoughts vary across place and time. Those variations interact with our understandings of the world and epistemologies and systems of ethics. Your identity, your role in society, the purpose of your life, your values-none of these are based on some deep “inner truth”. They’re all social constructions and, unlike gender, they have a cultural substrate rather than a biological one. They are based on the things you’ve encountered and been taught by the larger society, interacting with your own personality.
The dawn of the modern world is often linked to an increasing emphasis on subjectivity. For the first time books and stories began to focus on the feelings and perspectives of the characters. This was a fairly novel and interesting development in human culture. Our economic and political system and our culture has continuously centered the feelings and values and priorities of the individual. Representative democracy, feminism, anti-slavery, psychology-all grew out of our belief that the individual has value and that value begins with their outlook, their subjectivity, their soul. Technologies and the growing luxuries of our economy have allowed us to mostly live in our own homes, with few others, and drives our own cars, and design our own lives. It’s possible that this was taking a psychological toll even in the 1950’s… but now?
It’s quite possible that that emphasis has swelled to a pathological degree. The idea that ‘trans inclusion’ or ‘female empowerment’ or ‘subjectivism’ could become pathological is anathema to the Left… but the only alternative to admitting this possibility is to claim that there’s never a point at which these ideas can become dangerous or unbalanced. That’s obviously ludicrous. Society depends on balance, and the empowerment of women (for example) will become pathological when it starts to interfere with the rights of others or badly damage social cohesion or birth rates or mental health.
Subjectivity will have become pathological when the subjective viewpoints of individuals begin to interfere with one another, generating conflict and confusion and making the social contexts (the media, the family, the workplace) less functional. This will have widespread and obvious effects for the mental health and relationships of the people living in that society.
Derangement of Lonely Minds
I’m writing this after watching the post-election breakdowns on social media. Social media is not reality… but it can be a window into certain cultural shifts. For example: it’s indicative of the growing trend (I believe) of female entitlement-a condition where women are encouraged to see themselves as both aggrieved and empowered, to a dysfunctional degree. It has been a frightening window into the growth and spread of gender ideology, a kind of gnostic and mystical denial of the world and biology (for which I highly recommend
or ’s Substacks). These changes are (fairly) gradual. They happen faster than cultural changes used to but the timescales still involve years, and so we should look at the marginal cases and ask ourselves: are these people simply crazy? Or are they indicative of a larger social trend? Are they unhappy canaries in the coalmine of cultural evolution?
After the election I saw many people crushed, confused, angry. There was little discussion of policies. Instead the content was all about emotion. Sure, they tied their feelings (fear, invalidation, indignation) to the real world, but the connection was tenuous and incredible. Trump’s election doesn’t change the rights of women, in any real way. Trump’s election doesn’t diminish the safety of trans people. These are constructions which are all feeling: they feel an emotion and they create a (ridiculous pretext) for the feeling.
I longed to ask them: what if you’re wrong? Your feelings aren’t useful guides to reality. In these cases they’re downright pathological. There are people in our country who want to penalize co-workers and leave spouses and spurn family members… because of their opinions. This must be subjectivity run riot, surely?
For a long time I’ve been concerned about the failure of psychology as a science and therapy as a praxis. It seems to largely ignore the element of character and moral wisdom, leaving it bereft of a central goal. What’s the purpose of life? To make oneself happy. How does one become happy? Do what one wants to do. So the purpose of life is to do what you want to do, as often and easily as possible.
This is obviously a deeply flawed conception of human existence. We are social animals, who derive our purpose and satisfaction chiefly from those around us. Our goals can never be concerned primarily with our own feelings and ideas. This kind of approach will leave us incomplete, bereft, unhappy. The idea that you can find happiness through dates and vacations and career is simply wrong. Happiness doesn’t exist to make us happy. It exists to make sure we conform with society (which is why so much of our happiness is based in the feelings and reactions and company of other people) and to keep us changing and growing and addressing the challenges of reality. Happiness is a (temporary) reward for a job well done, but treating it as the end goal is as ludicrous as treating nutrition as an end goal. Nutrition exists to sustain our bodies. Treating nutrition as the point of existence will lead to a gluttonous and bizarrely unbalanced life. Treating happiness as the point of existence will cause a slow turn toward narcissism and alienation. If anyone can block out everyone who questions or disagrees with them then everyone has the license and power of the megalomaniac. Megalomaniacs are rarely happy though. By fleeing from dissent and challenge and discomfort we ironically end up more miserable than ever. Believe me.
