I’ve been thinking about our essential psychological weakness as a society for some time, and I’ve landed on it being an example of feminization — comfort and luxury are ontologically feminine because they are indulgent, and taken to an extreme they corrode social trust and discipline. Women in particular have been key agents of this, not least because of feminism, but because they have turned society inward in the name of empathy. But empathy and compassion taken to extremes undermines actual progress. It creates a society of dependents. Education being such a mess is in no small part because of this impulse, driven primarily by women because they are the majority of teachers. While feminized aspects of society have male participants, the agents of weakness are, squarely, elite women. And their beliefs trickle down to poor women who are not inoculated from their bad choices as well as elite women. The feminist apparatus is the ultimate source of luxury beliefs. I say this having once been a feminist and having been indulgent and weak. It’s funny how an ideology that claims to be about female empowerment has done nothing but foment fragility and become a system of downside protection for women.
The other useful framing is Patrick Deneen's post-liberal critique of Liberalism ("current system") where he points out that the pre-liberal meaning of the word "liberty" used to refer to self-discipline/restraint but instead has come to mean "freedom to do whatever one desires"; almost the exact opposite of the original meaning.
TLDR; we no longer have the language to describe the moral good of being in control of yourself.
Thanks Anuradha. I agree. As usual, you beat me to pointing out that ‘feminization’ isn’t necessarily a trend of or by women - it affects all of us. The upper class parents. The professional at the dog park. The high school teacher. We’re all playing out a new cultural script, predicated on comfort and convenience and social distance. I think more and more people are beginning to understand that it’s become pathological. That’s the question that keeps me up at night now: can people intentionally change a culture? Can they create a new one? I’m not sure, but I know that if it happens it will start with shared concepts and a new vocabulary. One that barely exists right now but one that you’re helping to define.
Throw in the absolute worst of nation-running nanny technocrats that have proliferated across the western world (Arden, Von der Leyen, Trudeau, Freeland, etc.), and you truly have the worst of feminism. As it turns out, power corrupts women just as much as it has corrupted men over the centuries.
Never in history has western civilization needed strong, moral leadership more.
I'm a woman in a female-on-steroids-university who has watched with bugged-out eyes all of these insane beliefs taken seriously. For example, we elders were advised by the Golden Millennial (who told me with a straight face that there is no difference between men and women) that asking students where they're from "causes harm." And on and on with the objectively ridiculous bullshit.
I recently became the subject of a student complaint -- I still don't know what I did! In the meeting with the director, she advised me NOT TO CHALLENGE THEM. She also claims that I'm 100% responsible for how students FEEL.
In case you're interested: "The Feminization of the University Makes Me Feel Anxious and Uncomfortable":
How strange that only feelings which empower the bureaucracy and protect the clans privileges of the progressive elite are allowed to be considered or validated! I doubt that’s a coincidence.
For weight loss in particular, my understanding is that weight loss research shows most methods to be ineffective, especially in the long run. I think there may be something biological going on with obesity beyond just a simple matter of self-discipline.
I could believe that society is lacking in self-discipline, but I don't think weight loss is particularly favorable territory to make that argument. Serious people are skeptical of the "calories in, calories out, just apply self-discipline" model there.
Past generations struggled mightily with alcoholism and teenage pregnancy. Has vice truly increased on net?
Methods are ineffective because modern people find it difficult to control their diets and increase activity in the long run. This kind of objection is very common and it’s a perfect illustration of what I’m talking about. If obese people limited themselves to gruel and multivitamins (which seems insanely difficult for us… because we’re weak) they would ABSOLUTELY lose weight. Most serious obesity is simply an addiction to food. Addictions aren’t straightforward to address… but pretending as if the diets and lifestyles of the people who are suffering aren’t the whole of the proximate causes does no good. It simply reinforces the fallacious view that people can’t make improvements. There simply ARE no obese people who are very active and who eat strict diets. They don’t exist.
No - vice hasn’t increased. It’s actually decreased in many ways. But those teen moms and alcoholics were tougher than modern people. It would never occur to them to make excuses for obesity.
