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The modern public education system is an expensive daycare at best and a Potemkin village at worst. Kids lack any internal or external motivation to learn, discipline is basically forbidden, and any mark under 85 is cause for meetings and interventions and BS special ed plans. Many teachers don't think this is a problem- school should be a "safe space" for children (though to what end, they usually can't say). Any teacher that does think it's a problem is either too cowardly (or agreeable, same thing) to fight the decline or too attached to the sweet, sweet benefits of the job (even sweeter in Canada!) to die on this hill. They console themselves, however, by muttering about how "these kids are in for a big surprise when they get to university." Well, ti appears that there will be no surprise:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/01/elite-university-student-accommodation/684946/?gift=o6MjJQpusU9ebnFuymVdsFCUJZQ0G9lMNnLXcGfnS-w
At elite US universities, huge numbers of students (20-30%) receive accommodations for intellectual "disabilities." Since these schools are much more selective than other schools, and intellectual disabilities make you worse at school, we should expect to find even higher rates of disability at less selective schools, but we don't. So either the upper class families are fortunate enough to have the means to ensure their kids get the help they need while less affluent students are struggling unassisted, or they're gaming the system to inflate their marks when the most common grade is already A. You know in your heart which one it is.
The main "accommodation" these kids get, at university and K-12, is extra time. This almost makes sense on final exams, but day-to-day they also demand it. The problem is that there is no "extra" time; there is only one time and it is limited. "Extra time" on anything is an illusion, because you are taking your own time from something else. This is not just a metaphysical quibble- parents will demand that a kid get extra time (which usually means double time) on anything the kid finds difficult. Since time cannot be created, a kid who finds the material difficult will take an entire class period for a short quiz, thereby missing a bunch of material and falling behind, ensuring that he finds future material difficult as well and requiring even more "extra" time. Parents rarely understand this, even when it is explained to them.
Kids and parents universally defend this practice because it allows the kid to do their "best work." The assumption is that if other kids do their best work in half an hour, but your kid needs an hour to do his best work, that's academic justice. We're here to find the kids best work, after all (this is never questioned and any discussion of speed is not even understood, let alone allowed). The "best work" that this system produces is never good- work expands to fill the time allotted, so if you were going to write a C+ essay in an hour, and now you have two hours, it now takes you twice as long to be just as mediocre. Other absurdities abound, which I've mentioned before, like the "separate exam space" having more kids in it than the regular exam room or kids getting the reading test read to them, but the time thing is the biggest one.
Goodhart's Law is driving all of this. We used to use marks as the best available way to measure how smart or educated kids were, but then it started getting gamed and now marks are totally meaningless (note that parents and Good Teachers will assert, in the same sentence, that marks are not a full measure of a person's worth/intelligence/etc and also demand these accommodations so that the kid's marks are propped up because the kid is good or valuable). A colleague just had a meeting about a kid failing Gr 11 advanced math. It's too late to drop the course. He reassured her that if she takes Gr 12 basic math the kid will retroactively receive a Gr 11 basic math credit, and her graduation will not be threatened. The mother freaked because this would still leave "Gr 11 advanced math: 44%" on the kid's transcript, as though there were a situation where you needed a good gr 11 advanced math mark but didn't actually have to be good at math (in Canada, there is no such situation- any scholarship or admission that would have this kind of demand is going to the kids in Gr 12 advanced math anyway).