Anti-CBP
and others have correctly called ‘wokeness’ (social justice ideology or applied critical theory) a kind of ‘anti-CBP’. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBP) is a way of training your mind and managing your emotions by grounding your reactions in reality and not overreacting to stimuli and emotions (managing self-talk, developing coping mechanisms, etc.).I worry that there are a number of malign actors trying to reduce the capability of people to question ideas or ‘reality test’ or manage emotions, because having an emotionally reactive and intolerant group of citizens will make their manipulations easier.
Months ago, I wrote:
If you only teach children (and then adolescents, and then adults) a certain view of the world and don’t fairly teach them the objections to the worldview, or critical thinking, you will have a large group of enthusiastic followers… but they will lack epistemological rigor and will not be able to effectively counter arguments that they encounter. This will rarely lead to their apostasy (instead they will replace logic and evidence with strong emotions and ad hominem attacks on their opponents) but it will mean they are less capable at persuading others, especially those outstanding minds who are significantly smarter than the average, or people with broad life experience, or people who really know how to think. You will have, effectively, created an intellectual caste system, in which the dull and the midwits will accept the orthodoxy, and most of the courageous and the brilliant will not. The lower castes will react to their betters with rage and disgust, comforted by their numbers and the institutions they control.
Earlier this year I wrote:
I like the tools of the digital age which allow us to research ideas and post essays and share our work with thousands of readers instantly, and to converse with people all around the world about grave subjects. I don’t like the fact that many (most?) opinionated people seem to identify with their opinions and judge the goodness and intelligence of others based on their opinions (rather than on their goodness or intelligence). Most people seem to realize that tribalism and division are becoming increasingly problematic… and then they antagonize, and divide, and cling to their tribe as soon as they open an app.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a rare animal in psychology: it has demonstrated efficacy and doesn’t rely on some bizarre and speculative theoretical framework for its methodology. It also pushes patients to abandon subjectivity (what they’re thinking and feeling) and instead get in the habit of ‘reality testing’ and challenging their impulses and impressions. CBT recognizes that being mired in and obsessed with self is actually the surest path to misery and neuroticism. We are seeing that today as an entire generation is constantly pushed to photograph and record and categorize and compare and express themselves… on a tiny electric box, which disgorges algorithmically calculated material to hack their prejudices and insecurities in order to draw them farther into this shallow and malign digital world. In many ways the lessons floating around our culture today (if you feel something it’s true for you, people who disagree with you are suborning violence, labels are important and should be assumed and displayed, feelings and negative emotions are real and should dictate your actions and activities, suffering and anxiety and struggle should be avoided…) are the anti-CBT worldview.
Really stop and think for a moment: the celebration of victimhood; the idea that everyone has their own ‘truth’; the drive for ‘representation’ (as if seeing a character who reflects your identity will instantly make that character more appealing, or vice versa); the advertising of racism hoaxes and the celebration of indignation or offense; the metastisization of the concept of ‘gender identity’ and its malign suffusion throughout the culture and onto the screens of millions of unhappy teenagers; the intolerance for discomfort or debate. All of it is symptomatic of a growing reliance on personally subjective experiences and impressions. Every one of these developments represent a placement of subjective feelings above the evidence of your senses and the information which society is giving you. Emotion → reaction, and any effort to manage or question your impulse is a kind of invalidation, a terrible affront. This is the opposite of the concept of invalidation.
Even the REALITY TESTING RESOURCES I see are gentle reminders to listen or ways to reduce personal symptoms of anxiety or low self-esteem. Very few of them point out that ‘you could be wrong’ or that ‘this is an important way to make contact with the world’. What is going on?! A therapist might strive for gentleness at times but they should be strict and unyielding critics, always bringing you to question how YOU might be wrong and how YOUR behaviors or reactions might be dysfunctional. The fact that I rarely encounter this kind of communication even among mental health professionals is deeply worrying to me.
Conversely, the people and groups most focused on reinforcing the external loci of attention and commitment tend to be the most prominent targets of the Critical Theorists. Conservatives want to strengthen nuclear families-enemies. Federalists and religious liberty advocates and volunteers want to strengthen communities-enemies. Scientists and philosophers want to strengthen peer review and institutional rigor-enemies. ‘Gym bros’ and motivational content creators want to strengthen people’s athletic fraternities and competitive drives-enemies. All of these groups and more are demonized in terms of agenda or imputed motivations (racism, patriarchy, etc.) but could it be that their real crime is trying to detach people from their phones and their fickle, neurotic self-impressions? Could there be a common thread behind all of these conflicts and syntheses?
