I want to critique an attitude that I see in modern American culture today that I'll call "extreme progressivism," or EP for short. I use this label because I see this attitude as an exaggerated and overly-extreme version of a more moderate "progressivism." I think very highly of moderate progressivism and believe it calls our attention to some very important and central truths. EP takes those truths and distorts them through an extremist lens, which produces some toxic attitudes and practices. (I should also note that I'm thinking of "progressivism" in this article not so much in terms of specific political positions but as a broader socio-cultural outlook.)
I think we see the same dynamic among American "conservatives." There is a moderate conservatism, and an extreme form of conservatism - which, like extreme progressivism, has some highly toxic and dangerous components. I don't feel at the moment I have too much to add to the critiques that are already out there with regard to extreme conservatism. I would echo much in those critiques (lack of adequate concern for the poor and for solving systemic social problems, lack of empathy for people who aren't living "traditional" lifestyles, an obsessive focus on one particular person who doesn't at all deserve that focus, etc.). But I do feel that I have some things worth saying about EP at this time, so I am going to focus my attention there for now.
I will give my critique first. But don't forget to look at the second part of the article where I balance my criticisms and promote many of the good ideas of progressivism that EP exaggerates and distorts.
Also, although I talk about the ideas and attitudes of "those who follow EP," I should note that I don't think this is some kind of organized movement or club. In our culture, we find a spectrum of attitudes and ideas, and among them we find some that, more or less, take progressivism to the sorts of extremes I'm concerned about. I'm taking the more extreme elements of that spectrum and lumping them together here and giving them a label so that it is easier to talk about them, but I don't mean to imply that there are "card-carrying" EPers who have officially signed on to everything I am going to talk about as a kind of explicit socio-cultural platform. I'm describing tendencies on the extreme side of the spectrum.
Three Core Characteristics of EP
In trying to be systematic and organized in my description of EP, I have landed on three core, defining characteristics which I think capture a great deal of this outlook, if not all of it. These three characteristics are these: 1. Self-care as the highest and most central value. 2. The absolutizing of one's own self-identification and personal feelings so that these are removed beyond any questioning. 3. A kind of magnifying lens whereby everything is blown up to be seen in more extreme terms than reality warrants. All three of these tend to work together to create the unique EP attitude and outlook that is then applied to many different areas of personal life and culture. Let me unpack each of these three characteristics just a bit more before we go on:
1. In the EP outlook, self-care is seen as the highest principle. Everything else is judged by how it affects one's self-care. If something is perceived to conflict with my self-care, I am justified in abandoning it, escaping from it, rejecting it, etc., no matter what. This trumps any other values or responsibilities. If my job interferes with my self-care, I have a right to quit. If my spouse interferes with my self-care, I have a right to separation and divorce. If family members interfere with my self-care, I have a right to cut off ties. If my church interferes with my self-care, I have a right to leave it. And so on.
2. In the EP view, I have an absolute right to define myself, and nobody and nothing can challenge my self-identification. Because I am me, I have an absolutely privileged and unassailable position in defining anything that has to do with myself. Going along with this, there is an absolutizing of personal feelings. If I feel a certain way, just in general or about something in particular, those feelings must be accepted as valid and correct and cannot be challenged, criticized, disputed, or questioned in any way. No one gets to examine my feelings and question whether or not they are proportionate to or consistent with reality. My feelings must unquestioningly be accepted and treated as sacred, and anything they demand must be unquestioningly granted. Any failure to unconditionally "validate" all of my feelings is an affront to my fundamental dignity as a person and is an act of bigotry and hate. It is an attack on my "self-care" (see #1 above), and so anything I feel I need to do to protect my self-identity and my feelings - removing myself from a conversation, cutting off ties of friends and family, leaving a job, etc. - is considered as fully justified and warranted without regard to any other potential ties or responsibilities that might be seen to ordinarily exist.
3. The EP outlook brings along with it a kind of lens that tends to view everything in extreme terms, often greatly disproportionate to a rational and realistic appraisal of reality. Relatively minor offenses are seen as huge attacks. Things that a more balanced outlook might see as somewhat frustrating, difficult, or saddening are seen as intolerable, "toxic," and the cause of serious depression and trauma. Things that are indeed serious but tolerable are seen as intolerable. And so on. When this extremist lens is combined with #1 and #2 above, we have a pretty holistic depiction of the general EP attitude towards life.
Problematic Aspects of EP Culture
Let's look at some more specific ways this general EP outlook often manifests itself:
1. Justification of a lack of critical thinking. Because personal identity and feelings are seen as absolute and unquestionable, there is a built-in resistance to critical thinking about such matters. If I feel strongly about something (and the extremist lens guarantees that almost all feelings will be strong ones) and I am uncomfortable having those feelings questioned, I am justified in refusing to think critically about those feelings, and I am justified in refusing to listen to others who might attempt to help me think critically. The EP mentality insulates people against critical thinking. It urges them to accept their feelings and beliefs as absolute and unquestionable, to reject any kind of questioning or challenge as toxic, traumatizing, and intolerable. It leads people to cut off ties with those who will not unquestioningly "validate" them and to insulate themselves within echo chambers full of "allies" who will give them such unquestioning affirmation.
This is especially the case when the feelings and claims are coming from people whom EP culture designates as a special class of people who deserve special protection due to a history of victimization. With such people, the claim is that those who have not had the same "lived experience" as they have had simply have no basis to have any opinion that might challenge anything such people might say. We must defer to such accounts unquestioningly and absolutely. We must treat them as infallible oracles always to be accepted at face value and never doubted. And we must listen so much that we ourselves stop talking altogether, accepting that, because we have never had such-and-such an experience or been in such-and-such a situation, we can never have anything worthwhile to think or say about such situations or experiences or any topics related to them. If I've never been a racial minority, then any idea I might have, or anything I might have to say, about racial issues is completely worthless. I need to just shut my mouth, sit down, listen to racial minorities talk, and simply accept without question everything they say. If I have never been a transgender person, I must simply accept whatever ideas about this subject I hear from transgender people without question, never offering any ideas myself. I must turn off all my critical judgment and simply accept whatever I am told.
I have been informed by EP transgender people that I am required to see them exactly as they see themselves, to accept their account of their gender without question. If their ideas about themselves and their gender have philosophical foundations the merits of which I can examine, or if I happen to have other philosophical views and arguments that might have a bearing on the subject, that is irrelevant. My views, my ideas, my arguments are worthless and it is an affront for me even to bring them up or think them, simply because I myself am not transgender. According to EP culture, if I am not black, I can have nothing to say about questions of justice surrounding the police and racial issues, no matter how much I've listened to the "lived experiences" of black people and no matter the potential merit of my thoughts and ideas.
I've always held that what matters is not who makes an argument, but whether that argument holds up objectively to scrutiny or not. Is it a good argument? Does the evidence back it up? Can it adequately respond to objections? I don't care if it's a PhD in Philosophy making the argument or my local garbage man--the argument is to be treated the same. But that's not the EP way. The EP way seems to be exactly the reverse. All that matters is who makes the argument. If the idea or argument comes from the right group of people, then it's a good one. If it comes from the wrong group of people, then it's worthless. We see this in words like "man-splaining" or "straight-spaining." If I try to think about something, or talk or argue about something, that pertains to the identity, experience, etc., of women, my ideas are worthless, dismissed as nothing but "man-splaining." If I try to have a conversation about issues related to homosexuality, because I am not gay or lesbian my ideas are dismissed without consideration as "straight-splaining." (Of course, there is such a thing as a vice of "X-splaining"--when someone judges too quickly or firmly outside of what they really know about, not listening to the perspectives of those closer to the situation. But EP culture tends to lump all attempts to converse or make an argument from anyone "not in the group" into the category of "X-splaining.")
But then, it must be pointed out that EP people tend to be inconsistent in the application of their own principles. We must always listen unquestioningly to the "lived experiences" of racial minorities, gays, lesbians, transgender people, etc.--that is, unless someone in that category has something to say that contradicts the EP party line. If a black man, or a woman, or a gay man, etc., criticizes the EP point of view, or contradicts the agreed-upon ideas of EP culture, or dares to transgress the boundaries of EP orthodoxy, that person's voice will be immediately and unhesitatingly rejected--no matter their minority or "victimhood" affiliation. (Consider John McWhorter, for example.) Thus we see that the emphasis on bowing with absolute submission to "lived experience" tends, in practice, to be a way of insulating EP ideas from having to deal with any challenge or scrutiny, while other ideas are systematically suppressed as "out of order." It's a way of squelching dialogue in order to monopolize the conversation with only one point of view. (See also #11 below.)