These are pretty standard complaints about the ed system, but now lets talk about The Last Psychiatrist. His bugbear was narcissism. Not the swaggering bravado we normally associate with narcissism, but insecure or compensatory narcissism that causes empty people to act out a character rather than to be their authentic selves (they don't have authentic selves in the first place). "Main character syndrome" probably comes from his writing, though I don't think he used that exact phrase. So a narcissistic man would demand that his wife get breast implants, not because he loves busty women, but because cool dudes like him have wives with huge knockers. He is trying to shape everything but himself to project the identity he wishes he had. It's normal for kids to try out different identities, get tough-guy tatoos or act like Taylor Swift, but well-adjusted people grow out of it and start actually doing things, and the things they do become the basis for stable identities. TLP alleged that people in the West have stopped growing out of it and are trapped in juvenile psychology where identity is totally decoupled from action. So you can go every day to your actuary job and estimate health insurance risk and go home and scroll Twitter all night, but since you own a guitar you actually think of yourself as a musician. This has all kinds of bad effects on you personally, on the people around you, and on society. Read his oeuvre to find out more.
This kind of narcissism is a natural, though regrettable, phase of growing up, and it's bad if you don't grow out of it. It's even worse, though, if all the adults around you are actively inculcating it in you. Accommodations are the main way society is doing this. "Marks are just one way of evaluating people" is perfectly true. If you really believe this, you won't be that worried about your kid getting a 60, unless he's slacking off, in which case you chain him up for a while until he gets his act together. But if you tell your kid, and doctors tell your kid, and the school tells your kid, and TikTok tells your kid (this, to your kid, is tantamount to the entire world telling him), that actually he's really smart even though he doesn't do anything smart, and that actually what needs to happen is for the world around him to change (=accommodations) then you are encouraging a mindset which life should actually be beating out of him.
People around here often object to The Last Psychiatrist's style, Sadly Porn is weird, etc, but he dropped the shtick and wrote a more obviously serious book called Watch What You Hear, about dream interpretation in the Odyssey. The big takeaway in the book (for psychology) is that insecure narcissists demand omnipotence from others and detest omniscience. "Omniscience" here means seeing clearly what your problems are, seeing through you. For example, a guy who thinks of himself as a woman has his whole world rocked if someone treats him like a man, or a girlboss feminist has a breakdown if someone suggests that all she wants is a baby. Instead, narcissists demand omnipotence- the trans guy wants the world rearranged to validate his feminine identity and the girlboss wants childfree spaces enforced, as though every else has the power to deliver affirmation/happiness/fulfillment/ for them.
We have allowed the education system to formally endorse this narcissistic demand for omnipotence over omniscience. The school/teacher/exam must not be allowed to correctly rate the student's intelligence, potential, actualisation or anything else. Whether that science is omni is beside the point; parents and students fear and believe that it is, which is why they lose their #$%ing minds when anyone suggests that if the kid gets 70 in every class then maybe he's just kinda a 70. The omnipotence they demand of everyone is the power to make their kid above-average. In some cases they believe this can be done, in other cases they demand the trappings of academic success without the substance (identity divorced from actions). This is TLP narcissism codified and is far worse for society than some lame teacher trying to get kids to like her by saying she's bisexual or whatever.
(I know that economic anxiety is a huge driver here, that parents fear that their kid will end up destitute if he doesn't get into engineering or something, but again, in what world will he be a successful engineer if you explicitly demanded that we cover up his lack of discipline, drive, and ability with fake marks? A world where, with regard to your kid, everyone else is omnipotent without being omniscient)
I guess my point is that the dominant objections here to public education rest on the system's financial or ideological effects, and while those are bad, the psychological effects are much worse and go much deeper than "I was bored and my reward was more work". The financial and ideological objections have more to do with the ed system being mainly made up of the outgroup, but they'll eventually all be dead. It's fine to dream of the day when the system is dissolved or otherwise rendered powerless, but until then, stop demanding accommodations for your kids. It's much worse for them than reading gay comics in English class.
In one of The Last Psychiatrist (hereafter Edward Teach)'s articles, as an exercise, he challenged the reader to describe themselves without using the word "am".
Given that English speakers habitually describe their professions this way ("I'm a fisherman" rather than "I catch fish)"), completing the exercise can be surprisingly difficult.
I've long thought that there has never been an interesting sentence beginning with "I identify as", but Teach's writings illustrated to me that such a framework can be not just tedious and navel-gazing, but actively harmful to oneself and those around you.
