Howard S. Schwartz
Legal Insurrection
Radical narcissism.
Political correctness gets crazier and crazier, but it does so in a way that seems to represent the development of something that was there right at the beginning.
I've been trying to make sense of it, from a psychoanalytic point of view, and the theory has, gratifyingly, developed apace with what it is trying to explain.
The current edge of the theory is what I call the "pristine self," which is a self touched by nothing but love, and I am pleased to suggest that it gives us some insight into the current edge of political correctness, which is built around the concept of "microaggression.' In this post, I'd like to lay out that connection.
Microaggression is a key element of what has been called the "new pc," whose newness Megan McArdle renders this way:
Microaggression appears to be what these people are afraid of.
Columbia University Prof. Derald Wing Sue, godfather of the concept, defined it as
But there is an obvious problem here. Sue claims "microaggressions" are unintentional. But aggression begins internally. A microaggression must refer to something going on in the person who sends the communication, not just the one who receives it. The claim of being microaggressed against must rest on certain beliefs about the mind of the microaggressor. But what can they be, especially given the stipulation that microaggressions are not generally meant to hurt?
The premise here must be that the victim of the microaggression has unerring insight into the unconscious mind of the microaggressor, and can find aggression of which the microaggressor is unaware.
Read more
Legal Insurrection
Radical narcissism.
Political correctness gets crazier and crazier, but it does so in a way that seems to represent the development of something that was there right at the beginning.
I've been trying to make sense of it, from a psychoanalytic point of view, and the theory has, gratifyingly, developed apace with what it is trying to explain.
The current edge of the theory is what I call the "pristine self," which is a self touched by nothing but love, and I am pleased to suggest that it gives us some insight into the current edge of political correctness, which is built around the concept of "microaggression.' In this post, I'd like to lay out that connection.
Microaggression is a key element of what has been called the "new pc," whose newness Megan McArdle renders this way:
When I was in college, people who wanted to censor others were forthrightly moralistic, trying to silence "bad" speech. Today's students don't couch their demands in the language of morality, but in the jargon of safety. They don't want you to stop teaching books on difficult themes because those books are wrong, but because they're dangerous, and should not be approached without a trigger warning. They don't want to silence speakers because their ideas are evil, but because they represent a clear and present danger to the university community. If the school goes ahead and has the talk anyway, they build safe spaces so that people can cower from the scary speech together.Academia's Invention of the Microaggression
Microaggression appears to be what these people are afraid of.
Columbia University Prof. Derald Wing Sue, godfather of the concept, defined it as
Generally, the racial category has been expanded to include other designations of "marginalization.""the brief and everyday slights, insults, indignities and denigrating messages sent to people of color by well-intentioned White people who are unaware of the hidden messages being communicated."
But there is an obvious problem here. Sue claims "microaggressions" are unintentional. But aggression begins internally. A microaggression must refer to something going on in the person who sends the communication, not just the one who receives it. The claim of being microaggressed against must rest on certain beliefs about the mind of the microaggressor. But what can they be, especially given the stipulation that microaggressions are not generally meant to hurt?
The premise here must be that the victim of the microaggression has unerring insight into the unconscious mind of the microaggressor, and can find aggression of which the microaggressor is unaware.
Read more
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