Or take the frequent demand that we must accept a transgendered person's view of themselves without question simply because we are not them. I am me, so the story goes, and so I get to define my own identity, and everyone else has no say in this at all but must simply accept whatever I say about myself. But do they want to apply this principle consistently? Do they really believe it in principle? No. If I go up to an atheist and say, "I believe that the core of my identity as a person is that I am made in the image of God. So, since I am me, you have to believe that about me. I don't care what your beliefs are, mine trump yours because I'm me and you're you. It is not acceptable for you to hold any other opinion or disagree with me at all on this point, and I will take personal offense if you do." Who would think this a rational place to draw the line in intelligent, civil conversation in a pluralistic society? Of course an atheist is not going to agree that I am made in the image of God, because they don't believe in God. Just because I'm me, I don't get to unilaterally and infallibly define objective reality about myself in so fundamental a matter. If I believe I'm made in the image of God, I've got to argue for the beliefs that underpin that claim, and I have to seriously consider the alternative arguments of atheists. I can't play identity politics to win the debate. There has to be an evaluation on the merits of the case. It doesn't matter who I am or who other people are. Everyone has an equal right to have an opinion about my fundamental nature. My views don't get to trump everyone else's simply on the grounds that I am me and they are not.
Speaking of "trump," I made the same point with a different example once in another conversation. I'll paste here what I said there. This was in the summer of 2020, when Donald Trump was still president. "Imagine that President Trump comes up to me and says, 'I would like you, from now on, to refer to me as President Wonderful and Good. That’s how I choose to identify myself, and I would ask that you respect my identity. If you respect my identity, you will refer to me as I want you to refer to me.' I am probably going to say, 'No, Mr. President, with all due respect (and the word "due" is not just decoration here), I am not going to refer to you as President Wonderful and Good, because, in fact, I do not think that this accurately describes you. If I use that language, I will be communicating a message I believe to be false.' 'But it’s my identity!' replies the president. 'Since it’s my identity, I get to decide how I’m referred to! To be blunt, your beliefs don’t have anything to say about that! If you respect me, you’ll refer to me as I wish to be referred to.' 'Mr. President,' I will probably reply, 'it’s not the case that my beliefs have nothing to say about how I refer to you. Just because we are dealing with your personal identity and view of yourself, that doesn’t imply you have an absolute right to dictate to the world how you should be viewed. Your assertions or claims about yourself do not alter objective reality, and we believe that the objective reality is that you are not aptly described as a Wonderful and Good president. If we would be true to our own beliefs and consciences, we cannot sanction communicating such a false message about you with our language. It is not only your beliefs about yourself that are relevant here. Objective reality is more important, and our beliefs about reality are a crucial factor in how we ought to talk. Your absolute claim that you alone get to dictate speech for everyone on this matter is incorrect and groundless.'"
(Before we leave the "President Trump" example, I'll also point out that, if we listen to EP people talk about Donald Trump, it doesn't seem like it matters much to them whether they themselves have ever been President of the United States before. They feel free to criticize Trump even though they themselves have never had the "lived experience" of being the president. What happened to "you can't talk unless you're in the group"? Are they engaging in "non-president-splaining"? I, too, am no fan of former President Trump. Far from it. And I do not feel a need to have been personally President of the United States in order to be qualified to be critical of someone in that position.)
So, again, EP culture applies its principles selectively. The only time someone gets to unilaterally and absolutely dictate to others how they are to be viewed based on their "lived experience" and personal identity is when what they want others to believe and accept is something EP culture agrees with and cares about. Otherwise, EP culture is happy to throw a person's "lived experience" and personal identity under the bus. If your personal feelings conflict with my EP personal feelings, my feelings win and yours lose because mine are absolute and yours are just a manifestation of your hateful toxicity.
2. Severing of social and family ties. EP culture tends towards the breakdown of families and social groups in general. Whenever there is a family member or a friend who does not unquestioningly validate my own sense of personal identity or my feelings, I am justified - it's almost seen as a duty - in cutting myself off from such people. Parents will reject children; children will reject parents; spouses will reject spouses; people will reject members of their extended family; friends will reject friends; etc. Nothing is seen as more important than self-care, and self-care involves protecting my personal sense of identity and my feelings from any toxic attack, and any challenge or questioning or refusal to unconditionally endorse is seen as a toxic attack because of the extremist lens, thus justifying breaking even the closes and strongest ties between family and friends.
3. Rejection of duties and responsibilities. The absolutizing of self-care and personal feelings and identity also leads to a sense of entitlement against personal responsibilities. If I have a commitment to a child, a parent, a spouse, or anyone else, that commitment is considered nullified if I perceive it as coming into conflict with my self-care. And because of the extremist lens, just about any situation that produces a sense of discomfort or unpleasantness is seen as in conflict with basic self-care. Marriage is an especially problematic concept for the EP mentality, for, as traditionally conceived - a permanent relationship between a man and a woman for better and for worse, etc. - a marriage commitment involves an attitude nearly opposite to that of EP. Marriage requires a sacrificial attitude and a willingness to endure difficult and uncomfortable aspects of a relationship in order to maintain a commitment over time. A life-long commitment between spouses is no easy matter, to put it very mildly. If I had to pick an institution that is just about as opposite to the EP mentality as it is possible to get, I might pick Catholic sacramental marriage. An unconditional, indissoluble, life-long commitment to be life-companion to another person is about as diametrically opposed to the EP absolutization and centralization of self-care as it is possible to get. And the tolerance and compromise and sacrifice that are necessary to maintain such a commitment are completely incompatible with an extremist attitude that sees nearly every discomfort as intolerable toxicity. (For a dramatic example of this phenomenon of self-care trumping personal responsibilities, particularly with regard to marriage, see this article. And see here and here for some responses to it.)
Another example of an institution that chafes against EP mentality is church membership. The classical Christian idea that Christ's followers are to be formal members of a visible church which requires obedience and respect for shepherd-leaders is naturally seen as intrinsically abusive from an EP point of view, for it conflicts with my absolute ownership over my own life and absolute right to define myself and do whatever I want to do. I talked to someone recently (a Catholic, moreover) who seemed utterly shocked by the idea that a person might actually have a moral requirement to attend church because this is what God wants us to do. They saw the very idea as conflicting with their free will, by which they understood an absolute right to decide for themselves what they will and will not do based on their own personal feelings.
4. Hyper-pessimism and negativity. The EP extremist lens leads those influenced by this mentality to be extremely pessimistic and negative in an unbalanced way. Imperfections are spotted everywhere, in all social institutions, relationships, families, etc., and such imperfections are perceived as intolerably toxic. Thus, every institution is full of systematic injustice, every family is full of abuse, every relationship is toxic. When one talks with a person absorbed by a EP mentality, one is struck by the extreme negativity. The more one is immersed in this mentality, the less one seems able to see the positives in just about anything in life, whereas negatives are seen everywhere and constantly. One is always dissatisfied, never content. The good side of situations, institutions, and persons is constantly subsumed by the negativities.
I mentioned church membership earlier. One place where this extreme negativity manifests itself among Christians is in the increasing inability to be satisfied with a church home. People influenced by this mentality tend to become unable to be satisfied in any local church. They leave their local churches or parishes in search of something non-toxic, non-abusive, but never seem able to find it because their extremist lens gives them unrealistic expectations about human relationships and institutions and all imperfections are construed as intolerable abuses and as "traumatizing."
Related to this, EP culture's extremism, and the kind of frantic near-paranoia it often leads to (see #9 below), also manifests itself in a kind of deadly, imbalanced seriousness about everything. EP culture lacks a sense of humor. Sure, there are serious problems in the world, but a balanced attitude ought to cultivate a kind of fundamental joy that can manifest itself to some degree in light-heartedness and good humor. I'm not saying we should be callously frivolous and not take serious things seriously. But we (especially Christians) should have a fundamental positivity in our outlook, even when we are depressed or downcast, for we know that good wins in the end. We should try to cultivate to a reasonable degree a cheerful spirit that is able to be flexible, to not hold on to old wounds or grudges, that can take some offense and insult without it sending us into some kind of rage or deep depression. We need to lighten up to some degree (without trivializing what is truly serious). EP culture, on the other hand, has a kind of perpetual, monomaniacal, obsessive, and extreme focus on worrying about harm that tends to produce an overly-thin skin and seems to keep EP people in a constant state of fear, anger, and depression. One is always traumatized about one thing or another (or several things at once). Talk about something that is bad for mental health! "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones" (Proverbs 17:22).
This sometimes also manifests itself in a failure to take a joke. For example, in the old 60s TV show Get Smart, there is an episode involving a Chinese villain called the Claw, but, due to the classic difficulty of some people from Asian societies to pronounce Ls and Rs correctly and distinctly, he is constantly misunderstood as calling himself "the Craw." This seems to me to be nothing but a harmless joke. It's just a plain, empirical fact that some Asians have this difficulty with English, and the show is just doing some good-natured ribbing with this fact. The proper response to this is simply to appreciate the joke and move on. But one cannot imagine this kind of joke surviving in a television show today, because our EP police would have a fit, accusing the show of intolerable racism. When one cannot make a proper distinction between such a good-natured joke and real, serious racism, one has a balance problem. It has become almost cliche these days to talk about the "political correctness police" constantly and obsessively monitoring everyone and everything. EP tends to be excessively "puritanical" in the worst stereotypical sense of that word (and one that is unfair to actual historical Puritans, by the way).
