The Art of Manliness - November 06, 2015


#153： Microaggressions and The Rise of Victimhood Culture

Topics
honor cultures
Hosted by
Brett McKay
Mentioned
Jason Manning Bradley Campbell Jonathan Haidt Oberlin Jill Leovey Conor Friedersdorf Greg Lukianoff Megan McArdle Wendy McElroy Ronald Blake Manchester Play-Doh Beowulf Brown Klan Jack
#152： The School of Greatness #154： Strength Training for Everyone with Matt Reynolds

Episode Stats


Length

56 minutes

Words per minute

173.95

Word count

9,871

Sentence count

542

Harmful content

Misogyny

9

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Two sociologists, Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, have a theory as to why a new culture of victimhood is emerging on college campuses. They argue that it is a combination of an honor culture and a dignity culture, and that this new culture is the result of a merger of the two.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
00:00:18.340 So if you spend some time on the internet, you've probably come across phrases like
00:00:21.920 microaggressions or trigger warnings or safe spaces and the like.
00:00:26.520 And it's really interesting, you're seeing a lot on college campuses where basically you're
00:00:31.720 seeing some segment of the college population who are very sensitive emotionally to slights
00:00:38.060 or even just awkward social encounters and it triggers them psychologically or emotionally.
00:00:44.840 Two sociologists have gotten together, Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, and they recently
00:00:49.940 published a paper, a theory as to why this what they call victimhood culture has arisen
00:00:55.980 on college campuses.
00:00:58.300 It was really interesting, so I had to have them on the show.
00:01:00.580 Today on the podcast, we discuss these various moral cultures.
00:01:04.200 We talk about honor and masculinity.
00:01:06.780 We talk about what makes up a dignity culture.
00:01:09.540 And we talk about why or why they think this culture of victimhood is arising in our country
00:01:16.700 and how it's a combination, a weird combination of honor culture and dignity culture.
00:01:21.540 And we discuss some of the implications of this victimhood culture and what it means for how
00:01:26.820 we handle conflict within our society.
00:01:29.680 Really fascinating discussion.
00:01:31.060 I think you're going to enjoy it.
00:01:31.880 So without further ado, Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning and victimhood culture.
00:01:44.000 Bradley Campbell, Jason Manning, welcome to the show.
00:01:47.180 Thanks for having me.
00:01:48.000 So you both are our sociologists.
00:01:53.160 Can you tell us a little bit about what brought you two together?
00:01:56.140 Because you're on like separate parts of the country.
00:01:58.460 One of you is on the West Coast, one of you is on the East Coast.
00:02:01.120 How did you guys get together and start writing about, particularly we're going to talk about
00:02:05.740 the victimhood culture, but moral cultures in general?
00:02:09.560 So Jason and I went to graduate school together at the University of Virginia and studied under
00:02:14.320 Donald Black, and Black has done a lot of work in the sociology of law, but what Black does
00:02:21.820 and what we do generally is to study conflict, how people handle moral conflicts.
00:02:27.620 And so we've done work mostly in violence and we've done it separately.
00:02:33.320 I've written about genocide.
00:02:35.460 Jason has written about suicide.
00:02:37.360 But in the course of our work, in our courses, we've dealt with these ideas of dignity and
00:02:46.080 honor a lot, honor cultures.
00:02:48.320 So when you're studying violence, one of the things you immediately see is that it's connected
00:02:51.360 a lot of times with honor, which is a kind of reputation for physical bravery.
00:02:55.260 So you can think about in societies where they fought duels, I mean, that's just one example.
00:02:59.580 But the idea that people need to maintain this reputation for bravery, and what it ends up
00:03:05.000 meaning is that slights are very important.
00:03:07.740 And a lot of honor disputes are about insults and slights, and people use violence in response
00:03:14.560 to these.
00:03:15.500 And so, but a lot of people had said that we transition to a culture of dignity, you know,
00:03:20.080 and that's, you know, there's still pockets of honor among street gangs and stuff.
00:03:24.540 But we, and so in dignity culture, you ignore slights, you ignore insults.
00:03:28.860 We started seeing these microaggression complaints, which we'll talk about in some other things that
00:03:34.300 we see as manifestations of this new culture of victimhood.
00:03:37.180 It wasn't like honor.
00:03:38.560 It wasn't like dignity.
