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Notes -
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.
The church also declared beavers to be cold-blooded water dwellers and therefore perfectly suitable to eat during Friday fasts. The rules get weird around the edges.
Are beavers actually cold-blooded?
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