(For some interesting and thought-provoking comments on how such good-natured light-heartedness and humor such as exhibited in the Get Smart episode can actually sometimes be a sign of respect and empathy in human relationships--and thus the opposite of the hatred that is manifest in real racism--see this clip, especially from about 4:40 on, from philosopher Slavoj Žižek. I should add that I have not researched specifically the background of this Get Smart episode, so I can't say that there was not some bigger issue there that was more problematic. But, at least looking at the episode by itself, there is nothing there to indicate the presence of anything other than good-natured ribbing.)
To bring out further the absurd extremism of EP's reaction to such harmless jokes and good-natured humor, it might be helpful to make a contrast. EP culture gets "puritanical" when it comes to groups that have gained a kind of "victim status" among EP people, but there are other people groups who don't get this status and so, from the EP point of view, seem to be immune to the need for the protection of "political correctness." For example, EP culture doesn't seem to have the slightest problem with the idea of making fun of Scotsmen, Catholics, Brits, Germans, or several other groups. The State Farm insurance company has recently had on a series of commercials featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is attempting to recite the classic State Farm tagline - "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there" - but can't say it right because his Austrian accent causes him to say "neigh-buh" instead of "neighbor.". I think the commercials are funny, and, so far as I know, everyone else seems fine with them as well. Does anybody think that State Farm is practicing and advocating harmful racism against Austrians? Does anybody think the commercials are treating Austrians with less dignity than they deserve? Where are the political correctness police warning us that such jokes are despicable examples of racial prejudice and that we should boycott State Farm, refusing to be a part of such ugly examples of hatred? Can you imagine what would have happened if State Farm had made fun of a Mexican accent or an African American accent? But Austrians, it would seem, are fair game. But I think the State Farm commercials help us to see the attitude that we should have and that has been lost to us by EP paranoia in other areas. Everyone can see with crystal clarity that joking about the Austrian or German inability to say "neighbor" "correctly" is not a sign of racial hatred but rather of affectionate, good-natured ribbing. We have no problem telling the difference here, but EP culture has clouded our judgment when it comes to groups that have "victim status." (Yes, of course I recognise that some people are more vulnerable to racial hatred and prejudice than others in certain contexts. And yes, I agree that that is a factor that has to be seriously considered as we evaluate how we should protect people from such hatred. But this observation should not create in us such an extreme reaction that we can no longer recognize what would otherwise be, to a great extent, an obvious distinction between racial hatred and good-natured ribbing.)
5. Depression, trauma, victimhood. Going along with #4, EP persons, not surprisingly, tend towards more and more extreme depression. The extremist lens causes them to see themselves as constantly traumatized victims in just about every situation in their lives in one way or another. They tend to develop a very thin skin and are easily intimidated, offended, hurt, and made depressed. Life has difficulties and can be very hard and painful. EP mentality has the effect of reducing people's ability to cope with these ordinary aspects of life. Difficulties and challenges in life make them feel extremely depressed and traumatized. They respond to this by feeling justified in withdrawing from difficult circumstances and challenging responsibilities and relationships and from facing deeply and thoroughly the bases of their problems, which tends then to increase their depression. It also leads to #6.
6. Absolutizing, over-objectifying, and over-reliance on therapy and drugs. In modern American culture, there is, I believe, what I call an over-objectifying - or, if you will, an over-medicalizing - of more subjective psychology and therapy. Every personality trait, every tendency, every psychological condition or feeling, must be diagnosed after the pattern of the medical discipline. I can't just be depressed; I must have depression. I can't just be an anxious person; I must have an anxiety disorder. I can't just be person who naturally has trouble sitting still and paying attention to things; I have to have ADHD or some other kind of attention-deficit disorder. (I am not saying that these are not legitimate diagnosable conditions, or that there are not other such conditions, but only that there is a tendency in our culture to overdiagnose and over-medicalize psychological and personality conditions to a significant degree. See later in this article for more balancing comments on this and all the other criticisms I am making in the first part of this article.) The danger of having an overly-diagnostic or overly-medicalized view of personality or psychological tendencies is that one then over-medicalizes how one responds to them. Whereas, in a more balanced view, one might try to deal with one's depression by figuring out the root causes of it and dealing with them, or trying to figure out how to move forward even when feeling sad, etc., one responds to having depression by going to therapy and possibly receiving medication. And therapy is treated with far more objectivity than it deserves. It is over-medicalized. One goes to therapy to treat depression or anxiety much like one would go to a doctor to repair a broken bone or remove a hernia. A much more subjective condition, which, in many cases, is much better dealt with by one taking responsibility to search for root causes, learning to embrace responsibilities in difficult circumstances, learning to live with the difficulties of reality and cope with them, etc., is instead treated like a medical condition that has to be "fixed" in some kind of objective matter by going to an expert who, because they've been trained like a medical professional, can "cure" me. Hence the absurd rise in the amount and degree of therapy received in modern America. This over-medicalization of psychology and of therapy tends to dull people's sense of the need to take personal responsibility for their problems. I don't need to work through my issues, question my assumptions, try to process my thoughts, etc. I need to go to a therapist and get fixed. Trust is put in the therapist akin to the trust put in a medical doctor. Such trust makes sense in the medical field, where we are dealing with more objective realities (although even here, one must not put absolute trust in a doctor in every situation). A hernia is an objective thing. I cannot perform surgery on myself to fix it. A surgeon is trained to do that. So I go to a surgeon to get my hernia removed. But psychological issues like depression and anxiety involve far more subjective components that relate to personal responsibility, worldview-beliefs, etc. In this kind of area, the kind of expertise associated with having letters after one's name does not have the same level of value or call for the same kind of implicit trust. Therapists have worldview-beliefs. How one deals with depression will be different depending on one's worldview. How one should cope with one's difficult feelings and circumstances in life is a matter of theoretical and practical wisdom, requiring that one learn the art and skill of critical thinking and self-reflection. Here we need disciplines like philosophy, theology, and ethics. To bypass all of this and go to a therapist to get oneself fixed because the therapist is licensed to be a therapist (as if that gives them the same qualification to solve one's psychological or existential problems that a doctor has to repair a broken bone) is to miss the crucial distinction between more objective medicine and psychology. People influenced by EP ideology have a natural affinity to this way of thinking because they are constantly seeing themselves as broken, traumatized, victimized individuals in need of psychological repair. (But note, again, that I am not saying that there aren't psychological issues that are genuine medical problems and require a more medical approach to treatment, including by means of drugs. I don't deny that this is the case, but I think we jump to this category too quickly at times and end up denying or bypassing other aspects of personality and psychological conditions and other important means of managing and dealing with them.)
This whole area of the over-medicalization of psychology and therapy is a large and complex one that requires a fuller treatment. For starters, I recommend this article to get one thinking. I'm looking forward to the forthcoming book mentioned in the article as well, as I suspect it will shed a great deal of much-needed light on this issue. Here and here are a couple more interesting articles. I also came across another article recently which discusses the tendency of modern therapy culture to skip over self-awareness and critical thinking and go straight to implicit trust in a therapy-expert to fix our problems; the article suggested that perhaps a kind of "philosophical counseling" might be a good supplement to our use of therapy. A paragraph from towards the beginning of this article calls attention to this point:
An Israeli man now in his mid-thirties, David felt conflicted about other life issues. Did he want kids? How much should he prioritize making money? In his twenties, he’d tried psychotherapy several times; he would see a therapist for a few months, grow frustrated, stop, then repeat the cycle. He developed a theory. The therapists he saw wanted to help him become better adjusted given his current world view—but perhaps his world view was wrong. He wanted to examine how defensible his values were in the first place.
When we take this over-medicalization of "therapy" and combine it with EP culture's characteristic of absolutizing personal self-identification and feelings as well as the absolutization of self-care, we have a "toxic" mix in which, instead of helping people to think better about the root causes of their problems and getting them to ask critical questions about their own ideas and assumptions, the therapist often simply reinforces whatever feelings or biases or attitudes one has chosen to embrace (well, at least as long as those feelings or biases are EP enough!) and helps to insulate these feelings and attitudes even further from critical examination, often also blaming the person's problems on their relationships with others who won't uncritically "validate" everything they want to think, thus encouraging them to cut ties, avoid challenging alternative opinions, isolate themselves in echo-chambers, etc.
Before I leave the topic of over-medicalization, I have to mention the current fad - rooted in a combination of this over-medicalized point of view with the absolutizing of "personal identity" - of taking extreme action with regard to minors who, for various reasons, come to identify as transgender. If a child or a teenager comes to identify with the opposite gender, that identity must be treated as sacred and unquestionable. We must accept it and give the child whatever they want. If they want puberty-blockers and hormones, we should give them to them. If they want to slice off their genitals or breasts, we should do it. We can't tell them that they are too young to make these decisions or try to help them critically evaluate their own views of themselves. We can't ask deeper questions about how they have come to their conclusions about themselves. We must simply uncritically validate whatever they say and give them whatever they want immediately. If we don't, they are justified in labeling us toxic abusers and cutting off all ties with us for the sake of their self-care and mental health.