As somebody who had had thyroid issues most of my adult life (and now have a goiter to show for it) and have consistently hovered in the very detrimental 300 lb range for decades, i need to say that you are right on point. It doesn't really matter that weight loss is hard for me, what matters is that just because it is hard for me is not a reason to turn around and suggest that is not my problem any more, but society's. They don't live in my body, i do. And as long as I do, I have more control of it than they, who do not live in it, do.
I also recall that timepoint when they started suggesting doctors were being discriminatory, etc, for pointing out the very real health risks. Do they expect me to ignore all the signals my body sends me telling me it needs a different approach? Am I supposed to close my eyes to physical reality all the way to the hospital and cemetery? Just to support a rose-colored vision they have? Wtf. Well, it certainly is one cheap way to paper over the issue with the thinnest of veneers and proceed to moving on to the next thing; such as handing out needles to addicts on street corners and telling all and sundry that at last the appropriate public response has been achieved regarding drug addiction.
I consider myself very fortunate to have had a silent and greatest gen combo for parents. I would not be here today at 61 if not for them, I'm quite sure. One of the things they instilled over my growing years was that society need not change for you just because you may have some discomfort or personal difficulty. One must learn to adapt and adjust if one is to overcome and thrive in life. And they never once suggested anybody but me was responsible for my weight issues; they've been gone since the early 2000's, but their outlook on life is always close at hand.
In the spirit of the upcoming New Year, i am once again making changes to my routines, such as a refocus on intermittent fasting and moving around more. This is the bare minimum for me, in my opinion.
Thank you so much for your support of all the ideas that keep civilization not just sustainable but growing.
I believe that an accelerant of weak behavior is the Customer Service Ratification(tm) framing of the last 25 years. Everything can be brought down by 1-star ratings, particularly college professors, colleges themselves, and the college administrators who don’t effectively tongue lash the (always guilty) professor for being “too ______” (per the student-customer’s threatened rating).
Conversely, are you a sociopath? Great! You, too, can bring an envied target of your manic obsessions to his knees, simply by weaponizing the star-rating systems invariably attached to some aspect of your target’s life. Do they own a business, maybe a coffee shop? 1-star rate it! Is he a dentist? Lie about a shoddy crown procedure and write about it on Dr. IHateHim’s website’s feedback page. The opportunities are endless for terrible behaviors that are unfettered by a need to supply real evidence or a hint of self-control. Apply billions of times and you have a mass hostage situation. We are all hostage to terrible, unethical extortionists. What could go wrong?
A couple of days ago, I read, in passing, about a thought experiment posed by a sci-fi writer: imagine a society that found a medication that had the effect of making the user happy, no matter their circumstance.
I would imagine the consequences are either self limiting, or dire.
Unhappiness, dissatisfaction, yes even pain and suffering, are all cues to action, to change and improve ones circumstance. To uncover the source of discomfort, and remediate it. By ones own actions (with our without assistance).
The happiness medication makes users oblivious to their own real circumstances, their needs. The problem is self limiting, if the medication becomes impossible to obtain once the victim isn't taking the actions necessary to earn it. In that case, the state of bliss is temporary, and the subject returns to reality, and attend the their affairs and addresses their needs.
If the medication is easily obtainable, practically free and limitless, the user will eventually, perhaps quickly, die for want this attention (self care).
Besides the obvious analogies to drug use, the larger point is, happiness is a condition that is a reward, not a right. We have to work to attain it. We can maintain it through mindfulness, serenity, faith, but the pure feeling of bliss only exists because it is temporary, even momentary.
You can't expect society (the government) to deliver bliss, or even satisfaction, for you.
And you can't expect it to eliminate suffering. We, society, can work to reduce suffering, but there comes a point where gains are marginal and the effort required outweighs those gains. A society operating on unmitigated empathy does not recognize these realities, and will collapse, in the same way as the society given the unlimited happiness drug.
Because true happiness is an outgrowth of the struggle against ourselves and external forces to impart our will on the universe. The struggle yields happiness and fulfilment.