Consider the ‘fatphobia’ skirmish: one side wants to enthrone subjectivity and blames ALL inconvenience and image issues and health problems (yes, really) on ‘fatphobia’. Beauty isn’t a socially-derived value based on your health and shape and genetic endowments. Everyone is beautiful, and anyone who doubts it should be relentlessly bullied and made to feel terrible (ironically). You can have ‘health at every size’ (HAES). The conflict isn’t really about obesity or large clothes. It’s a war to make subjective experience paramount, and to raze every obstacle in its way… including the opinions of other people, and gravity itself.
Go down the list: anti-racism, gender ideology, social justice… they’re all radically subjectivist.
In therapy I learned that people’s feelings are always valid, but they’re only valid as feelings. They’re not reflective of reality or the minds of others and assuming that they are will take you on an express route to mental illness.
Emily Gould is a writer for The Cut, a New Yorker Magazine cultural publication. About a year ago she had a bipolar episode. It sounds (from her article) as if she was being treated by a vast team of psychiatrists and therapists. She cheated on her husband, was committed (where she refused to see her husband or her mother), and grew convinced that she would have to “forgive” her husband for not giving her enough attention and assuming that she was available for child care and errands. I’m sure this was a real spiritual odyssey.
It’s been less than a year and naturally this person is writing an advice column for The Cut. I highly doubt her therapist supports this venture… but I could be wrong. Most people are not of the outlook or temperament or wisdom to regularly offer professional advice and I would place Emily in their company.
I mention her because one of her recent columns dealt with a situation: a person wrote in to relate that her 14-year old daughter had been made to watch Trump’s victory speech and take notes on the ideas and words Trump used. That’s it.
Emily (whose therapeutic experience has probably focused more on personal blossoming and living one’s own truth, rather than the somewhat Stoic values of CBT, like so many young women these days) advises the interlocutor to indulge her indignation. The possibility that her opinions or feelings are not good guides to reality are literally never mentioned. The women is upset, and right to be upset, and the only question is what’s to be done. “Affirm your daughter’s anger and complain to the school” is Emily’s advice.
Am I going crazy? I’ve already had years of mental healthcare! How is it that so many people can be so blinded by their own biases and oblivious to their own privileges? How can so many parents obsess about the performance of their kids in school, ignoring any reasonable perspective? How can people remain so convinced that their offense is real, that ‘representation’ is of maximal importance, that their prejudices are valid and their opinions correct? Why are we teaching so many people to pursue their own happiness and live according to their own ideas and honor their own impulses, to the exclusion of anything else? Society cannot function like this. It never has in the past. Humans aren’t made to operate solely according to their own whims and feelings. Perhaps technology and the modern economy have allowed us to exist as atomised units of consumption and belief and ambition but it’s within our group that we find meaning… and that group was never meant to be a Reddit group or an Instagram fan club. We need regular contact with other people (even those with whom we disagree) and reality and struggle, or we begin to express the neuroses of zoo animals and lab rats.
Could it really be the case that all of these symptoms have one single cause? I’m starting to believe it.
An excellent article. Paradoxically, this over-evaluation of subjective experience is a bastard offspring of deconstruction and postmodernism in philosophy. People like Lyotard and Foucault tried to deconstruct the subject, pointing out that our selves are socially and linguistically constructed. Somehow this insight has devolved into the belief that our self is the only ground of truth. But you correctly point out the contradiction at the heart of it: some experiences are devalued because of the subject's politicized identity (a conservative, a whit male or a Jew), while others are unimpeachable because of the subject's real or imaginary victimhood. It is a philosophically and politically incoherent but a dangerously powerful movement.
In a faculty meeting around 2015 or so, the golden millennial was charged with informing us elders on what is "offensive" these days.
"Never ask someone where they're from," she schooled.
We teach international students.
Try to untangle the logic: It's "offensive" to assume someone's sex ("gender"). We all have to act as though we're confused about our bodies in an effort to make that confused person feel "included." Never mind that it makes most of us feel EXCLUDED. I don't want to ask people whether their perceptions match their genitals. I don't want anyone asking me.
In processing the most benign statements evolved into "offenses" imaginable, I said, "But this is grossly subjective. It's going to wreak havoc."
The Millennial, who had earlier informed me that "sex is a social construct" that there is "no difference between men and women" gave me a LOOK.
No seriously, I said. How is getting easily offended -- over someone trying to start a conversation by asking you where you're from -- how is that a good thing? Are you thinking cause and effect? This is not going to go well!
And, well, here we are.
On another note, a Chinese national student informed me that another instructor in our program arrived to class 30 minutes late on the day after the election, and she was openly weeping, swearing, and holding our international students captive for nearly the entire session, during which time she called Trump a "motherfucker," and passed bread around saying that everyone should take a piece of bread while they still had their "freedoms."
The student in question had written a few sentences in her grammar section that were favorable about Trump. He was worried that she would fail him for that.