7. Depression and suicide. It is easy to see how the EP mentality, and its tendency to exacerbate depression, is likely to lead to a greater threat of suicide. Why is there such an incredible increase in psychological and mental health problems, depression, and suicide among younger people? Could it have something to do with the pervasiveness of EP thinking among younger generations?
One ghastly twist the EP movement has come up with is the weaponization of suicide. With the absolutizing of self-care and personal identity and feelings combined with the extremist lens comes an inability of people to cope with not being allowed to see themselves and be seen by others exactly the way they want and to be allowed to do whatever they want to do to go along with their own self-identity and feelings. We've talked about this above. We see it, for example, in the transgender movement. It is easy to see, then, how a person, including a minor, who has to deal with people and institutions that won't unquestioningly validate their sense of gender identity, will tend towards experiencing depression due to a sense of being traumatized. And this is exacerbated by EP people constantly telling such people that their depression puts them in danger of being suicidal. But instead of recognizing EP culture itself as at least one major culprit in this problem, the EP movement attempts to weaponize this fear of suicide against those who have a problem unquestioningly validating every aspect of a person's self-identity. So, for example, if a parent is hesitant about letting their fourteen-year-old son receive puberty-blockers and opposite-sex hormones, EP therapists and activists (and the EP minors themselves oftentimes) will use the fear and threat of suicide to bully the parent into rubber-stamping whatever the minor wants to do. "What do you want more? A live girl or a dead boy? If you doubt aspects of transgenderist ideology or fail to affirm whatever your child thinks or claims about themself or refrain from endorsing anything they want to do to make their body match their perceived gender identity, you will be responsible for their suicide. So you'd better get in line!"
8. Witch-hunt mentality. The EP extremist lens and obsession with self-care tends often to lead to a kind of near-paranoia that one is constantly being victimized by some kind of toxic person, abuser, or, to use another fad word arising at least partly out of EP culture, "narcissist." I recently got an Instragram account, and one thing that has struck me is how many examples run across my feed regularly of posts warning people to watch out for "narcissists" and abusers. "10 signs he's a narcissist." "5 red flags to let you know you're being groomed by a narcissist." "7 signs that you're in an emotionally-abusive relationship." Etc. It is evident that lots of people, feeling they might be being victimized in some way, are going to the internet in a search for tests they can apply to label various persons as "toxic" or "abusers" or "narcissists." When one looks at some of these internet tests, one finds they often tend to be highly subjective, easily directed towards anybody one has already pegged as being suspect as an abuser, narcissist, etc. Any behavior I don't like, or I find uncomfortable, or annoying, or difficult, or problematic, or distressing, is a sign that a person is a toxic narcissistic abuser, etc. Especially when combined with the EP extremist lens, there is a recipe here for a kind of witch-hunt mentality. My absolutized and extremized sense of personal feelings and identity and self-care makes me feel that I am being victimized by people around me. I look on the internet for validation that I am indeed a victim. I find internet tests which, to varying degrees, I take to reflect the wisdom of "expert therapists" and therefore which I tend to view as almost a kind of objective divine oracle to be implicitly trusted. I apply my feelings to these subjective tests which, not surprisingly, confirm my suspicions that, yes, such-and-such-a-person is indeed an abuser, a narcissist, or whatever. And then I react with extremism to this person, accusing them of abuse, cutting off ties, severing relationships, reneging on responsibilities, etc., all fully justified by the needs of my own mental health and self-care.
See here and here for a couple of articles talking about the overuse of terms and ideas like "abuse," "trauma," etc., in modern culture. One concept I have come across recently is "concept creep." I hadn't heard this term before about a month or two ago, but it is something that has been scientifically studied. Basically, the idea is that a culture can come to enlarge the meanings of certain words/concepts, with the result that lines are blurred between more or less extreme actions. I've noticed this characteristic of modern American culture for some time. One of the earliest examples I remember of noticing this was maybe around 2011. I was having a conversation with a friend greatly influenced by what I would now call EP views. We were talking about the concept of rape. In the course of the conversation, his concept of rape turned out to be so expansive that, in his view, if a woman is offered any benefit for sex that she wouldn't have without it (even something as minimal as an ice cream cone), this is an example of rape. I was mystified by this, and I told him that, if we define "rape" that broadly, the word has basically lost its original meaning and importance. (I'm not saying, of course, just to be clear, that it is a good thing to threaten anyone for sex, even with something as minor as the withholding of an ice cream cone, but I think it's absurd and harmful to call such an action "rape"). Anyway, I have observed that this kind of concept creep is a typical characteristic of EP culture. Here is an article on concept creep. It is a fascinating phenomenon, and extremely harmful in my opinion. Here is a short snippet from the article, talking about one form of the "motivated" variety of concept creep, which gives just a taste of the fascinating observations made in the article's analysis:
Another form of motivated concept creep, identified recently by Sunstein (2018), involves deliberately enlarging a concept so as to import the existing (negative) social or legal responses from its original narrower meaning into the new conceptual territory. This re-drawing of conceptual boundaries features in Sunstein’s (2018) account of “opprobrium entrepreneurs”, who seek to extend the opprobrium associated with an existing concept (e.g., bullying, prejudice) to the specific cases that they wish to condemn. Even if such extensions do not directly give rise to institutional remedies that apply to the narrower meaning, the stigma attached to the term may publicly tarnish the perpetrator. According to Sunstein (2018), the ultimate goal of opprobrium entrepreneurs is to trigger informational and reputational cascades against people holding views they oppose. If an opposed belief or expression can be labelled a form of “violence” or “hate”, even if it does not rise to the level of legal definitions of those concepts, it may provoke the intensely moralised reaction normally recruited against other forms of violence or hate (Haslam, Nick, et al. "Harm Inflation: Making Sense of Concept Creep." European Review of Social Psychology, vol. 31, no. 1, 2020, p. 269. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2020.1796080, embedded links removed).
9. Gaslighting. This is another term that has become popular in connection to EP mentality. People influenced by EP ideology are constantly accusing people of "gaslighting" them. The idea of gaslighting is when someone contradicts someone else in such a strong and constant way that they make the second person have trouble holding on to what they know to be true. It's a kind of brainwashing tactic. Here is a definition from the Newport Institute: "Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in their victim's mind. Typically, gaslighters are seeking to gain power and control over the other person, by distorting reality and forcing them to question their own judgment and intuition." (This article is titled "How to Tell If Someone Is Gaslighting You." See #8 above.) Because of the extremist lens and the absolutizing of personal self-identity and feelings, EP persons tend to see anyone who doesn't agree with them in everything they think important as "gaslighting" them merely because they disagree or contradict them. Ironically, however, I would say that EP people themselves are sometimes more guilty of gaslighting than some of the people they accuse of it. When confronted with disagreement, EP persons tend to become increasingly shrill and forceful in their claims, as if simply saying something strongly and loudly and with great emotional fervor makes it true and beyond question. The combination of strong, repeated assertions, high levels of emotion, and tactics to discredit, marginalize, and stigmatize anyone who disagrees with them in any way, can have the effect of confusing and intimidating anyone who questions anything in the EP paradigm or won't unconditionally validate anything a person wants to think. When you confront an EP person and try to reason with them, arguing for a different point of view, even if this is done gently, rationally, carefully, with nuance, etc., often the response from the EP person is to assert more loudly and strongly their own point of view and get more and more upset, perhaps getting extremely angry, or bursting into tears, or starting to tremble visibly or hyperventilate, etc., which can be very intimidating to someone trying to argue a different point of view, especially people (like me) who are naturally averse to personal confrontation. To an EP person, every disagreement about something they care about tends to become a matter of personal attack and confrontation and to become highly emotionally-charged. This can have the effect of "gaslighting," to some degree, those who disagree (though, of course, this falls far short of actual brainwashing, so I don't particularly like overdramatizing the situation by using such a strong term. I do it more to point out the irony that people who are among those most likely to accuse people of gaslighting are often also among those who most approach to actually gaslighting others).
A lot of times, I think this kind of "gaslighting" is used (consciously or unconsciously) by people with an EP attitude in place of actual evidence when arguing for their beliefs. Instead of feeling a need to provide evidence and arguments for their point of view when dialoguing with someone who thinks differently, the EP person uses strong assertions and strong emotions and expressions of emotion to force the conversation towards favoring their views and to shut down opposing ideas and arguments. I remember one time after a formal debate, in which I had argued against the neutrality of "secularism" as it is often defined today in US political thought, a person came up to me arguing against my position. The conversation started out normally, but when I continued to propose counter-arguments to what the person was claiming, she suddenly reached her hands up in the air and yelled, "Secularism is neutral!!!" And that was the end of the conversation. As if simply saying it loudly and forcefully enough and with enough emotion somehow made it true. I think a lot of people influenced by EP really do tend to feel more confident and justified in their beliefs by means of feeling strongly about them and making strong, loud, and emotionally-charged assertions about them. Thus, they end up, to some degree, "gaslighting" both themselves and those they are talking to.
