Interesting take on de Tocqueville

There's so much to say these days, both in the frustrations of my immediate work and the insanity of the wider world. I should probably blog more thoughts and mouth off on Facebook less, but blogging takes more effort. Hence social media slew blogs.

Anyway, today I came across an interesting essay in Areo about victimhood culture and de Tocqueville. de Tocqueville noted that competition in America is intense, and (aside from the richest, who are always secure) the comfortable classes enjoyed less surety than elsewhere, while the poor at least enjoyed a baseline of material comfort assured by a prosperous society that has made certain material conveniences cheap and abundant. The rich and poor being close to each other, they find more ways to compete with each other.

The author goes on to note that this can help explain victimhood culture in America. If you can't easily attain greater strength, why not signal greater vulnerability? Even the comfortable feel more vulnerable than elsewhere (indeed, 19th century British literature describes a secure class that is not noble-born but is essentially trust funders), and it's not like the uncomfortable can easily pull far ahead. So vulnerability is a plausible thing to reach for. The author goes on to note that humans are uniquely vulnerable among animals, a status that is necessary because our strength comes from an extended period of learning skills rather than relying on inborn strength and instinct. It has given us dominance over the planet, but also means that our species is wired to support others during their vulnerable stage.

Our desire to help the vulnerable can be channeled to great good and nobility, but it can also be abused. Like any instinct with a downside, we are wired with a compensating mechanism, in this case a desire to detect cheaters. We want to punish bad faith. So much of the culture war today arises from both an excess of victimhood and a resentful reaction to it. (You can reverse the order of causality if you like but the dynamic remains self-reinforcing.)

One thing I've noted before is that America's elite classes are justly proud of having slain a racist dragon.  Yes, there is still racism, hence I said "a racist dragon" rather than "all racist dragons." But still, a great victory was won, and multiple challenges to the system's authority came directly from racism. The elite classes know that the system's greatest tests have come from these dragons, and it brings out their best instincts. Of course, it also sets certain instincts to high alert, which has both upsides and downsides. We see those downsides in victimhood culture. We see their upsides in the very fact that victimhood culture is disproportionate: If those upsides hadn't won great victories there's be nothing excessive about claims of victimhood. It's an eternal tradeoff between false positives and false negatives. Our system's finest moments have come from confronting the true positives, so it's understandable that it's eager to find positives.