00:03:39.700 People were not ignoring slights, but they also weren't responding to them violently.
00:03:45.540 So we saw something new is arising.
00:03:47.400 There's some kind of new moral culture of birth.
00:03:50.080 Okay.
00:03:50.760 So let's dig into this a little bit deeper about the different types of cultures.
00:03:53.920 So you started off talking about honor cultures, and you make the case that this was the first
00:04:01.360 type of moral culture that we had, the type of culture we used to resolve conflict.
00:04:06.360 And you described some of the characteristics, right?
00:04:08.200 If it's honor, I guess it's really hard for people in the modern West to understand honor,
00:04:14.440 because whenever they hear honor, I think they often think like integrity, right?
00:04:18.720 I'm a man of honor.
00:04:19.640 I'll keep my word.
00:04:21.260 But we're talking about something.
00:04:22.580 It's like you said, a reputation, but it's a certain type of reputation.
00:04:26.060 Can you guys go into a little deeper about what that reputation meant and why it was so
00:04:30.280 important that you had to defend that reputation?
00:04:32.420 Well, you see this classical notion of honor, which is not incompatible with reputation for sincerity or honesty or other things we associate with honor today.
00:04:44.860 But the core of it in earlier times and places, and today in certain times and places where law is weak or absent, is maintaining this reputation for toughness, a kind of pugnacity, a willingness to defend oneself at the drop of a hat.
00:05:01.100 And you tend to find it exactly in those places where people rely on toughness as a means of protecting themselves, their family.
00:05:08.560 It's a way of deterring predation or attack from other people.
00:05:12.300 And so one of the characteristics of these honor settings is that there's not a stable or reliable legal system in place, not a way of peacefully resolving conflicts or deterring predation.
00:05:23.920 And so people rely on this reputation for being tough as a way of protecting themselves.
00:05:29.600 You see it in the classical form in, say, medieval societies or ancient societies.
00:05:35.660 And you see a modern form of it in various low-income, high-violence neighborhoods in the United States.
00:05:42.940 Recently, a journalist, Jill Leovey, wrote a book about homicide in South L.A., for instance.
00:05:49.520 She speaks of the need for young men to act tough when they walk the streets and project an image of being willing to retaliate quickly and severely in order to protect themselves in these high-crime areas.
00:06:03.620 And this is curious, because, I mean, is it – is that why honor – so I'm guessing that's why honor existed in the past, because particularly in America, there was an established law enforcement, really.
00:06:15.600 We didn't have the police force like we did today.
00:06:17.200 So if you wanted to protect yourself, you had to do it on your own.
00:06:24.160 Right.
00:06:24.600 And historically, the state was weakest in the South, which is where honor was the strongest.
00:06:29.320 Yeah.
00:06:29.760 And isn't there – I mean, I don't know if this has been sort of disputed by some sociologists recently, but there's a theory that, you know, Southerners embrace honor because police state is weak.
00:06:38.780 But also, most of the migrants or most of the people who immigrated to the South were from Scotland and they were herders. 0.93
00:06:45.160 Is there anything to that whole herder culture – something that encourages an honor culture? 0.99
00:06:54.600 Yes, I would say they almost certainly brought this culture with them and reproduced it to some extent in the South.
00:07:01.380 And that's one of the ideas – yeah, I mean, I guess it is disputed, but even, you know, the Southeastern part of the United States still has more, you know, higher rates of violence than other parts of the country.
00:07:13.380 And the South – across the United States, because they migrated west, the same people.
00:07:18.000 And so there is the idea that there's this – that kind of, you know, spreading of the culture and yet would have been rooted in the herding societies that they came from.
00:07:29.400 Yeah.
00:07:30.000 And you find cross-culturally that the herding societies often have the synthesis on strength because animals are movable property and easily stolen.
00:07:39.240 Yeah, yeah.
00:07:40.020 So, like, the cowboys and the farmers, right?
00:07:42.580 The cowboys are typically more rambunctious.
00:07:46.600 Ranchers are more prone to, like, if someone steals their horses, they're going to hang you.
00:07:50.700 Farmers are sort of typically known to be peaceful, thinking in the long term.
00:07:55.520 Probably helped embrace or bring in the dignity culture.
00:07:59.560 To a good extent.