When I criticise sentences beginning with "I identify as", I am of course referring to our modern fixation on "identities" in the sense of "identity politics" ("I identify as a QPOC agender neurodivergent...") but also in the sense of "identifying as" something wholly removed from any corresponding action associated therewith. As you point out, being a musician is seen as high-status in a way that selling insurance isn't: there are innumerable people who still call themselves musicians (namely in their Instagram handles) despite never having recorded a single note of music or having gone years without playing a gig (if ever); likewise for people calling themselves "writers" without having written anything, never mind published. This worldview is starting to affect more traditional identity categories as well: a majority of American women who call themselves lesbians have had sex with at least one man (6% in the last year); there are sexually active people who call themselves asexual; there are self-identified vegans who subscribe to a non-standard definition of veganism. "Inclusivity" has become so valorised and "gatekeeping" so stigmatised that it's seen as poor form to tell a meat-eater that they aren't vegan; a person who's diagnosed themselves with autism that they aren't really neurodivergent; a chronic masturbator that they aren't asexual; a bearded, penised male in jeans and a t-shirt that he isn't a woman. Identity has become wholly uncoupled from essential rule-in criteria or adherence to a standard of behaviour (broadly defined): vague, unfalsifiable "vibes" are the order of the day. I wonder if you could draw a bright line between the relaxation of academic standards you outline in your post, and the relaxation of standards of behaviour for who is and isn't a "lesbian".
"Why are you getting so incensed, @FtttG? It's just some kids on college campuses – who cares if a woman with multiple male sexual partners and zero female ones calls herself a lesbian?"
But I actually think it's much more insidious than that. I think the relaxation of standards such that anyone can call themselves a musician (without playing a note of music) and anyone can call themselves queer (while exclusively pursuing hetero relationships) – and that anyone who calls them a fake and a poseur is a toxic exclusive elitist gatekeeper – can lead to some extremely toxic habits of mind, ultimately causing people to "identify as" the only thing anyone should aspire to be: a good person.
Because if you don't have to write anything to call yourself a writer, and you don't have to adhere to a plant-based diet to call yourself a vegan – if it's all just vague, unfalsifiable, unquantifiable vibes – it stands to reason that you can "be a good person" without once doing anything good, without once doing anything to improve the lot of the people around you. How does that cash out in the real world?
As Teach pointed out, the last bullet point is particularly unsustainable for forming a real sense of self and personal identity. In principle one could take full responsibility for all of one's impressive achievements while refusing to take responsibility for all of one's failures (moral and otherwise), but most people are no good at that kind of compartmentalization. If you've gotten into the habit of refusing to take accountability for your fuckups, it's only a matter of time before your positive achievements don't really feel like "yours" either. Thus, impostor syndrome.
I suppose it could be worse: identifying as a good person hasn't yet become wholly uncoupled from consistent pro-social behaviour. Believing you're a good person because you've never set a cat on fire is a low bar, but it's a hell of a lot better than thinking there's literally no difference between someone who sets a cat on fire and someone who doesn't. Insincere performative virtue signalling still acknowledges that there is a thing which exists called "virtue"; aspiring through one's actions (namely insincere performative virtue signalling) to be seen as a virtuous person still acknowledges that virtuous behaviour is a precondition for being a virtuous person. Reflexive invention of exculpatory circumstances to explain away one's bad behaviour still acknowledges that said behaviour requires explanation. "Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue" and all that. Still, two decades ago anyone who called himself autistic without having ever consulted a mental health professional would have attracted a lot of funny looks – nowadays it largely passes without comment. (Indeed, the concept of "social awkwardness" no longer exists: every such person is reflexively assumed to be "on the spectrum".) I worry about where this train leads. Will we end up with innumerable tautological Templars running around, who no longer even feel any need to explain away their bad behaviour; who sincerely believe that, as a PoG (person of good), everything they do is good, because they did it?
