It has become a commonplace that “kids nowadays” are weaker and less resilient than preceding generations. Would it not be interesting to ask if part of this–and given the prevalence of safe spaces and trigger warnings it does seem to be a “thing”–is that their mothers were the first generation working outside the home in large numbers, and also the first generation where divorce and single parent homes were common?
Could it be the case that the Greatest Generation was raised in comfortable, relatively affluent (compared to the past, and compared to most of the world) homes by stay-home mothers who had the time and emotional energy to devote a lot of time to them in their first two years of life?
On a related note–I need to be doing something but I am going to indulge myself, again: I was feeling in a space somewhere the other day, I can’t remember where, that we all have these little tentacles coming out of us which want attachment, which want stability, which crave constancy and “known-ness”.
And I was feeling how we are like balls floating in the air, always wanting to come down and settle, and how the circumstances of modern life keep throwing them back up in the air. What is the solution? Where is the safety? Becoming attached to motion and change for the sake of motion and change.
This is the essence of Leftism: a fundamenatl impatience with, and rejection of, what is, in favor not of what could be, but merely something else. There is no plan, and no genuine continuity between alleged motive and actual outcome. Burke wrote about this 200 years ago in regards to the French Revolution. I don’t speak French, but if we can say “L’Art pour l’Art” can we not say “Change pour change”?
And at the root of this, in turn, is the grinding of trauma, of black magic, of terror and horror. The leaders, the pushers, cannot remain still. Trauma does this. No psychological position is comfortable, but you are driven to constantly seek one. You are in pain, and the pain drives you, nowhere and everywhere. You rationalize it, you direct it, and you can create the illusion of purpose.
These people run countries. They run large banks. And in large measure, they seem to run our world, or at least are trying to.