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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?
This may be a cheap shot, but this is another of the increasingly many Freddie articles that convince me that he's bubbled, and most importantly, needs to get off Twitter and/or Bluesky. I know he says he doesn't have an account on either, but he's clearly reading both of them, and he's overly concerned about or invested in niche cultural or elite scenes that nobody of sense should be paying attention to.
For instance, just to spork a little bit:
Who is actually watching SNL? Is it important? Why is Freddie watching it, and if he is, why is a mediocre comedy show a pressing issue?
Surely it bears some gentle reminder here that most people don't read New York or The New Yorker, and that the tastes of this small, relatively exclusive group of Americans does not necessarily communicate more than the pathologies of that particular set?
Were they? Every writer I was reading in the 2000s? I can't think of any, and Freddie isn't that much older than me. I seem to remember there was plenty of mainstream entertainment still decrying the concept of selling out - heck, School of Rock is from 2003, and that was sympathetically ranting about the mainstreaming of rock music. Now, twenty years later, I think there are still plenty of people very concerned about selling out - I googled "site:reddit.com selling out" and there appears to be an awareness of what it is and a dislike for it. It may well be true that people writing for prestigious publications don't believe in selling out, but the key there might be the phrase "writing for prestigious publications". Of course the people working for The Man are going to defend The Man! So it has ever been.
Everyone? Really? How many people are actually spending all their time comparing themselves to Instagram models? In this case I genuinely don't know. Statista tells me that about 170 million Americans, or a bit over half the country, is on Instagram. That's a lot. What are the usage patterns among those people? Are they all regular checking Instagram, or is that figure inflated? (It follows Facebook numbers pretty closely and it's owned by the same company - is it just the same account?) I'm not particularly informed here (I have never used Instagram), but my point is just that there are a few more questions I'd ask before concluding that this is actually as ubiquitous as Freddie suggests.
Again, I just ask... is it? Really? Where? By whom? The last I checked, the tabloids like Woman's Weekly at the supermarket checkout were full of celebrity gossip and were still generally perceived as trashy. In what world is he living where the same old celebrity garbage is not low-class?
Once more time I will ask - how prevalent is this type of person actually? Is this a widespread phenomenon, or is this just Freddie reacting to a particularly annoying type of person on the internet? There is a very striking gap between the kind of strange person I can run into on the internet (including, alas, in places like the Motte), and in men I meet in real life or on the street, most of whom, actually, I do see with real jobs and families and realistic long-term aspirations. This is just anecdotes versus anecdotes, but my point is - don't let anecdotes based on a handful of personal experiences shape your picture of an entire generation.
How many thirty-year-olds do you know in real life who would not be embarrassed to admit to having a Star Wars bedspread? How many actually read comic books? It might be worth the gentle reminder that the comics industry is not doing particularly well. Movies are one thing, but comics qua comics just don't seem to be a cultural juggernaut.
'Contemporary elite culture' is the key phrase here. I don't know how the BlueSky hive mind would respond to that question - I haven't asked them. But even if they respond exactly the way Freddie says they would, that is a small, highly-selected-for group, and I would be wary about generalising anything about wider American culture from BlueSky.
I have never heard of Sabrina Carpenter and have no idea who she is. Is it possible - just possible - that Freddie is taking the habits and rhetoric of a highly rarefied group and generalising them to the whole of the Western world?
On a side note:
Hang on, Freddie was criticising selling out before, and now he's in favour of dressing respectably? Does no one else sense a tension here? Is The Man good or bad in this narrative? The Man is the one who says people need to dress nicely and eat their vegetables and read adult novels and not have bedrooms full of science fiction posters and video game figures; but The Man is also the person people sell out to. The Man is the one who defines popular music tastes and demands conformity with them.
Are we supposed to resist and rebel against The Man when it comes to music or art, but obey and conform to The Man when it comes to fashion or interior decoration? Doesn't that seem a bit contradictory? How do you have both at the same time?
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