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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?
I think this is inadequately handled.
https://www.thecut.com/article/gen-z-ipad-kids-generation-screen-time.html I just clicked through to his first link about iPad kids. On the issue of raising children in a big city like New York, my impression is that in the past the norm was to live near relatives and trusted acquaintances (co-religionist or co-ethnic, for instance), and let bands of roving kids wander the neighborhood with little parental involvement, to be called back for dinner. Now, they know people from different parts of town, meet up at a park, then go out to lunch together at a restaurant. That is not inherently lower effort than the previous arrangement. They might not have to keep their apartment clean or cook lunch, but now they have to keep children quiet in a restaurant, which doesn't really allow adult conversations.
The kids don't have permission to do what they would prefer, such as playing a game, so they settle for the permission they can get, to watch a show on a phone, which is still better than fidgeting and getting dirty looks. That is not necessarily permissive, though, since their first choice of running around, playing, and exploring is denied them. I don't get the impression that kids are eager for permission to watch more shows. They're much more eager for permission to take small risks. I offered some kids the opportunity to look at stuff on their chrome books or chip away at little pieces of soapstone. They strongly preferred the stone, but I stopped because it's too loud for the adults. That is not permissive. There is no permission to make noise and accidentally hurt a finger. It would be more permissive in the case of the restaurant to give them a little playground like fast food places used to have.
As a teen and young adult, I read Classics. Lately, I've been reading Brandon Sanderson novels. This is because I had a lot of free time then, and don't have it now. The Motte and Sanderson novels are compatible with brain fog from waking up every few hours to feed an infant, and interacting with other young children every few minutes, while Kant is not. I don't really have a good model of what's going on with Taylor Swift or Marvel fans (are there still Marvel fans left?). As I recall, Don Quixote was basically a spoof about a man who read a lot of Star Wars novels, thought that Jedi were real, and then decided that he was one. I gave up because the second hand cringe was too strong, not something that I can recall happening with any other novels.
I'm not sure that it makes sense to talk about reading Sanderson instead of Dostoyevsky as permissiveness. The latter is, of course, better, but I'm tired and my memory is bad. I'm unable to read it after working and caring for children. My parents are retired, and reading Dostoyevsky again. They have a little book club. They have permission to spend time on good books, permission to spend the best part of the day on that, instead of on working.
Again, a lot of people don't seem to feel permission to be an ordinary person, doing a slightly below average 9 - 5 job, sending their kids to the ordinary public school, to themselves become an average person living an average life. Who can work a stable job at Kodak for 30 years? "Many people have lamented that kids these days say they want to be famous YouTubers instead of astronauts." Sure. The only astronauts I know anything about are the ones that got stranded because Boeing messed up bringing them back. Which was a story entirely about how unreliable Boeing now is, and not at all about the astronauts themselves.
I was chaperoning a kids' dance party this week. The kids don't know how to dance, even things like the Cupid Shuffle, where they literally call out the moves. Some attempts were made to do that dance where they squat, bounce, and throw their legs out, kind of like in Russian dancing. The dance they attempted was harder than normal folk dancing, but at least known. This was because they don't know how to dance, not because we're so permissive we let them dance however they want. They probably want to be taught how to dance. The adults might even prefer to teach them a dance, but didn't necessarily have permission to do so, or knowledge of how to go about it.
On clothing, I likewise don't necessarily find the mess that is our current clothing choices to be permissive, so much as burnt out or depressed. People mostly aren't dressing in clothing that they love and find beautiful for their own idiosyncratic reasons. Straight men don't seem to have a ton of choice for what to wear in public, outside of special interest clubs. They're dressing in jeans and hoodies because that's the cultural norm, to which they are dutifully adhering. I like Uniqlo clothing and follow their collaborations. There was a surprising amount of buzz this fall about slightly less terrible looking sweatpants. They sold out! They come in not only grey and black, but wine! So exciting. Theoretically, people have permission to wear all sorts of things. Actually, they are so confused and guilt ridden, they wear the same dress a hundred days in a row. That is not a sign of permission.
I'm not sure what's going on with the adults eating exclusively chicken nuggets and Mac & cheese, but it sounds like depression again? Or an eating disorder? It certainly doesn't sound enjoyable.
Are these not still a thing where you are? I see lots of them.
Not really. We went to one with a wooden ship play fort in Louisiana, and it was lovely until we got rained out. I think Chick fil-a has them here.
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