00:08:00.760 Well, and so, I mean, I guess it makes sense during a time when the police or the state is at its lowest and honor culture would exist.
00:08:11.100 I mean, that's the only way you can remedy wrongs is if you use self-help, like you all say.
00:08:18.740 But what's the downside of this?
00:08:20.100 I mean, there is a dark side to honor cultures, particularly going beyond just retributive violence, but that can create a vicious cycle.
00:08:28.260 Can you talk a little bit more about that?
00:08:31.520 Yes.
00:08:32.000 Certainly.
00:08:32.980 The big downside is that it's associated with a lot of violence.
00:08:37.400 And, you know, in a certain society where there's not law, you can see why you need to maintain this reputation for toughness and engage in violence, maybe to prevent more in the future and prevent yourself from being victimized.
00:08:48.060 But it can also lead, you know, to sort of a chain of violence where there's retaliation for one act of violence that leads to retaliation for another.
00:08:59.440 In clan-based societies, there are, you know, tribal societies, there's often blood feuding where one clan, you know, a member of one clan has killed a member of another clan.
00:09:12.900 And the response is that people from the, you know, the clan of the victim go and kill somebody from the clan of the killer.
00:09:18.800 Well, then they respond then by killing somebody from the other clan, and it keeps going back and forth and can do so until they come up with some kind of truce.
00:09:26.480 And you see this in the inner cities.
00:09:29.520 Jason mentioned the book Gettoside by Jill Leavoy.
00:09:33.700 It's very recent.
00:09:35.020 But the idea is, again, you have this, you know, especially when, you know, when homicides aren't dealt with by the state, when people aren't punished for them, you end up having this, you know, this chain of retaliation that leads to a lot more violence overall than it would be if it's just quickly suppressed by the state.
00:09:52.720 Yeah. And it's interesting. I mean, the reason why we've, we've written extensively about honor, sort of the history of traditional honor, because it's so tied up with masculinity, right?
00:10:02.160 You talk about the characteristics in an honor culture that are prized, our strength, courage, willingness to retaliate against slights.
00:10:13.120 And you say there still exists in pockets of the modern West, particularly gangs, where honor cultures exist in their fullest.
00:10:22.340 But I've noticed that even amongst people like us, right, we're college educated, white guys, who there's like twinges of it a bit, right?
00:10:32.340 Like there's like, if a guy gets called a chicken, like that stings for some reason.
00:10:38.380 Even though, you know, it's like, yeah, we all still have a little bit of it in us.
00:10:43.600 And I think it's interesting.
00:10:44.400 I don't know if it's like a biological thing or if it's a cultural thing.
00:10:47.540 I don't know. It's kind of, it's, it's interesting.
00:10:50.860 It's one of the things that, you know, when we're talking about like an honor culture, we see honor as something that, you know, it's sort of valued over other things.
00:11:00.400 So it's still, it's still often, you know, a kind of status in other settings.
00:11:05.880 It's, you know, bravery is, you know, is, is something that is, is still important and even your reputation for it.
00:11:12.420 And yeah, even, even when you're taught, so if you're, you're in more of a culture of dignity where you're taught, don't respond violently, brush off insults.
00:11:20.440 Yeah. I mean, like you're saying, I think we all have these, these moments where our blood boils and we can, you know, we're just completely angry, you know.
00:11:28.620 And, you know, the difference is that we have that kind of thing, you know, society is telling us not to respond, right?
00:11:35.180 And when we think of what we're supposed to do morally.
00:11:37.580 And if you're in an honor culture, though, if the full blown culture of honor, you know, you would, it would be, it would be shameful for you not to respond.
00:11:46.820 Your family would expect that other people would too, because you would, you would lose status.
00:11:51.560 It wouldn't be just about a kind of a, a momentary feeling of anger that you would want.
00:11:57.140 Yeah. And you guys made this point in your, in the paper as well, is that although honor culture doesn't really exist in the West and even in most industrial countries, it does exist.
00:12:11.000 It doesn't exist for people. It still exists on a nation state level, right?
00:12:15.920 Countries are always really concerned about, you know, okay, China or, you know, we just had in the news recently, the U.S. like went into like Chinese territory and the Chinese are like, we're going to do something to show that we saw that and you can't respect us. 0.96