Anglophone Gen Zers were raised in a discursive environment which tells them they're smart (even if they've never done a smart thing in their lives); which tells them they can be queer (even if they've never done anything queer in their lives and have no desire to); which tells them they're beautiful – even, dare I say, a certified bad bitch (even if no one wants to have sex with them); and, most toxically of all, tells them they're good, even if they've never carried out a single selfless act, maybe provided they parrot a catechism of cookie-cutter woke catchphrases they don't even understand never mind positively endorse. No wonder they go into adulthood with no idea of who they are, what they're good at, what they're bad at, what they want from life, how they come off to other people, what makes them them. They can list off all the identity categories they fall into like a math nerd reciting digits of pi, but they couldn't begin to tell you who they, personally, are. No wonder they report unprecedented rates of mental illness**, sexlessness and social isolation. How can you begin to make friends based on common interests if you don't have any interests (besides rotting in your bed watching Netflix), and neither does anyone around you? What does it even mean to be attracted to another person if you've been consistently told all your life that all bodies are equally attractive? How can you form a relationship with another person if you don't even know what you want out of life? How can you and your partner have shared relationship goals if you don't have any goals of any kind?
*I used to occasionally read an online article which I found so insightful and perceptive that I felt like the author had cracked one of life's cheat codes: this was the first time I can remember it happening. One of the most recent times I had such a feeling was when I read the TLP article linked under "periodic paroxysms" above. The second time was when I read my first post of Scott's, "The Toxoplasma of Rage". And he succeeded in inducing that feeling in me again, and again, and again – and now he mostly sucks. Nothing good lasts forever.
**To bring it back to the subject of the OP, I have no doubt that this is partly an artifact of young people or their parents attempting to game disability frameworks to secure carve-outs and accommodations – an extra hour in an exam for a student diagnosed with anxiety or depression is a low-hanging fruit waiting to be picked. But I don't think that's the whole story: I think there's a real signal of Gen Z being miserable in a way and at a scale that previous generations weren't. Yes it's the phones, but it's not just the phones.
I've never found a study like this about vegans, but one study indicates that 60% of vegetarians had eaten meat in the past day. To be fair, I had a boomer coworker who claimed to be a vegetarian despite eating fish ("I consider fish to be vegetables"). He was a health vegetarian though, so there's presumably a variety of reasons that meat eaters call themselves vegetarians besides virtue signalling.
Is it @thejdizzler who's vegan except for oysters?
Regardless of their motivations, calling yourself vegetarian when you eat meat is simply a misuse of the word, surely?
I do eat oysters and other bivalves m, but I no longer label myself vegan.
Ah, fair enough.
I also wouldn't say it's egregious if someone who eats oysters calls themselves mostly vegan or even vegan for simplicity.
As mollusks are invertebrates it's not even clear they have the ability to perceive experience. So, at least some, of the ethical considerations for veganism are moot. I know, I know, they still have nerves. It's not clear if there is still proper concept of pain or suffering from those structures or if the nerves just allow for reflexive action like a silver maple turning over a damaged leaf. They can also be farmed relatively sustainably, so some of the environmental considerations are also moot. It's probably a lot easier to explain to a normi "I'm mostly vegan" than to say I'm a vegan, but I cleave the phylogenetic tree at Nephrozoa not Animalia.
Pescetarians calling themselves vegetarians is relatively more potentially confusing, though also understandable if they come from a tradition of giving up only carne (in the flesh from that which walks the earth sense) for lent or on Fridays, etc.
Technically speaking the current Catholic definition of meat requires the animal to be both land dwelling and warm blooded. Older Cajuns will think reptile meat is vegetarian, including things like rattlesnake. It makes sense from a culinary definition, if not nutritional.
This rather famously resulted in some awkward loopholes around the capybara. Thankfully, 1800s Catholics had not yet discovered the swamp rabbit.
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