I was talking to my therapist about how difficult it is sometimes when it seems like the vast majority of the (western) world is deeply invested in pushing values that are contrary to my own. There are constant, uncountable messages about how the highest good is to satisfy your every whim whenever you want, and that no one can tell you no or judge you in any way. Society pushes material wealth, but also knows that this comes rightfully across as shallow, and so it is reframed as “financial independence” and “a good career” and “girlboss” and “hustle” to make it sound like these are virtues. Society pushes selfishness and instant gratification and lack of the ability to navigate interpersonal conflict in a meaningful way, but frames them as “self-care” and “prioritizing yourself” and “knowing your worth” and “freedom from shame.”
It’s not that financial independence and knowing your worth are inherently bad things, nor is it bad to enjoy life. Certainly there are such things as being a doormat or having toxic shame that are no good. But these perfectly-fine concepts have been twisted into something that is, for the lack of a more fitting term, demonic. Whether you want to take that literally or metaphorically is up to your cosmology, but at the heart of it, these are good concepts that have been warped into something evil in order to sell you on a lifestyle that will harm you and society in the long run, and in most cases these messages originate with people who do not have your best interests at heart and only want to profit off of you or control you, and then further spread by gullible fools who have believed their pretty packaging.
The world praises hookup culture and women putting careers over having a family or even finding a partner. This is presented as “liberation.” You’re liberated from sexual shame. Women are liberated from being caregivers and from depending on a man. Now I’m not categorically against women in the workforce, but is it really “liberation” that instead of depending on a man who loves you and provides for you, you’re now dependent on a boss and a company who forces you to spend 40+ hours of your life every week in an office making other people money? Of course there are abusive husbands and there are good bosses, but the exceptions don’t change the concept. Shame, while it can be toxic and disruptive in uncalled-for excess, is a useful emotion. It tells us that what we’re doing goes against our values and the values of society as a whole. If you feel shame because you’re 26 years old and Ubering home from your third hookup of the week with someone you only know by first name (which may not even be real!) that you met on Tinder or at a bar, that’s your deeper self’s way of telling you that this behavior is unhealthy and unfulfilling. But the sexual liberation movement and the LGBT movement and the feminist movement and the dating app revolution, all of these have been engineered by people and corporations who don’t care about you for nefarious reasons. Some want to destroy the home life and family unit because having two income earners in a household means you’re spending more on conveniences and won’t object as much to cost of living inflation and they get more taxes out of you, and you put your children in day cares and public schools to be educated by the state for the benefit of the state (and it’s so funny that the fiercest defenders of this system are the liberals who consider themselves “anticapitalist” and claim the state is “fascist”). Some want to normalize sexual deviance because they themselves are perverts who want to be able to do whatever they want without being judged. Some push hook up culture because they know that no one’s going to pay for their “have sex with strangers” app subscription unless they can first rid society of that inconvenient thing called shame. And what does it get us? It gets us lonely men addicted to porn and talking to AI chatbots because real connection has disappeared, and lonely women who spent their youth and middle age making money for a faceless board of executives who are now facing aging alone with no family and no partner.
I recently saw a screenshot of a post of a man whose wife came out as a lesbian and divorced him. He was clearly a liberal treating this like a freeing thing instead of the tragedy that it is. Since when did marriage and parenthood revolve around lust? Sure, attraction is part of it, but to give up on a partnership and a family and the solemn promises you made to each other in order to…what? Satisfy your lust by sleeping with women? And the world will praise that as her “being her true self” and “choosing happiness” but really it’s about thinking that your transient physical whims are more important than staying true to your partnership.
If you say these things, if you even QUESTION that the values of the world are misplaced, you’re an extremist and a prude and a judgmental bigot.
My therapist presumable buys into at least some of the things I would put I to this category. When we were scheduling our first appointment, she asked me my preferred pronouns. Doubtless she thinks, like almost the entirety of her profession, that she is being inclusive and tolerant and that it is kind and loving to be affirming. That is a lie the world has sold. The pretty packaging is exactly that: the belief that you are a “good” and “kind” and “loving” person if you do these things. Most people want to think that about themselves. But is it really “kind” to affirm someone’s pathological belief that their body is “wrong”? No, that is a serious disorder that deserves to be treated with empathy, but not with enabling.
And she said, well, social media isn’t the real world. The values pushed by social media aren’t necessarily what the world thinks. So maybe if you feel that way, you should use social media less. Now, I won’t argue that I shouldn’t use social media less. I should. It’s a time suck and it’s designed to be addictive and empty. But she’s got it all wrong. My social media is the only place where I see anyone pushing back on these ideas, or even acknowledging them at all. No, it’s the media, it’s the news and television and movies and music and celebrity gossip and political movements and ideological campaigns and advertisements and social engineering and DEI initiatives and the legalization and normalization of things that were once considered socially off-limits. I turn on the radio and hear a song glorifying promiscuity. I turn on the TV and find a “wholesome” show aimed at teens and young adults promoting gender ideology, and then it flashes to a commercial featuring race-mixed couples and ethnically ambiguous actresses telling you to sign up for the newest hook up app whose sales pitch is how discreet they are, and then another for overpriced fast food that’s only got 10% actual food in it, and then another for anti-obesity drugs that promise to make you sexy enough for the dating apps despite eating the fast food. And then it’s a late night talk show featuring a generic East Coast white/Jewish comedian in a suit denigrating conservatives on cue to canned laughter training the audience to not even consider their positions, to make them believe that everyone thinks the same as them and it would be unthinkable to disagree. Look, you’re surrounded by friends you’ll never meet in the studio audience! You fit in! You’re clever! Your opinions are the same as every cable news network and Hollywood celebrity and that means you’re right.
Discipline has become a dirty word. You won’t eat healthy or exercise, because that would require restraining your immediate desires to obtain long-term benefits, so take these weight loss drugs instead. You won’t put in the effort to make sincere connections with people, because that takes work and emotional intelligence, but it’s ok because TikTok and that pop psychology slideshow you saw on your news homepage is reassuring you that you’re just “curating your social life” and “cutting out toxic relationships and energy vampires” by ghosting that friend who accidentally offended you (but god forbid you actually tell them) or refusing to speak to your elderly parents because they voted differently than you. We have an entire segment of the population that praises HIV prophylactic drugs as a revolutionary lifesaver because so many of them have HIV and simultaneously refuse to use condoms when having anal sex with a stranger in a nightclub bathroom, because god forbid you just have enough self-control to not do that. We have entire displays at elementary schools and public libraries dedicated to glorifying this same segment of the population and claiming it’s just as “valid” as any other behavior. And if you don’t like it you’re a bigot, which is a far greater crime in today’s society, because the bigot reminds people of the shame they ought to have but don’t want to feel. It reminds them that they have a choice and they’re making the wrong one.