I wonder if the valorisation of “attitude” over discipline isn’t the most devastating thing in America today.
We always had a soft spot for rebel outsiders (Elvis, James Dean, Sinatra, NWA, etc) but lately it feels like we’re just lousy with bratty fuckwits who only wanna mouth off until they have it all (Trump, the Golden Goddess of Bitches Who Slay).
If we as a culture can’t reward people who just quietly build more than people who flex-it-til-they-make-it then we should actually implode for humanity’s sake.
I think your observations about education are spot on but some of the generalizations have gone a bit off the mark…
On obesity- is it really weakening will or greater access to cheaper high calorie foods?
On feminization- can’t rule it out as culprit but have you read the bunch of counter argument substack essays in recent months? I am now more skeptical of it as an explanation for wokism etc
Finally- I visited Mycenae recently. I can assure you most Americans do not live in anything near the grandeur of a Bronze Age palace !
Much of what you’re describing is nothing more than ego at work. Humanity is a curious species: compelled to reshape the world, to engineer revolutions in how we live. But when life grows easier, what did you honestly expect? That resilience would simply materialize without friction? Ease has never been a forge for resilience. Expecting otherwise is wishful thinking.
This article is a real tour de force! It pulls together in a clear and convincing way much of what ails the Western world. It also a powerful illustration of one of my core convictions: our brains are capable of creating modes of living that are far in advance of, and often contradictory to, our evolved bodies. Put another way, our "big brains" allowed us to rise to the top of the food chain, but they also allow us to think all sorts of things that do not align with our evolutionary imperatives, thus leading to chaos and confusion. While the ideals we conjure up in our heads might indeed be possible and desirable for the creatures we might be in a thousand years, trying to be this advanced species now could very well lead to the collapse of our entire civilizational edifice.
“As someone in education, it gets worse every year…” Clearly, that person should not be in education if he or she is making obvious grammatical errors of that sort.
I think your standard for educators, while rigorous and admirable, is so disconnected from the current reality that it must be discarded. K-12 educators do a modest amount of educating, at most. My job is mostly classroom management. On the margins I try to fit in material to stimulate curiosity and broaden perspectives. Grammar, penmanship, sentence construction, literature - these subjects are simply no longer taught. Whenever possible they’re excised altogether. At least I make my kids write essays (a new experience for them). They hate it.
The phrase “as someone in education” is just hanging there, not describing anything or anyone. Of course, you and I know that it is intended to describe the author of the comment, but he or she doesn’t indicate that, instead plowing on with an indeterminate “it gets worse…”.
If the author of the comment had said: “As someone in education, I’ve noticed that it gets worse every year”, that would have been correct, as the phrase mentioned correctly describes “I”, the subject of the next clause.
I don’t know what this class of error is called, as I’m not an educator myself, just an ordinary corporate employee; but at least I paid enough attention in class to notice that the sentence construction feels awkward and imprecise.
It seems to me obvious that the intended meaning is " *Speaking* as someone in education, *I assert that* it gets worse...".
I think it's called an ellipsis or some such. Leaving out words on the assumption that they're obvious enough. Hardly an error, though, and pretty common in everyday speech.
Excellent, excellent piece! Since i just discovered you, may I ask if you have done any deep dives into how narcissism and autism come into play with your article's focus? If so, I world be very interested in reading such: as i have dealt with either (or both at once) of these issues my entire life. Right up to today as caregiver for my two grown sons on the spectrum.
I ask because it seems to me both are becoming more prevalent, and thus exerting more influence upon of our society today.
Thank you so much for such an insightful and comprehensive article!
I’ve been thinking about our essential psychological weakness as a society for some time, and I’ve landed on it being an example of feminization — comfort and luxury are ontologically feminine because they are indulgent, and taken to an extreme they corrode social trust and discipline. Women in particular have been key agents of this, not least because of feminism, but because they have turned society inward in the name of empathy. But empathy and compassion taken to extremes undermines actual progress. It creates a society of dependents. Education being such a mess is in no small part because of this impulse, driven primarily by women because they are the majority of teachers. While feminized aspects of society have male participants, the agents of weakness are, squarely, elite women. And their beliefs trickle down to poor women who are not inoculated from their bad choices as well as elite women. The feminist apparatus is the ultimate source of luxury beliefs. I say this having once been a feminist and having been indulgent and weak. It’s funny how an ideology that claims to be about female empowerment has done nothing but foment fragility and become a system of downside protection for women.