00:12:30.440 And I guess it's because at a nation state level, there isn't a higher authority you can really go to. Correct?
00:12:37.180 Correct. States, oddly enough, exist in a stateless society.
00:12:41.080 There is no common court system they can go to. I mean, there are international organizations, but they have little real authority of any kind.
00:12:49.060 And so states do still show this concern with maintaining their reputation and with being able to respond to aggression in a aggressive manner.
00:12:59.300 Yeah, it is. So yeah, people want to see honor culture manifest, just watch international politics.
00:13:04.280 Okay, so let's talk, we've talked about honor culture. The second type of moral culture that we transitioned to after honor culture was what you all called dignity culture.
00:13:16.080 And you mentioned that one of the characteristics is that you don't use violence.
00:13:20.100 But what are some of the other characteristics of a dignity culture and why did it arise?
00:13:24.800 Yeah, one thing we should point out is that people use these terms differently.
00:13:29.460 I mean, as you mentioned before, you know, we talk about honor meaning something else all the time, integrity or something.
00:13:35.300 And so we're using honor and dignity in a very specific sense here.
00:13:39.240 We didn't invent these terms used in this way, but other people use them differently.
00:13:43.920 So when we're talking about dignity, then it's something very different from a reputation for bravery.
00:13:50.000 The idea is that with dignity is that everybody has this moral work that's just apparent to you as a human being.
00:13:57.680 And it can't be taken away from you if somebody insults you or something.
00:14:00.780 So your reputation matters less.
00:14:02.860 And again, these are tendencies.
00:14:05.140 And so, and this exists in an environment where you do have strong state authority.
00:14:10.880 So the idea is if there's a serious offense, if there's violence against you, someone harms you, someone steals from you, you go to the police, you go to the courts.
00:14:17.560 But if it's not very serious, then maybe just ignore it.
00:14:22.380 And so that's what ends up happening in a dignity culture.
00:14:25.440 And almost every, you know, it's often just completely the opposite of honor culture in terms of the morality that's taught.
00:14:34.620 So instead of being told that you must defend your reputation, you're told to ignore insults.
00:14:41.160 Sticks and stones will break my bones.
00:14:42.780 Words will never hurt me.
00:14:43.720 And so, you know, in a lot of, in a lot of senses, it's the exact opposite of the culture of honor.
00:14:50.780 Chase?
00:14:51.800 It's important to emphasize too, I think.
00:14:54.060 And I've read some of Brett's work on personal honor or what he calls private honor and the importance of reputation in a contemporary setting.
00:15:03.980 But in what we're calling dignity cultures, your reputation might matter, but it can't be harmed by what others do to you.
00:15:11.500 You can harm your own reputation through your own actions by doing something that's a violation of moral rules.
00:15:17.280 But you cannot have your reputation shattered by others harming you.
00:15:21.600 It's them who are in the wrong and not you.
00:15:23.320 Versus in an honor culture, you're the one who experiences shame if you've been victimized by others.
00:15:28.200 And it's up to you then to demonstrate what's a show of violence often, you know, if somebody has insulted you, even if they're wrong.
00:15:35.620 Whereas the idea in a dignity culture would be, if they're wrong, then ignore it.
00:15:38.620 Who cares?
00:15:39.400 Yeah.
00:15:39.780 And if you responded to them, you would be lowering themselves, lowering yourself to their level.
00:15:45.060 Yeah.
00:15:45.820 And be undignified.
00:15:46.880 By the law, yeah.
00:15:48.840 Right.
00:15:49.700 And I mean, I guess, so where police state or the state is strong, dignity cultures will rise.
00:15:56.100 I'm guessing democracy or this idea of egalitarianism is another pre-resequit, right?
00:16:00.440 That the idea that people are value in and of themselves, they have worth, and that doesn't matter.
00:16:06.740 Rank doesn't matter.
00:16:07.780 It's just you have worth.
00:16:08.940 So is that another pre-resequit democracy and egalitarianism?
00:16:14.360 Yes.
00:16:14.800 It's honor and dignity both are connected to equality, egalitarianism in a sense, and that honor disputes are between equals, but they're often in a stratified society where, you know, so there's this exclusive group that has honor, and other people who are below them, slaves or whatever, don't.
00:16:32.900 And so, yeah, with democracy, you end up having the idea that everybody has worth, and so when there's not an exclusive group that's thought of as, you know, having more moral worth of some kind, then I think that's one of the things that weakens honor, too.
