OPINION:
This election brought further evidence of society’s drift to a crybaby culture. For higher education, democracy means blubbering or throwing a hissy fit if you lose.
Academia turned to group therapy to cope with President-elect Donald Trump’s victory. Georgetown University provided students with a “self-care suite” stocked with milk and cookies and coloring books. Harvard canceled classes for those traumatized by democracy. The University of Oregon offered a petting zoo for emotional support.
Students at the University of Michigan School of Social Work were invited to participate in an “empowering therapy workshop” to “process emotions stirred up by the election season.”
Where were the workshops to help process the emotions stirred up by Oct. 7, 2023, the greatest one-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust? But then, what’s rape, torture and murder compared to losing an election?
It didn’t start with the 2024 election.
Last year, Boston University Law School offered therapy after three Supreme Court decisions that went against liberal orthodoxy. Would you want a lawyer who needed therapy when he lost? (“Your honor, can we have a brief recess so I can process my emotions?”)
A Yale University psychiatrist is urging supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris not to attend holiday gatherings with family members who voted for Mr. Trump and to tell them why they’re being shunned. “I think you should very much be entitled to do so, and I think it may be essential to your mental health,” said Dr. Amanda Calhoun — Sigmund Freud meets Cruella de Vil.
Imagine the anguish caused by sharing cranberry sauce with relatives who disagree with you.
Die-hard feminists are vowing to refrain from sex while Mr. Trump is in office. This elicited an audible sigh of relief in some quarters.
Increasingly, we live in a society where emotions are exalted and reason is rejected. I wail, therefore I am.
In New York, there is a pop-up called Sob Parlor where customers can pay $20 for 30 minutes in a private room to cry themselves a river.
Political demonstrations often resemble temper tantrums. Because we’re selling arms to Israel, protesters feel justified in defacing statues and blocking traffic.
Keith Hayward, a criminologist at the University of Copenhagen, is the author of “Infantilised: How Our Culture Killed Adulthood.”
Mr. Hayward notes that the “markers of adulthood” — leaving home, marrying, having children — are rapidly declining. In the United States, 45% of young adults (18 to 30 years of age) live with their parents, the highest percentage since the Depression.
Cinema celebrates prolonged adolescence. In “Arthur,” Dudley Moore’s man-child wandered around in an alcoholic haze, wearing a top hat in the bathtub and playing with model trains. The 1981 movie won three Academy Awards.
Global warming whiner Greta Thunberg operates on high-octane histrionics. The Swedish pest was 16 when she gave her “you have stolen my dreams” speech at the United Nations. She knew nothing about climate change other than what she got from popular media.
Her fame was based on her age and ability to emote. Her latest cause is ending the war in Gaza, about which she is equally clueless.
Our culture used to honor maturity, hard work and sacrifice. We pay homage to this on Memorial Day. The average age of the soldiers who braved withering fire to wade ashore on Omaha Beach was 22.
A society that celebrates heroism, loyalty and achievement gets it. One that glorifies emotional outbursts and needs cuddly critters to handle distress over losing an election, gets a culture of Greta Thunbergs coached by an army of Dr. Amanda Calhouns.
There’s a wonderful parody on the internet called “Millennial Job Interview” where a young woman tells an interviewer that she couldn’t possibly come to work before 10:45 a.m., after she’s had her venti soy latte, and needs mental health days off to deal with stress. When she’s rejected, she sniffs, “I’ve been here a whole five minutes and no one has validated me.”
For conservatives, it’s reassuring to know that the left is dominated by emotional cripples who are easily defeated. On the other hand, sob parlors, self-care suites and comfort animals do not bode well for a nation’s future.
After Pearl Harbor, Japanese Admiral Yamamoto said, “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.”
After the next Pearl Harbor, a future adversary may say: “We have awakened a bawling brat. Get out the milk and cookies.”
• Don Feder is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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