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Freddie deBoer has a new article out in which he argues that our society has become overly permissive (without ever actually using the phrase "the permissive society"). He uses a few recent articles to set the scene (an increasingly defeatist sense among the laptop class that there's no option but to be extremely online; a qualified defense in the New Yorker and New York magazine of the notion of being an iPad parent), before getting into the meat of his argument. Where before our society expected people to behave in a certain way most of the time, increasingly there's a broad sense that all lifestyles are equally valid; that there's nothing wrong with following the path of least resistance (in terms of effort expended), at all times in every sphere of your life; and that people who do hold people to higher standards of behaviour than the bare minimum are being toxic in some way. Where before the expectation was to dress formally in the office, now "smart casual" rules the day (if that); where before it was only profoundly autistic and unemployable men still playing with Lego and cosplaying as Star Wars characters in their thirties, now such behaviour has become entirely normalised among the gainfully employed. The boilerplate celebrity interview question "What book are you currently reading?" was retired years ago: no one is reading books anymore, or if they are, it's the same YA slop their teenage children, nieces and nephews are reading. If modern Anglophone society has a telos, it's "umm, let people enjoy things??"
Freddie's point is well-taken and I agree with most of it: Disney and Marvel adults are contemptible, as are adults taking out second mortgages so they can follow Taylor Swift on tour. Grown adults who don't know how to cook proper meals and eat fast/convenience food for every meal should feel ashamed, even if they don't. Some examples of the trend are conspicuous by their absence: it's interesting that Freddie brings up "adult men who proudly eat nothing but chicken nuggets and Kraft macaroni and cheese" and women wearing snuggies in public without once alluding to the body positivity/health at every size movement, even though it's a perfect example of the relaxing of standards across the board. (I mean, these people spent years complaining about the "toxic and unrealistic beauty standards" promulgated by the fashion industry and social media, and apparently succeeded in replacing them with - nothing, no standards at all.) But one of the specific examples he cites seems oddly in tension with the others:
I agree with him that, in the modern Western world, there's no longer much of an expectation for people to live and present themselves "authentically": among sufficiently online women, using Instagram filters on your selfies is the rule rather than the exception; cosmetic surgery (in both sexes) is more common than ever; the less said about LinkedIn, the better.
But it occurred to me: for all of the other examples of the trend towards relaxation of standards, isn't this precisely how the people engaging in these lifestyle choices would defend them? "I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin wearing a tie to the office - wearing a hoodie and sweatpants makes me feel more like myself." "I used to read boring grown-up books because that's what was expected of me and people would make fun of me for reading Harry Potter on the tube - I like that now I can read Harry Potter without shame." And so on.
What do you think?
We permit some things and forbid others. Same as every other time and place in history.
That depends on what you mean by "lifestyle" and what you mean by "valid". Out of all the choices that one might make, which ones contribute to your "lifestyle" and which don't? (Your choice of what brand of detergent you use presumably doesn't, but your choice of who you sleep with presumably does). And what would constitute an "invalid" lifestyle? Is it merely, something that is discouraged by your immediate family? Something that is unable to provide a living wage? Something that is outright illegal?
Based on the repressive response from the powers that be, we can surmise that the organizers of the Charlottesville Unite The Right rally did not have a lifestyle that was judged valid by our society. Alex Jones appears to not have had a valid lifestyle either.
Ok, maybe there's still a lot of red tape in politics you might say, but when it comes to sexuality it's all fair game. You can be trans, you can be gay, it's all fine. Well, I have a (straight cis male) friend in his 30s who's dating a 21 year old college student. He doesn't advertise her age much, for obvious reasons, and she's kept his age a secret from her friends as well. They both know what the reactions would be. Is his lifestyle valid?
On the contrary, I think that the hyper-competitive middle class striver mentality is alive and well. This depends to some extent on what social circles you run in, of course. But I've posted on TheMotte multiple times (and again just this week, in fact) about continued cuts at universities to all non-STEM programs. That's what undergrads want anyway, they want what's going to get them a good-paying white collar job. Are these the actions of a society that encourages "doing whatever you want"? Or are these the actions of a society that places a very high premium on economic productivity?