00:16:52.560 Is there a time frame here?
00:16:56.180 I know it's really squidgy when you're talking about transitions to moral cultures, but would it be safe to say, like, industrialization in the United States is when you really see that transition from honor culture to dignity culture?
00:17:10.240 Thanks.
00:17:40.240 I know it's a place in the early 19th century, but I think you're right, but I think you're right that as industrialization picked up, the transition quickened and reached its fullest, especially in the Civil War.
00:17:55.900 Yeah, I'm guessing that's when police power and state power was actually fully established in the United States, because, yeah, you're right, up until about 1900, I mean, it really was the Wild West still here in the West.
00:18:09.300 It wouldn't be for a few years until we would actually have governments, working governments in these really remote areas.
00:18:17.240 So that brings us to victim culture, victimhood culture, you're seeing now.
00:18:24.960 So let's talk about the characteristics of victimhood culture and what you saw in the broader culture that made you suspect that we are transitioning to another moral culture to handle conflict.
00:18:40.020 We began seeing these things on college campuses or, you know, coming from them.
00:18:47.520 I mean, one incident occurred in March of 2013, and this is kind of when we started thinking about this.
00:18:56.160 There was an incident at Oberlin College where they shut down the campus and canceled classes after a student saw someone they believe was wearing a Klan robe.
00:19:13.020 And at the time, we were sort of amazed by this.
00:19:16.720 You know, I mean, it seemed like it seemed very unlikely that there was a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan at Oberlin College.
00:19:22.340 And it did turn out that, you know, that it was somebody in a bathrobe or a towel or blanket or something.
00:19:29.340 And so there's that, that you had this idea of people at Oberlin College who thought that they were living in an environment that was kind of a hotbed of racism.
00:19:39.720 Well, at the same time, you know, so we were looking at things and a colleague pointed me toward this Oberlin microaggressions website.
00:19:48.560 This was the first time I had had seen the term microaggression.
00:19:53.300 And so these are, you know, the idea is that there are these slights, even unintentional slights that are experienced by minority groups and that they cause real harm.
00:20:03.520 You know, and so the students on the Oberlin microaggressions website were documenting all these little things that they called microaggressions that were examples of racism or some other kind of dominance.
00:20:16.860 You know, there was, you know, there was a student who said that she was in the gym and overheard a professor saying that she was glad both she and her husband had blue eyes.
00:20:28.920 And the student then comments and says, I don't want casual racism in my professors.
00:20:33.500 And, you know, there are other incidents like this that were, you know, small matters.
00:20:37.740 If anything, it's kind of a matter of interpretation.
00:20:39.980 But the idea was that they were trying to highlight these things.
00:20:45.020 And so it didn't seem like what we're familiar with as a culture of dignity where you ignore slights.
00:20:51.620 They weren't, you're not only not ignoring them, broadcasting them, not giving, you know, not giving people the benefit of the doubt on intentions and things like that.
00:21:00.740 And so we thought, you know, what's going on?
00:21:03.040 Is it, you know, is it a culture of honor?
00:21:05.560 You know, so in honor cultures, people are famously sensitive to slight, but obviously in this case, these people are not, are not responding violently.
00:21:13.200 They're not fighting duels or harming people.
00:21:15.320 They are complaining and complaining to third parties.
00:21:19.700 And so, and they're especially, you know, what you see that's very different from honor cultures.
00:21:23.800 In honor culture, when you're slighted, you use violence because the whole point is to show that you're not weak.
00:21:30.420 You're not a victim.
00:21:31.500 You're somebody who can handle your own conflicts and your own affairs.
00:21:34.660 And here they were broadcasting their, their weakness and vulnerability.
00:21:39.480 So you had something that wasn't really, um, um, honor or dignity.
00:21:44.760 And we began trying to, to, to think about what that was and what we would call it and what were the characteristics of this new culture.
00:21:51.080 Okay.
00:21:51.140 So let's talk about microaggressions.
00:21:52.320 I know it's kind of, it's become into the, the mainstream, uh, recently.