The other useful framing is Patrick Deneen's post-liberal critique of Liberalism ("current system") where he points out that the pre-liberal meaning of the word "liberty" used to refer to self-discipline/restraint but instead has come to mean "freedom to do whatever one desires"; almost the exact opposite of the original meaning.
TLDR; we no longer have the language to describe the moral good of being in control of yourself.
Thank you for such a well-articulated post; you are right on point.
Thanks Anuradha. I agree. As usual, you beat me to pointing out that ‘feminization’ isn’t necessarily a trend of or by women - it affects all of us. The upper class parents. The professional at the dog park. The high school teacher. We’re all playing out a new cultural script, predicated on comfort and convenience and social distance. I think more and more people are beginning to understand that it’s become pathological. That’s the question that keeps me up at night now: can people intentionally change a culture? Can they create a new one? I’m not sure, but I know that if it happens it will start with shared concepts and a new vocabulary. One that barely exists right now but one that you’re helping to define.
Throw in the absolute worst of nation-running nanny technocrats that have proliferated across the western world (Arden, Von der Leyen, Trudeau, Freeland, etc.), and you truly have the worst of feminism. As it turns out, power corrupts women just as much as it has corrupted men over the centuries.
Never in history has western civilization needed strong, moral leadership more.
Great piece!
I'm a woman in a female-on-steroids-university who has watched with bugged-out eyes all of these insane beliefs taken seriously. For example, we elders were advised by the Golden Millennial (who told me with a straight face that there is no difference between men and women) that asking students where they're from "causes harm." And on and on with the objectively ridiculous bullshit.
I recently became the subject of a student complaint -- I still don't know what I did! In the meeting with the director, she advised me NOT TO CHALLENGE THEM. She also claims that I'm 100% responsible for how students FEEL.
In case you're interested: "The Feminization of the University Makes Me Feel Anxious and Uncomfortable":
https://open.substack.com/pub/dogl/p/dear-director-the-feminization-of?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer
How strange that only feelings which empower the bureaucracy and protect the clans privileges of the progressive elite are allowed to be considered or validated! I doubt that’s a coincidence.
The longhouse in action.
If you consider that an institutional authority always chooses the option that increases its power, it all makes sense.
For weight loss in particular, my understanding is that weight loss research shows most methods to be ineffective, especially in the long run. I think there may be something biological going on with obesity beyond just a simple matter of self-discipline.
I could believe that society is lacking in self-discipline, but I don't think weight loss is particularly favorable territory to make that argument. Serious people are skeptical of the "calories in, calories out, just apply self-discipline" model there.
Past generations struggled mightily with alcoholism and teenage pregnancy. Has vice truly increased on net?
Methods are ineffective because modern people find it difficult to control their diets and increase activity in the long run. This kind of objection is very common and it’s a perfect illustration of what I’m talking about. If obese people limited themselves to gruel and multivitamins (which seems insanely difficult for us… because we’re weak) they would ABSOLUTELY lose weight. Most serious obesity is simply an addiction to food. Addictions aren’t straightforward to address… but pretending as if the diets and lifestyles of the people who are suffering aren’t the whole of the proximate causes does no good. It simply reinforces the fallacious view that people can’t make improvements. There simply ARE no obese people who are very active and who eat strict diets. They don’t exist.
No - vice hasn’t increased. It’s actually decreased in many ways. But those teen moms and alcoholics were tougher than modern people. It would never occur to them to make excuses for obesity.