10. The accuser is always right. The absolutizing of personal feelings and statements/beliefs about oneself, combined with the extremist lens which leads to a tendency to see persecution and abuse everywhere, leads also to the tendency to absolutize the word of those who claim to have been abused or mistreated. If I make the claim - particularly if I strongly assert it with great emotion - that I have been abused or mistreated in some way by someone, particularly if I belong to one of the groups that EP culture has designated as a special group deserving protection (see #11 below), the EP tendency is to say that my word should be accepted almost without question. The idea seems to be that if one were to doubt my claim or question it, one would be disrespecting my person, accusing me of lying, and (due to my special privileged status as a minority of some sort) perpetuating a history of systematic injustice against me and my group. For example, I have a friend who has said that if we are dealing with a conflict between a black man and a police officer, we should always believe the black man's account and condemn the police officer as guilty even if we have no evidence to support this, because the black man is part of a minority group that has a tendency to be unfairly treated by police officers. We have seen in recent years a tendency in some circles to say that if a woman accuses a man of rape, we should always believe the account of the woman and immediately condemn the man who is accused, even if there is insufficient evidence to back up the woman's account. We have seen a tendency to vilify people simply because they are accused of rape, abuse, sexual harassment, etc., even before there is sufficient evidence to draw an objective conclusion. The accused are fired from their jobs, blacklisted, drummed out of the public square, etc., simply because we must "believe the victims" (even before they can prove themselves to be victims).
But, of course, this is a very, very dangerous direction to go in. It amounts to an undermining of the fundamental principles of justice in society, for one of the most foundational pillars of social justice is "innocent until proven guilty." Until just a few years ago, pretty much everyone would have agreed with this. I would have been shocked to find someone who would have denied it ten years ago, and yet, today, EP culture seems to be increasingly encroaching upon it and calling it into question. "Innocent until proven guilty" gives the benefit of the doubt to the accused and puts the burden of proof on the accuser--no matter their level of power, their victimhood status, their minority status, or whatever. Some balk at this. If X accuses Y, and there is no evidence to tell who is right either way, we should assume the innocence of Y? But doesn't this amount to assuming that X is lying? What it amounts to is assuming that we don't have enough objective evidence to determine the case. We do not say that X is lying, but we cannot, in practice, endorse X's claim unless X can prove that claim. This is not because we trust Y more than X, but because justice requires the practical assumption of the innocence of the accused, no matter who the accused is and no matter who their accuser is. If you think about it just a little bit, it is not hard to see why this must be so. If we deferred to the accuser rather than the accused, then anybody could accuse anyone of anything for any reason and destroy that person's reputation, call down civil or legal penalties on the person, etc. None of us would be safe. If someone doesn't like me, he could destroy me in an instant simply by making up a false charge. (Or, if we don't give everyone this unlimited power but only women, or racial minorities, or EP ideologues, or whomever, then we are putting everyone else in society at the mercy of people in those groups, without any recourse for defense.) No, if we are to be protected in society from these kinds of arbitrary accusations, proof must be demanded upon accusations of wrongdoing. Now, we don't want to go to the other extreme of setting the standard of evidence unreasonably high so as to protect people from well-substantiated charges; but we must require an objectively reasonable standard of proof before accepting the claims of accusers.
"But that means that there will be people who will get away with horrible things like rape, child abuse, etc.! Some victims will be telling the truth but won't be able to provide substantial evidence to back up their claims! The only way we can be sure that all abusers are punished is by always believing the accusers!" Yes, that's true. "Innocent until proven guilty" will inevitably amount to some people sometimes getting away with crimes. We should acknowledge this. It is terrible that this is the case. But it doesn't change the fact that "innocent until proven guilty" is the right way to go, for the harm done to innocent people if we abandon this principle will be far, far worse, than any harm that comes from following it.
11. Lack of empathy and selective empathy. EP culture claims to value empathy, and EP people often think of themselves as enormously empathetic. However, those who have been on the wrong side of a conversation with an EP person know well that EP empathy tends to be very shallow and very selective. If you can get yourself seen by an EP person as belonging to one of their cherished and protected victimhood groups, and you don't have any views or do anything that threatens the EP party line, EP people will tend to dote over you and put you up on a pedestal and treat you with great deference and affection. (Although, given how this empathy disappears if you cross certain lines, I would say that this is often not real empathy but rather a love for a cause that gets associated with certain persons in certain circumstances.) But if you belong to a group that doesn't have privileged status (say, Catholics, or white people, or Asians, or straight people, for example) or even if you belong to a favored group but you don't toe the EP party line in some area (such as those who disagree with some aspects of transgender ideology or who dare to suggest that claims of systemic racism in modern American culture, while holding much truth, also tend to be a bit exaggerated at times), you will be treated exactly in the opposite way. You won't get any empathy. Rather, if you cross certain lines, you and your views will be treated with viciousness, anger, hatred, and intolerance. If EP people see you or your views as a threat, there will be no mercy. You will be hated. There will be no attempt to have any empathy towards you or to try to understand at all your point of view. You will be vilified, and there will probably be campaigns against you to get you blacklisted, marginalized, ostracized, and hated by everyone. There will not unlikely be attempts to get you completely "canceled," or to destroy your career or reputation. People will cut off all ties with you. You will likely be dehumanized to some degree. An EP friend of mine once actually said on social media that followers of Donald Trump aren't fully human. I saw a person wearing a T-shirt recently that said, "Use my pronouns or I will kill you." Consider what happened to J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter book series, when she dared to express a bit of skepticism over some aspects of transgender ideology. Or, to take a local example, there is a church in Columbia, MO, called The Crossing. The Crossing had been a great contributor to the local True/False Film Festival in Columbia and a major partner with others in helping to put on and promote the festival. But this all changed about three years ago when a pastor at The Crossing dared to preach a sermon on Sunday morning in which he criticized some aspects of transgender ideology from a biblical point of view. He was very careful, nuanced, civil, empathetic, and respectful in his approach. He brought the subject up only because he felt the biblical text he had been working through said something relevant to it. But it was too much for the EP people involved in T/F. They decided to cut off all ties with The Crossing and treat them as a hate group. Even though The Crossing had been a major financial supporter of T/F, the festival refused to accept any money from them going into the future so that they would have no association with such a hate group. There was no attempt to consider whether people of good will might be able to have different opinions on some aspects of transgender ideology. There was no attempt to try to get inside the minds of those who think differently, to exercise a bit of empathy and consider how a fellow human being might honestly think differently about some things. On the contrary, no tolerance or empathy or understanding could be shown to such a non-EP point of view. Nothing but unhesitating, unquestioning rejection and intolerance could be acceptable. They were transphobes, and that was all that needed to be said. I am reminded of an article by atheist Richard Smythe a few years back where he criticized his fellow secular liberals in the UK for failing to understand their anti-abortion opponents:
Let’s take another look at that liberal phobia about “imposing your views on others” (and let’s leave aside that “imposing”: apart from being freighted with the symbolism of jackbootery, it’s not really important in this argument – whether and how things are “imposed” is a question of government practice, not policy).Perhaps the argument here is that a gay marriage or an abortion, say, is in some sense a personal matter, and nobody else’s business. If so, it’s an argument that crumbles as soon as you spin it around and take a look at it from the other side. If I believe that human life is sacred, then an abortion is essentially a murder. A woman has no more right to terminate her foetus than a mother has a right to strangle her three-year-old son. And a person who believes this has a moral obligation to prevent it wherever possible. The same goes for a person who believes that human society is being irreparably damaged by buggery and opiates (or whatever) – and the same goes, too, for a government.It is deeply dismaying that so many liberals struggle with this basic empathetic step. Anti-abortion activists and their ilk are not (necessarily) evil or wicked or heartless. They’re just incorrect. They have made an error in reasoning. They have got their sums wrong. That’s all. (Richard Smythe, "Down with Secularism!", from the New Humanist website)
We see this lack of empathy also in EP culture's apparent antipathy to forgiveness. One has to walk on eggshells when dealing with people or cultures influenced by EP ideology. There tends to be an extreme hyper-sensitivity and ease at being offended, and once one has been perceived to have crossed a line or to have offended, the reaction is both extreme and often expressed in terms of permanency as well. EP people will dig through people's statements or actions from decades ago looking for something they find problematic, and then they'll use that to blacklist a person for life from acceptable society. Forgiveness is often deemed too great a price to pay in response to what is perceived as a person's intolerable toxicity.
I think the tendency towards lack of empathy is also connected to the exaggerated emphasis on self-care. EP culture encourages people to be so concerned for the protection of their own rights and dignity and the absolute sacredness of their personal feelings and opinions that it seems to lead to a kind of inward focus that prevents people from seeing a need to empathize with those who make them uncomfortable. If you make me uncomfortable, this gives me a right to ignore and reject you and not to have to spend any time or effort listening to you or trying to understand you. Even to have to listen at all to those with whom I disagree or who make me uncomfortable is seen as an affront to respect for my sacred self and the absolute sacredness of my personal feelings and identity. (Here is a fascinating article from a few years ago talking about how some transgender people feel that their self-care requires that no one be allowed in public life to question their transgenderist point of view or ideology. The article also talks about how some are pushing back against this unreasonable demand.) If you don't embrace and validate everything I feel and think, you're nothing but a hateful bigot who doesn't deserve my empathy or understanding or even the right to share your views and opinions in public spaces.