00:21:57.520 I think this year is when I, you really start seeing in all the newspapers and magazines and things like that.
00:22:02.040 Um, but for our listeners who aren't familiar with it, you gave one example of microaggression that were professors said, I'm glad I have blue eyes.
00:22:08.780 Um, what are some other examples of microaggressions that are, are common microaggressions?
00:22:15.140 Uh, there are almost too many to keep track of at this point.
00:22:18.720 And I was reading a news story today, yesterday saying that using the term politically correct is a microaggression that was recently.
00:22:27.300 Yeah.
00:22:27.880 Politically correct is not politically incorrect.
00:22:29.620 Yeah.
00:22:29.960 There is, uh, there was a complaint about, um, the term America is a melting pot.
00:22:37.500 Bradley that happened in your neck of the woods.
00:22:39.400 Oh, did it?
00:22:39.880 There was a document put out by the university of California.
00:22:44.400 It's, um, it was, it was part of a, uh, uh, uh, a teacher training thing, or, you know, some training for faculty that, and it has about 52 examples of microaggressions listed.
00:22:56.420 And yeah, some of them were, were things like that.
00:22:59.080 America is a melting pot.
00:23:00.380 I don't believe in race or, um, I think the most qualified person should get the job.
00:23:05.120 Well, those are probably like the more extreme examples in the sense that those are things that get most disputed.
00:23:11.100 Like people would say, these aren't offenses at all.
00:23:13.880 But others, um, you know, others are things that you might say to people that are, that come across very awkwardly.
00:23:20.660 And one of the things that's given as an example a lot is asking an Asian person, uh, where are you from?
00:23:26.180 Or it can be a Latino or someone.
00:23:27.960 But the idea is that, you know, you know, where are you from?
00:23:31.060 And then they might answer, they might answer Seattle.
00:23:33.320 And you say, no, no, where are you really from?
00:23:35.960 And the idea is that you're, you're assuming that they're, they're, they're not American. 0.60
00:23:40.480 They don't belong here.
00:23:41.460 That's, that's how it's interpreted. 0.87
00:23:43.260 Um, and it can be things like, um, you know, asking the, um, the white mother of a black child,
00:23:49.740 is that child really yours?
00:23:51.040 And, and, and things.
00:23:52.180 So they range from things that most of us would think of as, you know, either slightly offensive
00:23:58.480 or at least awkward, you know, or don't, you know, you would avoid saying these things to make,
00:24:02.640 you know, and try not to make people uncomfortable if you could, but they range from that to things
00:24:07.840 that are just sort of ordinary, well, conversation topics, you know, where, you know, where are you
00:24:14.120 from can be that too, depending on how it's asked or, um, or political opinions like opposition
00:24:20.100 to affirmative action that are actually being called microaggressions.
00:24:25.120 But it's, but what you see is what the commonality is that it's, the idea is that there are people
00:24:31.740 who are in victim groups.
00:24:34.040 So, so groups that are oppressed or dominated in some way, that's the idea.
00:24:38.220 And that when people from other groups say these things to them, they, um, they, they put them
00:24:44.540 down, they make them feel uncomfortable.
00:24:46.400 And you know, you notice they're calling these things a kind of aggression.
00:24:49.180 We don't, you know, we don't usually call it an aggression when you do something unintentional,
00:24:54.440 like it's, you know, bumping into somebody wouldn't be called a physical aggression, but
00:24:57.940 in this case it is.
00:24:58.800 And part of the idea is that they're saying it can, it does this serious harm to people,
00:25:02.580 even if it's unintentional.
00:25:05.020 And I'm curious, why has this arisen now?
00:25:08.360 I mean, what is it, what purpose does it serve?
00:25:09.960 Because I understand honor culture where, um, you need to be sensitive to slights because
00:25:14.400 your reputation, uh, uh, is everything.
00:25:17.300 Your life depends on it, your livelihood will depend on it, uh, your, the livelihood of
00:25:21.060 your family, your tribe depends upon it, but what purpose does it serve to be so sensitive
00:25:27.420 to slights in a culture where the state is strong?
00:25:32.000 If you have, you need to take recourse, you could take recourse.
00:25:35.360 Just trying to figure out what, what cultural or sociological purpose, uh, does being sensitive
00:25:39.720 to microaggressions, uh, serve?
00:25:41.620 Well, we don't explain these phenomena so much with their purposes or end goals.
00:25:49.600 Um, the purpose for an individual engaging in any behaviors can vary, but we focus more
