We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

Antifragility applies to emotional health as well. When you guard children against every possible risk – do not let them outside to play or walk home alone – they exaggerate the fear of such situations and fail to develop resilience and coping skills. Stresses are necessary to learn, adapt and grow. Without movement, our muscles and joints grow weak. Without varied life experiences, our minds do not know how to cope with day-to-day stressors. Measures designed to protect children and students are backfiring. Fragility is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think certain ideas are dangerous, or are encouraged to do so by trigger warnings and safe spaces, you will be more anxious in the long run. Intellectual safety not only makes free and open debate impossible, it setting up a generation for more anxiety and depression.

Matthew Lesh

10 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • I have this concept: to fledge. It is (now) well understood in my family, by the doers and the done to, that the overwhelmingly most important responsibility of parents is to fledge their children.

    Fledge: that is to turn one’s children into adults: as verily responsible for the whole of their own lives as their parents were (and are) so responsible (until …).

    Interestingly, when one explains this to a 12-year old, they are shocked and upset. What do you mean, I’ll have to move out?? I live here! This is MY HOME TOO!!!

    However, by the time they move out (early twenties is good), they are delighted to spread the wings that (totally unexpectedly to them, even unknown) seem to have grown. That through its slow process – the impatient, overbearing, selfish or otherwise unthinking parent can so easily break, disrupt or delay.

    As for government: God save us! They know not what they do!!

    [Aside: just hope they (fledged kids that is, not government) remember to come look, and care for us (truly it has been a team effort) as necessary in our dotage!]

    Best regards

  • lucklucky

    That is not the point. It is a manufactured Orwellian pretext to deny voice to others.

    next step Marxists will say : your existence offends me => then they have the logic circuit established for extermination of others.

  • pete

    Mental health, child protection and student welfare now provide a substantial number of jobs.

  • llamas

    @ Pete

    . . . . many of them held by people who would otherwise be borderline-unemployable, posessed as they are of virtually-no productive or supportive skills.

    There. FIFY. Large part of these sectors have been expanded specifically to absorb an increasing number of people who are exquisitely-qualified to produce nothing much, but who have been carefully led into having the ‘right’ politics.

    llater,

    llamas

  • staghounds

    Anxious, depressed people need guidance and protection, don’t they? And who is in the guidance and protection business?

    Al Llamas points out, Orwell showed us that a frightened, helpless population is the goal, not a side effect.

  • lucklucky

    Marxist Hunters use the manipulation of language for Power

    “Radiating rapidly from campuses into the larger polity, the noble defence of an infinitely multiplying list of ‘marginalised groups’ is a predatory movement. Prowling the cultural veldt for givers of ‘offence’ is a blood sport, and its pleasures are those of hunting: spotting your prey, stalking, going in for the kill. Any source of umbrage thus presents an exulting opportunity to score a trophy, stuff it, and hang it on your (Facebook) wall. Mainstream institutions straining to be with-it give credence to this pretence of injury and vulnerability, when no one’s feelings actually have been hurt. So the victory is two-pronged. You take down the sinner, and you humiliate the editors of the Nation by forcing them to participate in an emotional theatre that every-one knows is fake.”

    “I don’t buy into the notion that the ‘snowflake’ generation is all that sensitive, either. Antifa protestors in balaclavas can be quite violent for little specks that melt. ‘Snowflakes’ may have induced institutions to employ the language of fragility, but I think a lot of these kids are tough as old boots.

    For verification, check out the YouTube video from last summer of a liberal biology professor at Evergreen State College in Washington being shouted down and physically hounded by a crowd of students crazed with virtue over a difference of opinion regarding the university’s race-related Day of Absence (‘Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Bret Weinstein has got to go!’). Behold, a pack of hyenas. Campus police told Weinstein they couldn’t guarantee his safety on campus.”

    Despite youth’s reputed belief in the importance of being earnest, the whole ID politics movement is emotionally disingenuous. When during that Evergreen foofaraw a rabid convocation of students cowed the college president into lowering his arms at the podium because they found his hand gestures ‘threatening’, those students didn’t feel jeopardised; they were dominating and emasculating a man supposedly in authority. The students cowering in ‘safe spaces’ don’t feel endangered; they’re claiming territory. In protecting the faux-helpless from noxious opinions via no-platforming, they’re exercising power. The experience of exercising power isn’t scary, except on the receiving end; it’s supremely gratifying. These people aren’t frightened. They want you to be frightened of them. And we’re not talking ‘microaggression’. PC police often prefer macroaggression, the kind that can get people sacked.

    https://spectator.us/2018/08/millennials-arent-taking-offence-theyre-hunting-for-victims/

  • Mr Ed

    I really must try to keep up with the scope of ‘mental health’. I keep seeing articles, e.g. on the BBC website, with someone, usually young, recounting their mental health ‘issues’. On reading the article, I am not able to discern any medical issues, only narcissism and whingeing self-pity.

  • lucklucky

    Self pity with propose to get more power, because self pity is socially rewarded in the context of the Marxist media narrative of the oppressor groups vs victim group. If you are part of the victim group or show to be defending a victim group your social status and concomitant power increases.

  • Paul Marks

    Utah (where traditional families are stronger than in most places – thanks to the influence of the LDS Church) has passed a “Free Range Parenting” Law protecting families from this over protective madness (or worse than madness – if the above commenters are correct and this a DELIBERATE effort by the left to keep children from ever growing up.

    It may seem odd to pass a law to protect parents from “the law” (from being reported to the authorities for such things as allowing their children to walk about without “supervision”), but it is sometimes necessary to pick up a weapon in order to fight someone who is attacking with a weapon.

    The “Sword of State” has two edges (not just one) – as they left may find out.

  • Julie near Chicago

    Paul, in that case I say “Good for Utah!” and thank you for bringing it to our attention. (Assuming the law is well drafted, of course.)

    It is absolutely pathetic and disgraceful that we should come to the point of feeling the need of such a statute law!

    .

    lucklucky, thanks very much for your comment above on September 3, 2018 at 10:19 pm. This particular analysis rings true to me.

    (I would observe that a lot of people tend to go along with whatever line or agenda seems to be the “done thing” within their normal circles, but sometimes this is really a sort of half-hearted acceptance that disappears as they manage to clarify for themselves what they actually believe is important vs. what is just silly — or boring … or downright wrong.)

    The above observed merely for the record. I repeat: Your (and the Spectator’s) analysis of the screechers and the ones who “act out” I find compelling.