12. Emotional immaturity. I would argue that EP attitudes and practices, as described above, tend to foster an emotional immaturity in EP people. There is an exaggerated focus on self and a looking to one's own perceived interests; a refusal to listen to or allow oneself to be challenged by other points of view; a sense of absolute entitlement to follow through with one's own sense of identity or personal feelings; a hyper-sensitivity to anything that makes one uncomfortable or seems at all challenging to one's own feelings and the world one constructs for oneself; the feeling that one can abandon responsibilities towards others when one's feelings or self-care feel threatened, without a need for critical reflection on one's feelings. I don't mean to be insulting when I say that I think something very accurate about the heart of the EP attitude is captured by describing it as a kind of toddlerhood preserved into adulthood. I say this because I think it is true and needs to be said. EP needs to be called out on this point. The EP attitude tends to foster in people a kind of toddlerish emotional immaturity and inability to deal with the complexities and nuances of the real world. It prevents people from adequately growing up intellectually and emotionally. Or, to use a teenager rather than a toddler analogy, I once saw a person on social media articulate this EP immaturity by asking a question that I thought captured the prevailing feel of EP culture well: "Why does everyone act like an angsty teenager all the time now?"
13. EP attitude is, in many ways, the antithesis of the Christian worldview and attitude. I'm going to discuss further below some of the ways progressive culture, I think, reflects values that Christianity also encourages. But right now I want to point out how foreign some aspects of the EP attitude are to a Christian outlook and attitude.
Really, we can sum this up by saying that Christianity challenges to the core the EP idea that our Self is at the center of the universe. It refuses to allow us to idolize our self and our self-care, or our feelings or opinions, even about ourselves, as absolute principles. Christianity teaches us that there is a Being who is at the center of the universe - but it is not us. It is God. God is infinitely greater and more important than we are, and all we are and have comes from him as a gift and as a participation in his own goodness. He is the center of the story, around whom everything turns. He is not part of our story; we are part of his. From the Christian point of view, EP thinking needs a spiritual/philosophical Copernican Revolution. All we have is a gift of God's grace, undeserved by us. We don't have the right to do whatever we want. There is such a thing as real moral obligation that is binding upon us, in reflection of which we will be judged by a standard higher than ourselves. We have an obligation to love God supremely and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We have an obligation to love ourselves as well, to be sure (for we, too, are made in God's image). But God's will and purposes are higher than ours. God has the right to ask us to follow him even when that means we must deny ourselves and our desires and take paths that we very much do not want to take. God calls some of us to be martyrs; our very lives belong to him. We do not have the right to absolutize self-comfort and self-care above all else. Love of God and neighbor often requires us to make sacrifices in order to love others and treat them with the value and respect that they deserve. We have obligations towards others that do not cease just because we don't like them, or they are inconvenient to us, or even because they mistreat us and abuse us. Now, I'm not saying there don't need to be boundaries. We do need to love and protect ourselves. But we cannot take an extremist attitude towards others that allows us to feel justified in cutting people off when they make us uncomfortable, or withdrawing into a self-protection cave where we surround ourselves with only "affirming" people and hide ourselves from allowing our ideas and our actions to be challenged. We have to love and empathize even with people we don't like and people who harm us. We have to "love our enemies." We have to listen to everyone and take them seriously. This kind of love and openness requires a kind of vulnerability that EP culture seems all too often not to be able to tolerate.
I've commented on the subject of Christianity and self-love elsewhere, so I will refer you there for a larger treatment. I've also written a related article on a balanced, Christian view of self-care.
Good Things in Progressive Culture
But let's not go to the other extreme! Don't let that swinging pendulum drive you on to reject one error only to embrace an equally bad one on the other side. Let's take a look at some good things that progressive ideology calls us to and reminds us of, and let's balance some of the criticisms we've made above.
1. The reality of abuse, trauma, etc. EP culture, with its extremist lens, tends to the exaggeration of problems. But we don't want to go to the other extreme and deny the reality of serious problems in various circumstances. There really are conditions that justify a word like "abuse." Sometimes parents treat their children, or children treat their parents, or spouses treat their spouses, or employers treat their employees, etc., in ways that are unjust and harmful, and even intolerable. In God's good, wise, and sovereign plan for history, he sometimes allows these kinds of things to happen to people, but we have no right to inflict them on each other. Each of us owes each other love and respect. Progressive culture reminds us not to sweep these kinds of abuses under the rug, underestimate them, or devalue them. We must not tolerate that which is truly intolerable. We must not allow abuse, disrespect, hatred, racism, unjust domination, etc., to go unchallenged and allowed to flourish. We must not allow these characteristics to affect our institutions, creating systematic, institutional situations of injustice. A concrete example of this is the Catholic view that sometimes there is a need for physical separation within a valid marriage (Catechism #1649). While Catholicism teaches that marriage is life-long and unconditional, yet there are situations where it is intolerable for one person to live with another and separation is warranted and perhaps even required (though this does not break the marriage bond). Canon law describes such warranted conditions as situations where "either of the spouses causes grave mental or physical danger to the other spouse or to the offspring or otherwise renders common life too difficult" (Can. 1153 §1). Some examples might include situations where one spouse is physically assaulting the other, or where there is real emotional abuse such as a regular attempt to use hateful language to cut down another person ("You're such a stupid idiot, why can't you do anything right?!"). If we go to one extreme, we end up turning any problem, or at least any serious problem, into an "intolerable situation" and thus end up breaking up relationships that ought to be preserved, since marriage is "for better and for worse." Nevertheless, we must also avoid the other extreme of refusing to recognize a need for physical separation for the sake of self-care or care for children at times. The same goes for other situations - church relationships, family relationships, employment relationships, etc. - in which there are truly intolerable conditions. "Intolerability" should be judged not on the basis of unquestioned or overly-extreme feelings or false and unbalanced views of personal identity and self-care, but on the basis of good values and priorities rooted in the moral law of God and applied using well-formed reason, intuition, and common sense. Such sense, rooted in the moral law, will recognize that, in a fallen world, I must have a significant and reasonable degree of flexibility and tolerance. My relationships cannot be held up to an unrealistic ideal, and I don't have a right to abandon responsibilities to relationships simply on the grounds that there is discomfort or even great difficulty. Commitment to my responsibilities requires me to be willing, as I am able, to cultivate a great deal of tolerance and sacrifice. (Again, think of Christ on the cross, and how we are called to carry our crosses. St. Paul, interestingly, specifically compares the duties of the marriage relationship to the relationship between Christ and the Church, even telling husbands they must be willing to love their wives as Christ loved the Church and laid down his life for her.) Our fellow human beings are made in the image of God, and that requires us to value them very highly, to empathize with them, to listen to them, and to refuse to dehumanize them or dismiss them as irrelevant or to wash our hands of them as if they were worthless and of no importance to us. We must love all our fellow human beings, not just those we have labeled as "non-toxic." All of this puts the lie to the over-extreme EP view of the rights of self-care. But, at the same time, the moral law instructs us that there is some balance here. In ordinary circumstances, according to the moral law, we are allowed the right of self-defense or flight against those who would threaten our life or seriously harm us in some way. Our default, in cases where there are responsibilities rooted in commitments we have made or in the basic requirements of the moral law, is to stick it out even through very hard times in accordance with the various levels of importance and seriousness of our various commitments and responsibilities. But this does not mean that we do not defend ourselves from extreme sources of harm that truly (in a balanced and rational and not overly-extreme view) threaten our fundamental physical or psychological well-being, etc. For example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church spells out this balance as it applies to difficulties in marriage relationships:
1646 By its very nature conjugal love requires the inviolable fidelity of the spouses. This is the consequence of the gift of themselves which they make to each other. Love seeks to be definitive; it cannot be an arrangement "until further notice." The "intimate union of marriage, as a mutual giving of two persons, and the good of the children, demand total fidelity from the spouses and require an unbreakable union between them."157
1647 The deepest reason is found in the fidelity of God to his covenant, in that of Christ to his Church. Through the sacrament of Matrimony the spouses are enabled to represent this fidelity and witness to it. Through the sacrament, the indissolubility of marriage receives a new and deeper meaning.