00:25:56.380 on the structural conditions that shape this.
00:26:00.640 And one of the things we argue is that when you have a mixture of very easy access to third
00:26:10.740 parties, such as superiors or, uh, to the public opinion as a whole through the electronic
00:26:17.500 mob, this facilitates relying on complaint to third party, perhaps to the point of becoming
00:26:24.960 an over-reliance on third party, people might lose their willingness or ability to even respond
00:26:30.920 verbally to something they find awkward or offensive and say, maybe you shouldn't say that,
00:26:35.640 or here's why this is offensive, or I disagree with you.
00:26:39.260 And so complaining becomes more attractive as a strategy.
00:26:43.960 They, um, I mean, the people doing this, uh, who are, uh, are making the microaggression
00:26:49.660 complaints and these things would, would see there.
00:26:52.960 I mean, what, what, from their standpoint, they would say that the reason is that, um,
00:26:57.780 there's all this oppression and we have to combat it.
00:27:00.620 Now, one of the things that, that, um, that has interested us is that these kinds of complaints
00:27:07.900 about these minor offenses occur in environments where you have fewer major offenses, right?
00:27:14.560 More, you know, fewer macroaggressions.
00:27:16.440 So there, there are, you know, these elite universities, uh, are highly tolerant environments
00:27:23.620 and there's very, you know, there's very little, um, overt racism and that kind of thing that
00:27:30.160 it's, it's a highly egalitarian, but also diverse society.
00:27:34.720 So, you know, many, you get most egalitarian societies in the past get, you know, and I say
00:27:38.980 society, I just mean a group of egalitarian social settings in the past have not been so diverse,
00:27:44.260 but there is a lot of diversity.
00:27:45.480 What happens in an environment where there's a lot of equality is that people are, you know,
00:27:50.780 are concerned if you put someone down in some way or, you know, elevate yourself above someone.
00:27:55.480 And where there's a lot of diversity, uh, then people are, are very, become very concerned
00:28:00.800 with putting down particular groups, particular cultural groups.
00:28:05.120 So what is seen as offensive then, and so in these environments, what's seen as most offensive
00:28:11.880 is putting down a minority, you know, an oppressed cultural group.
00:28:15.760 And so they end up focusing on very, you know, even minor incidents of that.
00:28:20.180 Um, and, uh, and so, so it's partly then because of the lack of macroaggressions that, that there's,
00:28:27.560 there's this concern for microaggressions.
00:28:30.000 Gotcha.
00:28:30.280 So what you're, I mean, the point you guys make in the paper is that the victimhood culture,
00:28:34.800 the culture of victimhood is sort of, it's a combination of honor and dignity culture.
00:28:39.280 So it takes the, um, the, the sensitivity to slights, uh, of the honor culture with the
00:28:46.520 relying on third parties to mete out justice for you of the dignity culture.
00:28:51.360 Correct?
00:28:53.220 Correct.
00:28:54.500 Okay.
00:28:55.040 And, and just to, and just to be clear, like you, um, one of y'all just said that it's not,
00:28:59.000 doesn't have to be necessarily a, um, uh, an authority, right?
00:29:02.640 It doesn't have to necessarily be the, the, the, the campus, um, administration or the
00:29:07.100 police, what a lot of, uh, these individuals who, uh, use microaggressions, like they, they
00:29:12.800 go online, like you said, they have, there's a website dedicated to listing out microaggressions
00:29:17.440 and then they'll tweet it out in the hopes of getting, boning up support, um, of their,
00:29:23.720 the, the offenses that they've felt they've received.
00:29:27.800 Correct.
00:29:28.380 You definitely see a lot of online complaint in this manner.
00:29:31.520 And in a sense, you know, the public at large, if one has access to a large number of
00:29:37.100 listeners or viewers or other potential supporters, that's third party due to its size is almost
00:29:46.760 like an authority.
00:29:47.900 I mean, conceivably somebody's life could be derailed because of large scale public shaming
00:29:52.960 or complaining.
00:29:59.260 Okay.
00:29:59.760 One of the things too, I was going to say about, um, what people are doing.
00:30:04.100 I mean, you can have various, various reasons for making the complaint, but we're, we're
00:30:07.580 saying that, you know, the reason we call it a victimhood culture is because victimhood
00:30:11.060 becomes a kind of status instead of honor, you know, uh, um, so honor is a form of status
00:30:15.580 dignity somewhat, except that it's, you know, the idea is that everybody holds it, you know,
00:30:19.780 unless you, you do something, yeah.