As somebody who had had thyroid issues most of my adult life (and now have a goiter to show for it) and have consistently hovered in the very detrimental 300 lb range for decades, i need to say that you are right on point. It doesn't really matter that weight loss is hard for me, what matters is that just because it is hard for me is not a reason to turn around and suggest that is not my problem any more, but society's. They don't live in my body, i do. And as long as I do, I have more control of it than they, who do not live in it, do.
I also recall that timepoint when they started suggesting doctors were being discriminatory, etc, for pointing out the very real health risks. Do they expect me to ignore all the signals my body sends me telling me it needs a different approach? Am I supposed to close my eyes to physical reality all the way to the hospital and cemetery? Just to support a rose-colored vision they have? Wtf. Well, it certainly is one cheap way to paper over the issue with the thinnest of veneers and proceed to moving on to the next thing; such as handing out needles to addicts on street corners and telling all and sundry that at last the appropriate public response has been achieved regarding drug addiction.
I consider myself very fortunate to have had a silent and greatest gen combo for parents. I would not be here today at 61 if not for them, I'm quite sure. One of the things they instilled over my growing years was that society need not change for you just because you may have some discomfort or personal difficulty. One must learn to adapt and adjust if one is to overcome and thrive in life. And they never once suggested anybody but me was responsible for my weight issues; they've been gone since the early 2000's, but their outlook on life is always close at hand.
In the spirit of the upcoming New Year, i am once again making changes to my routines, such as a refocus on intermittent fasting and moving around more. This is the bare minimum for me, in my opinion.
Thank you so much for your support of all the ideas that keep civilization not just sustainable but growing.
Also, the argument that most obesity results from an innate characteristic doesn't explain the sudden rise in obesity in food rich societies.
I believe that an accelerant of weak behavior is the Customer Service Ratification(tm) framing of the last 25 years. Everything can be brought down by 1-star ratings, particularly college professors, colleges themselves, and the college administrators who don’t effectively tongue lash the (always guilty) professor for being “too ______” (per the student-customer’s threatened rating).
Conversely, are you a sociopath? Great! You, too, can bring an envied target of your manic obsessions to his knees, simply by weaponizing the star-rating systems invariably attached to some aspect of your target’s life. Do they own a business, maybe a coffee shop? 1-star rate it! Is he a dentist? Lie about a shoddy crown procedure and write about it on Dr. IHateHim’s website’s feedback page. The opportunities are endless for terrible behaviors that are unfettered by a need to supply real evidence or a hint of self-control. Apply billions of times and you have a mass hostage situation. We are all hostage to terrible, unethical extortionists. What could go wrong?
A couple of days ago, I read, in passing, about a thought experiment posed by a sci-fi writer: imagine a society that found a medication that had the effect of making the user happy, no matter their circumstance.
I would imagine the consequences are either self limiting, or dire.
Unhappiness, dissatisfaction, yes even pain and suffering, are all cues to action, to change and improve ones circumstance. To uncover the source of discomfort, and remediate it. By ones own actions (with our without assistance).
The happiness medication makes users oblivious to their own real circumstances, their needs. The problem is self limiting, if the medication becomes impossible to obtain once the victim isn't taking the actions necessary to earn it. In that case, the state of bliss is temporary, and the subject returns to reality, and attend the their affairs and addresses their needs.
If the medication is easily obtainable, practically free and limitless, the user will eventually, perhaps quickly, die for want this attention (self care).
Besides the obvious analogies to drug use, the larger point is, happiness is a condition that is a reward, not a right. We have to work to attain it. We can maintain it through mindfulness, serenity, faith, but the pure feeling of bliss only exists because it is temporary, even momentary.
You can't expect society (the government) to deliver bliss, or even satisfaction, for you.
And you can't expect it to eliminate suffering. We, society, can work to reduce suffering, but there comes a point where gains are marginal and the effort required outweighs those gains. A society operating on unmitigated empathy does not recognize these realities, and will collapse, in the same way as the society given the unlimited happiness drug.
Solid.
Because true happiness is an outgrowth of the struggle against ourselves and external forces to impart our will on the universe. The struggle yields happiness and fulfilment.
I wonder if the valorisation of “attitude” over discipline isn’t the most devastating thing in America today.