1648 It can seem difficult, even impossible, to bind oneself for life to another human being. This makes it all the more important to proclaim the Good News that God loves us with a definitive and irrevocable love, that married couples share in this love, that it supports and sustains them, and that by their own faithfulness they can be witnesses to God's faithful love. Spouses who with God's grace give this witness, often in very difficult conditions, deserve the gratitude and support of the ecclesial community.158
1649 Yet there are some situations in which living together becomes practically impossible for a variety of reasons. In such cases the Church permits the physical separation of the couple and their living apart. The spouses do not cease to be husband and wife before God and so are not free to contract a new union. In this difficult situation, the best solution would be, if possible, reconciliation. The Christian community is called to help these persons live out their situation in a Christian manner and in fidelity to their marriage bond which remains indissoluble.159
Our lives belong to God, and he can call us down paths that involve great sacrifice and suffering, yet it is also true that the moral law calls us to love ourselves and to seek our own welfare to a reasonable degree. In ordinary circumstances, this typically involves a reasonable attempt to preserve our lives and our physical, mental, emotional, etc., well-being.
And while EP culture encourages people to feel traumatized and victimized by just about everything, we must not go to the other extreme and deny that there are truly traumatic experiences that might require stronger or more extreme measures to cope with. Again, if one spouse is being assaulted by another, this is not something a person should be required to tolerate; physical separation is justified. And a person who has been the object of such assault may have real psychological issues to deal with beyond the norm, and that must be taken seriously.
We must not develop a witch-hunt mentality that reads abuse or narcissism into all kinds of situations with little objective warrant, but we must not go to the other extreme either of believing that no problems exist, that no abuse happens, etc. We must listen to those who try to tell us about such situations and take those claims seriously. We must not hide from real evidence of such situations. And we need to make sure we foster a culture in which these situations are adequately investigated and dealt with.
2. Listen to the accusers! This follows up with #1 above. Consciously or unconsciously, human societies and institutions tend to develop mechanisms that protect members of the group from attacks from both those in the group and those outside it. It is notoriously difficult to challenge members of the in-group and those in power in any human society. When a leader or a member of a group is well-known, well-respected, feared, and/or has a lot of power and influence, the tendency is to respond to challenges or accusations against such a person with suspicion, incredulity, scorn, ridicule, and instant dismissal. There is a tendency to put so much trust in the known and respected figure that evidence of wrongdoing is ignored and dismissed out of hand, especially when it comes from someone who is not as well-known or well-liked, who does not have the political leverage of the person being accused, or who is not part of the "in-group." Thus, in human history, it has been very difficult for women to make successful accusations against powerful men. It has been difficult for racial and cultural minorities to make accusations against those in the majority group. Accusations against people in established positions of power and influence have typically not been taken as seriously as they deserve.
Sometimes there is an outright refusal to listen to a claim or to examine the evidence to see if the claim has any validity. Other times the dismissal of the claim is more subtle--such as when the bar of evidence is set so high as to be unreasonable, so that the claim is ignored even when there is plenty of evidence to take it seriously and consider it substantiated. If a significant number of witnesses come forward and make independent accusations that confirm each other, for example, this can be a good basis for determining the evidence to support at least some of these accusations, provided due diligence has been done to check out the testimony and independence of the witnesses, etc., even if more concrete proof is not forthcoming.
Progressive culture calls attention to this problem and exhorts us to listen to the stories and claims of those who make accusations of wrongdoing against people of power and influence, and to get over our tendency to just dismiss such accusations as absurd or to under-value them or explain them away, especially when the accusers lack social-political clout. This is an exhortation we need to hear. We need to take this problem seriously and work diligently to reform our thinking, our practices, our policies, and our institutions, in order to make sure we are listening and taking seriously all claims and evaluating them objectively according to the evidence and not according to our natural biases, prejudices, what is comfortable to us, what "party" we affiliate with, etc. We should reject the EP call to simply "believe the victims" (at least when that means we should accept the claims of accusers with or without evidence) as a way to decide guilt. But we must not make a knee-jerk reaction in the other direction either, and use our rejection of EP extremism here to ignore the legitimate call to reform ourselves and our institutions to do a much better job at listening to the weak and the underprivileged and those with little influence, and allowing even the well-liked, well-established, and powerful to be called to justice if the evidence truly warrants it. We must be sure to take into account how individuals (including ourselves) may be biased and institutions may be unjustly skewed to give more weight to the testimony of some people than to others, simply because of the accuser's (or the accused's) race, social status, gender, sexual orientation, gender-identity, worldview, etc., so that we can be sure that all people in our society can get a fair, equal, and objective hearing. "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour" (Leviticus 19:5; see also Exodus 23:3, 6).
3. Self-care is truly important, as is personal identity. We are made in the image of God and thus have an objective value we ought to respect. The great command to "love your neighbor as yourself" implies the command to "love yourself." Christianity emphasizes that our lives belong to God and that righteousness often requires great sacrifice from us, but, without care of proper nuance, this can lead to an unjust undervaluing of our own God-given right and duty of self-care and can lead us to cause unjust harm to ourselves. Progressive culture rightly reminds us of this and calls our attention to it. I've written another article trying to articulate a theology of and delineating some proper boundaries of self-care, so I will refer you to that article for more detailed thoughts on this subject, as well as to this article on Christianity and self-love. I will simply say here that I think the progressive emphasis on the importance of self-care and self-love is actually a good and much-needed one (provided we separate it from the unwarranted extremism that is often associated with it); it is a needed corrective to previous trends to undervalue self-care or to see even reasonable attempts at it as selfish.
Progressive culture has promoted an attitude that is sometimes described by the phrase "you be you." This is something that I think is very valuable. We are all different. We have unique personalities, unique gifts and talents, unique interests, etc., and these things should be taken seriously and valued highly. It is easy for a culture to value some traits over others and to undervalue certain characteristics. For example, in some cultures that focus a lot of attention on manual labor, people who engage in more academic occupations can be dismissed as "lazy," needing to get a "real job," etc. Or vice versa. An extroverted culture can undervalue introverts and introversion. A male culture that values sports, cars, and physical activity can undervalue men who are interested in different things. A female culture that emphasizes fashion, romance, or whatever, can undervalue women who have different personalities and interests. Parents can overvalue certain traits in their children and undervalue others.
We need to encourage people to truly be themselves, to let their uniqueness shine out without apology, without diminution, insisting that they, as themselves and not pretending to be someone else, have something to contribute to the human race. We should resist the constant tendency in human culture that pushes for conformity. We should value diversity and difference, even where such diversity and difference can sometimes make us uncomfortable or require us to accommodate what we're used to dismissing or ignoring. Progressive culture does us a great service in reminding us of these things. (Of course, Christianity has emphasized this from the very beginning - think of St. Paul's teaching about the "Body of Christ" with its variety of different parts. But we don't always follow through on this, and we do well to listen to progressive culture calling us out in this area.)
Progressive culture puts a lot of emphasis on "setting personal boundaries." As with other things, the extremist version of progressivist culture takes this to an absurd extreme which justifies locking oneself away into echo-chambers where everyone affirms whatever one thinks or feels and cutting oneself off from everyone and everything that provides any challenge to one's thoughts or feelings. And yet, there is value in the concept of setting boundaries. As we said above, there are things we truly should not or at least need not tolerate from other people, and it is a good habit to set boundaries to protect ourselves and others from such things. Also, it is a good habit to learn not to allow oneself and one's uniqueness to be absorbed into the lives, values, beliefs, interests, activities, personalities, etc., of others. We need to know ourselves and not be afraid to be ourselves, and this will often require us to set some boundaries within our own minds and sometimes explicitly in our relationships with others in order to protect ourselves from the (intentional or unintentional) encroachments of others in this regard.
We need to cultivate a reasonable degree of tolerance towards people even when they do what is wrong or when we disagree with their beliefs or values. This is something EP culture doesn't do very well, as we discussed above. Actually, to be honest, EP culture is abysmal at doing this. And yet progressivism wants to value the kind of empathy that should lead to greater forgiveness and tolerance. No, not everything is equally tolerable, but we should go a long way in tolerating our fellow human beings.
4. Love, kindness, empathy, sincerity, emotional vulnerability, and the importance of validating others. I appreciate progressive culture's emphasis on recognizing the uniqueness of each individual and the common humanity of all of us, and on the empathy that that should produce in us and that in turn should strengthen our recognition and value of each other. In some cultures, there is or has been too much of a dismissive attitude towards the personal difficulties others experience, especially if those difficulties are different from what oneself has experienced. The emphasis on empathy is crucially important. We need to care about each other, be gentle with each other, and seek to build each other up. I appreciate it when people approach me with thoughtfulness, sincerity, honesty, straightforwardness, and emotional vulnerability (letting me see them from the inside, what they truly think and how they truly feel). I want people to "get" me and "see" me, to notice me and value me for who I really am. We should foster a habit of truly seeing and validating people in their uniqueness, and validating people's beliefs and feelings. We should avoid the EP extreme of interpreting this "validation" as a kind of unconditional demand that everyone's ideas and feelings and desires must be accepted as unquestionable absolutes, but we should pursue a kind of "validation" that truly respects the value of each individual human being and that takes seriously what people think and how they feel. Even in cases where we think a person's feelings are disproportionate to or out of accord with reality in some way, and where we might see a need to challenge someone for the honor of truth and for their own good, we should always take fully seriously the reality of other people's feelings and care about people's happiness. We should "mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice," to quote St. Paul. We don't unconditionally agree with everyone all the time, but we also don't go to the other extreme of being dismissive of people's feelings and concerns - "Buck up, snowflake!" Yes, different circumstances call for different reactions. There are times when a more sharp approach might be appropriate and best. Sometimes people need a sharp word to help them face up to reality. But even in such cases, we should never be unempathetic or dismissive but should make sure we really see the value of people's inner lives and show those we interact with that we value their lives, feelings, and experiences. We should listen to people and truly work to "get" them empathetically, and we should interpret other people's actions and expressions of feelings and thoughts in the most positive way that is reasonably possible. This includes, by the way, people whose lifestyles in some ways reflect a morality different from Christian morality, such as, especially in our current cultural context, those who live a different sexual lifestyle or who adopt a gender identity contrary to their biological sex. Even where we disagree with someone's beliefs or actions, we need to "see," value, and affirm the person. We should lead with love, kindness, and empathy, and give people a space to feel loved and validated as people.