Sure, you can dress smart casual... as you work nights and weekends (and respond to emails and texts even when you're not "working") to get that big project over the finish line. You wouldn't want to not be a team player, right?
It's more like, "be very afraid" - be very afraid of climate change, and systemic racism, and Covid, and... ...how exactly is anyone supposed to have time to enjoy anything with these cataclysmic threats constantly lurking in the background?
Perhaps. But my reasoning would probably be different from yours. If they are contemptible, it would be because they're simply stupid and empty people, not because there's anything intrinsically wrong with Star Wars or Marvel per se.
I doubt that, say, King Louis XIV knew how to cook for himself. He had people to do it for him. Should he have been ashamed of himself?
("Hard work", "grit", certain senses of "self-reliance" - these are all specifically middle class virtues. They are not universal across all times and places and all cultural strata. The nobility have their virtues and obligations as well, but they are distinct in important ways.)
I find that hot so I'm all for it.
I see nothing but authenticity everywhere I look. Antifa and BLM rioters, pro-Palestine student protesters, the entire institutional network of leftist apparatchiks - I think that all of these people are perfectly authentic, and they are earnestly dedicated to the causes that they claim to be dedicated to. If you want to analyze the substance of what it is that is being authentically revealed - that's another matter. But you can't accuse them of concealing anything.
Sorry if this comes off as overly critical. But this isn't the first time that I've heard this idea (that our problem is that we've become "too permissive"), and I think it's just a completely deleterious and misguided narrative that presents a significant misdiagnosis of the situation.
Cooking is too time and culture specific, I think. The quintessential Victorian parody of middle class office worker life, The Diary of a Nobody, describes everyday life and troubles of one Mr Charles Pooter, a London city clerk, who does not know how to cook, either. He has a wife and they employ a maid and a charwoman.
Agreed that hard work and grit are virtues for commoners. Self-reliance of a family unit is more specifically a rural virtue. Urbanites are reliant on each other and of the city: they make a virtue out of sophisticated understanding of city life. Personal self-reliance is an individualist virtue.
Great comment. Do stay here (if this isn’t a regular’s alt).
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Yes, and an "overly permissive" society is a society in which too many things are permitted and too few are forbidden. Not a difficult concept to grasp, I would've thought.
The word "encourage" or any of its synonyms appears nowhere in my post. As far as I grasp Freddie's point, it's not that following the path of least resistance (expending the least amount of effort) is encouraged, but doing the bare minimum isn't forbidden i.e. is permitted.
No idea what the point is meant to be here. The dress code in my last job, my current job and the job before that (post-Covid) was smart casual. My hours were 9-5 and I rarely had to work late, and never nights. In the two years I worked in my last job there was one occasion in which I had to work on the weekend. I don't think my experience is at all uncommon.
They seem to manage alright.
I think so. Is there any skill more fundamental to self-preservation than the ability to feed oneself?
Gross.
Go to any one of these protests, and you will find that 20% of the people protesting are true believers and 80% of people are there because their friends were going, or because they're hoping to signal that they're the right kind of person on Instagram, or because they want to get laid. Nothing is more performative or insincere than modern wokeness. How many of the people who shared a black square on their Instagram in June 2020 had even the slightest idea of what the intended message of said image was? You think everyone who ever dressed up in black bloc gear earns a living at the local vegan co-op or working for an activist nonprofit? I'm sure an absolute majority of these people subsequently put away childish things and took a cushy job at Merrill Lynch.
In punk (and by extension Antifa) circles, pretending that you're from a less affluent background than you really are is so common that satire websites poke fun at it. And while you might concede this point, it's certainly not like leftist apparatchiks would conceal something as fundamental as their ethnic back- oh wait, damn.
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Are you sure you know what a snuggie is?
https://snuggiestore.com/
Yes. I'm just a big fan of pajamas or anything pajama-like on women.
Snuggies are too loose to be attractive. I'm a big fan of the onesie. Feels great to hug a gal in one.
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