We always had a soft spot for rebel outsiders (Elvis, James Dean, Sinatra, NWA, etc) but lately it feels like we’re just lousy with bratty fuckwits who only wanna mouth off until they have it all (Trump, the Golden Goddess of Bitches Who Slay).
If we as a culture can’t reward people who just quietly build more than people who flex-it-til-they-make-it then we should actually implode for humanity’s sake.
I think your observations about education are spot on but some of the generalizations have gone a bit off the mark…
On obesity- is it really weakening will or greater access to cheaper high calorie foods?
On feminization- can’t rule it out as culprit but have you read the bunch of counter argument substack essays in recent months? I am now more skeptical of it as an explanation for wokism etc
Finally- I visited Mycenae recently. I can assure you most Americans do not live in anything near the grandeur of a Bronze Age palace !
Excellent piece!
Much of what you’re describing is nothing more than ego at work. Humanity is a curious species: compelled to reshape the world, to engineer revolutions in how we live. But when life grows easier, what did you honestly expect? That resilience would simply materialize without friction? Ease has never been a forge for resilience. Expecting otherwise is wishful thinking.
This article is a real tour de force! It pulls together in a clear and convincing way much of what ails the Western world. It also a powerful illustration of one of my core convictions: our brains are capable of creating modes of living that are far in advance of, and often contradictory to, our evolved bodies. Put another way, our "big brains" allowed us to rise to the top of the food chain, but they also allow us to think all sorts of things that do not align with our evolutionary imperatives, thus leading to chaos and confusion. While the ideals we conjure up in our heads might indeed be possible and desirable for the creatures we might be in a thousand years, trying to be this advanced species now could very well lead to the collapse of our entire civilizational edifice.
> barely a day passes where they don’t beg me to take them out to the athletic fields
Makes me chuckle. This is good to hear. Middle school kids should want to go outside.
> We're Getting Weaker (Part 1)
You've diagnosed the problem. What is the cure? In particular, what can an individual do to get stronger, in your opinion?
Please take over your school district, and reform it!
“As someone in education, it gets worse every year…” Clearly, that person should not be in education if he or she is making obvious grammatical errors of that sort.
Math teacher😄
I think your standard for educators, while rigorous and admirable, is so disconnected from the current reality that it must be discarded. K-12 educators do a modest amount of educating, at most. My job is mostly classroom management. On the margins I try to fit in material to stimulate curiosity and broaden perspectives. Grammar, penmanship, sentence construction, literature - these subjects are simply no longer taught. Whenever possible they’re excised altogether. At least I make my kids write essays (a new experience for them). They hate it.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/class-lessons
Where’s the error? As someone not in education, before you ask.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis_%28linguistics%29?wprov=sfla1
The phrase “as someone in education” is just hanging there, not describing anything or anyone. Of course, you and I know that it is intended to describe the author of the comment, but he or she doesn’t indicate that, instead plowing on with an indeterminate “it gets worse…”.
If the author of the comment had said: “As someone in education, I’ve noticed that it gets worse every year”, that would have been correct, as the phrase mentioned correctly describes “I”, the subject of the next clause.
I don’t know what this class of error is called, as I’m not an educator myself, just an ordinary corporate employee; but at least I paid enough attention in class to notice that the sentence construction feels awkward and imprecise.
Ok, thanks. I think you're wrong about this.
It seems to me obvious that the intended meaning is " *Speaking* as someone in education, *I assert that* it gets worse...".
I think it's called an ellipsis or some such. Leaving out words on the assumption that they're obvious enough. Hardly an error, though, and pretty common in everyday speech.
Excellent, excellent piece! Since i just discovered you, may I ask if you have done any deep dives into how narcissism and autism come into play with your article's focus? If so, I world be very interested in reading such: as i have dealt with either (or both at once) of these issues my entire life. Right up to today as caregiver for my two grown sons on the spectrum.
I ask because it seems to me both are becoming more prevalent, and thus exerting more influence upon of our society today.
Thank you so much for such an insightful and comprehensive article!