Progressive culture often puts kindness and empathy at the forefront of values, and it calls us to work to be "safe" people for others - that is, to live and love in such a way that people feel safe and accepted as persons with us, even when there is not total agreement about worldview, morality, etc. I find this aspect of the progressive paradigm to be deeply appealing to me, and I think it deeply resonates with the Christian outlook, where love and kindness are to be given to all. I want to be the sort of person whom everyone feels safe to be with, to let down their guard, to be honest and to share their thoughts and feelings without being misunderstood, looked down upon, or rejected. I want the space I create to be safe and judgment free - not in the sense of agreeing with everyone about everything, but refusing to reduce people to those areas of disagreement. I want to treat everyone as a person first and foremost, and, if we have disagreements, that foundation of personal connection and love can provide a safe foundation to have those conversations (or sometimes not to have them, if it's not the right time for that).
5. Don't underestimate or undervalue people's personal claims or "lived experience." As we saw above, EP culture overvalues people's claims about themselves and their professed "lived experience," exaggerating concern for these things into a kind of irrational absolute that stifles critical thinking. But we must not go to the opposite extreme of undervaluing the personal claims or lived experiences of others. It is true that a person who has actually had some particular experience or been in some particular situation is in a unique position to understand and explain to others that experience or situation. I am the foremost expert on my own life--or, at least, I would hope people would presume this to be the case unless contrary evidence were to present itself. If I have been through some difficult experience--say, growing up as a racial minority in a particular country--I am very likely going to have a point of view with regard to that experience that provides a unique insight that others who have not had that experience may not have.
Thus comes the call to listen to people's "lived experiences," as EP people are always telling us to do. And they are right to call us to this. It is human nature to think we know everything, while at the same time missing important insights because we refuse to learn by listening to others, especially others who have an inside perspective we don't have. Far too often in human history, ideas have been judged, cultures have been judged, decisions have been made, laws have been made, etc., by people who were outside the sphere of those who would be most affected by these judgments and decisions, and far too often such judgments and decisions have been seriously unjust and harmful because of that. If those Americans who wielded most of the political power at various points in American history had listened to the voices of Native Americans, of slaves, of African Americans, of women, of gays and lesbians, of transgender people, etc., instead of ignoring them and thinking they knew everything important already, American history would have been very different and far more just.
So we need to hear this call to listen to people's "lived experiences." We need to take the time to stop talking, to stop insisting on our own ideas and ways, and really listen to the experiences of people and the ideas that have been shaped by those experiences. We need to allow ourselves, our ideas, and our actions and decisions to be shaped by what we learn from others--especially from voices that have too often been drowned out in our society.
For more on how to think about claims based on unshared personal experience, see here.
6. There are sometimes legitimate medical aspects to emotional, spiritual, and psychological conditions, and therapy can be a good thing.
As is clear from what I have written above, I am critical of certain current fads in how we think about psychological and mental health issues, about therapy, etc. We've over-medicalized and over-objectified something that, to a great extent, is more subjective, and we've too much put "therapy" in the place of personal reflection and critical thinking. But we must not react to the distortions of modern fads by going to the opposite extremes. There are sometimes real medical or physiological elements to a person's psychological condition or tendencies, and these should not be ignored. Sometimes a medical diagnosis is legitimate, and medication can be appropriate and valuable (such as in certain cases of depression, anxiety, etc.).
Sometimes professional therapy can be valuable as well. Therapists (and professional psychologists and psychiatrists) should not be treated as absolute, unquestionable oracles, and yet the training that makes one a professional therapist can certainly make one able to apply techniques for dealing with problems that can be very helpful to people, and it is a good thing when therapists make use of their gifts and when those in need of those gifts avail themselves of those who can help them. So long as therapy does not replace personal reflection, critical thinking, examination of one's beliefs and values, and allowing onself to be challenged by other points of view, it can, for some people, provide helpful insight and useful tools to help people think better and better address behavioral issues, etc.
We must not make people feel helpless and dependent too much upon therapy, but we must also recognize that some people are greatly helped by allowing another person to help them think through their problems and manage their lives. All of us are often in need of good counsel and advice. "Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established" (Proverbs 15:22).
Suicide and self-harm have been weaponized and politicized by EP in a way that is shamefully disrespectful to those who are suffering and depressed, but at the same time we must recognize and deal adequately with people who need help in this area and give them the full range of help they need.
7. We need to be wary of racism, racial and cultural stereotyping, and other forms of disrespect of others.
Progressive culture raises the alarm against personal and systematic injustices in our society, and this is a very good and necessary thing. We need to be watchful of the ways our prejudices, recognized and unrecognized, affect the way we think about and interact with people. It is far too easy to treat someone differently based on some kind of subjective or even subconscious analysis rooted in prejudice without any objective foundation. The progressive emphasis on the need to listen to people's life experiences, to work hard to empathize with people and to "see" them, and to be vigilant in watching within oneself and within one's society for areas where biases are creating injustices, great or small, is an invaluable contribution. As in many other areas, so in this area as well, progressive culture recognizes pervasive problems that have existed in the past without adequate notice and loudly calls them out, refusing to accept them as something to be complacent about any longer.
7. The Christian worldview validates progressive culture's emphasis on love, empathy, justice, and respect for all people, including and especially the marginalized.
Christianity calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves, to recognize all people as made in the image of God. It calls us to help the oppressed and mistreated and marginalized. It calls us to seek true justice for all people. It calls us to have empathy for all others. It calls us to respect everyone.
God often asks hard things of us, but he is also compassionate towards us and understanding of our weaknesses. "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust" (Psalm 103:8-14). God often asks hard things of us, but it is not out of cruelty; it is because there are great goods that can only be reached through sacrifice and difficulties. If we will find life, we must pick up and carry our crosses. And yet we do so rejoicing, grateful for the consolations and blessings God gives us along the journey, and joyful at the sure hope of arriving at our ultimate destination of perfect blessedness in God at the end of our path if we keep going forward.
God himself is love (1 John 4:8). Love is the chief characteristic of his life. At the heart of reality, God exists as a Trinity of Persons who are forever blessed as they share life and love with each other. Love is what created the world, as God chose to let that Trinitarian love overflow into creation. We are saved by love. Our salvation from sin and misery has come about because God the Son died on the cross to save us. He gave his life out of love for us and love for his Father. God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy” (Psalm 103:8). (See here for my attempt to paint a picture of the overall Christian story of reality.) The Bible is full of beautiful exhortations to love our neighbors, to love our enemies, calls to social justice (think of Jesus and the Old Testament prophets), calls to fairness and equity among all, etc. Some of the most beautiful passages advocating compassion are in the Law of Moses (Exodus 22:21-25; 23:1-12; Leviticus 19:9-18, for example), and many more in the prophets, in the New Testament, etc. We, too, therefore, are called to show this same love to each other, to be empathetic and compassionate towards all and to live consistently with that love in every aspect of our lives. (Again, see this article for more on this call to love, kindness, and empathy.)
Conclusion
I am deeply grateful to progressive culture for calling attention to and fighting for so many good things, things that are objectively good and right and which are also things I personally value very highly - kindness, empathy, acceptance and validation of people no matter what they believe and do; treating people with respect, tenderness, and mercy instead of harsh judgment; the call to be people who give a safe, listening ear to others; the call to open up and be oneself, to be "real," to be vulnerable and sincere. These are beautiful and valuable things, and they have often been sidelined culturally in the past for other values and ways of interacting. Progressive culture does us an immense service in trying to correct past imbalances in these areas.
Holding progressive culture up to the light of Christianity, we find that everything good that progressive culture calls for is fulfilled and embodied in the Christian vision, if that vision is lived out consistently and fully (and so often, unfortunately, it is not). And this vision corrects every EP error, helping the progressive point of view overcome the negatives of its extremist version and reach the full realization of the best parts of itself. So, while correcting those things that distort what is good, right, and true, let us honor, preserve, and promote all the good that progressive culture calls us to.
Published on the feast of St. Bonaventure.
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