00:30:22.220 Um, but, um, but, but this kind of, you get a kind of status from being, uh, from being a
00:30:27.480 victim.
00:30:27.760 And so there is this incentive then to claim victimhood, you get, you know, there are not
00:30:32.700 only, um, personal benefits that might accrue.
00:30:36.280 You might get, uh, invited to the white house if you're, you know, he was arrested, um, for
00:30:43.160 making the clock.
00:30:44.180 And then, um, you know, and then he's invited to the white house, not because he did anything,
00:30:47.660 you know, um, um, so praiseworthy, but, but, but, but because he was, was victimized.
00:30:54.460 And so victimhood becomes the kind of status, you can see that there would be an incentive
00:30:57.700 at the individual level to complete, uh, to, um, to, um, to make, uh, claims of victimhood,
00:31:02.180 but also then as a, as a political tactic.
00:31:05.540 So, um, so it is part of, of, of mobilizing people for a political cause for fighting oppression
00:31:12.680 and things that they're seeing there.
00:31:14.320 And so they're trying to show this pattern of victimization.
00:31:18.500 Um, and, um, you know, and that's something, and also, and we can talk about this maybe
00:31:24.400 later too, but when we're talking about a victimhood culture, we see it, maybe, maybe
00:31:29.360 elements of it or throughout the, the, throughout American society, but we, you really only see,
00:31:34.700 um, a full blown victimhood culture in, within certain college campuses.
00:31:40.420 And it wouldn't be even dominant among the students necessarily there, but it's a very
00:31:45.500 kind of small enclaves where it's arising.
00:31:48.240 Maybe it's going to get bigger.
00:31:49.680 Yeah.
00:31:49.820 Well, speaking of that, that, that incentive to, to become a victim, you all give examples
00:31:54.500 of individuals who create, you know, falsify, um, instances of being a victim so they can
00:32:02.520 get that, I don't know, support or maybe to further a political cause.
00:32:06.920 Can you talk about some of those, uh, examples of people creating faux outrage just to, I don't
00:32:14.120 know why, just because they get the attention they want.
00:32:16.080 Well, we've, we've, we've talked a little about hate crime hoaxes.
00:32:20.040 Um, and so this is, um, you know, it's something we also see on campuses and from the same circles
00:32:28.020 of people who are, um, are broadcasting, um, microaggression complaints and asking for, uh,
00:32:35.480 trigger warnings and these things.
00:32:37.000 I mean, obviously this is something that is not, um, it's not exactly the same kind of thing
00:32:41.460 because everybody, you know, most people would, would of course condemn you if you lie about
00:32:45.500 being, uh, being a victim, but, um, but there, but you see these popping up at universities,
00:32:50.220 these, these hate crime hoaxes where, um, someone, so in this case, so we talked about, um, you know,
00:32:57.460 the idea that, um, uh, you know, microaggression complaints are made where there aren't very
00:33:02.920 many macroaggressions, but one thing to do is if you wanted to point to some macroaggressions
00:33:06.860 and there aren't any, you can make them up.
00:33:08.680 And so, so we've seen examples of people who have, um, literally victimized themselves.
00:33:15.660 They, um, they, um, there was, uh, um, a woman at, um, um, one of the Claremont colleges
00:33:24.120 in California, who was a visiting assistant professor and she slashed her tires. 0.52
00:33:30.180 She was going to speak at a anti-racism event.
00:33:33.400 She slashed her tires and wrote racial slurs on the car and these kinds of things to make 1.00
00:33:38.400 it look like she was the victim of, of racists. 0.64
00:33:41.700 And, and there've been other, other examples, uh, like that too.
00:33:45.420 Um, there's someone at, um, uh, Duke university hanging a black doll up in a noose. 0.58
00:33:53.680 We were getting to look like white racists had done it, but it was the, um, the anti-racist
00:34:00.080 activist who had.
00:34:01.720 Interesting.
00:34:02.200 This is an example of, yeah, of people where you see people claiming victimhood, even when
00:34:07.340 they haven't been victimized.
00:34:08.880 Yeah.
00:34:09.300 And there's been instances when I've seen that where, you know, come to find out it's
00:34:12.260 a hoax.
00:34:12.800 And then you see these individuals who are, you know, who are really keyed into, you
00:34:17.360 know, promoting a cause.
00:34:18.400 Well, it was a hoax, but it rose awareness, right?
00:34:21.500 We're having this conversation that's important.
00:34:24.340 Um, and, uh, I can understand like, yeah, you, we need to discuss this sort of stuff.
00:34:28.480 But then the idea that it's based on a false premise, it's like, well, it kind of takes
00:34:32.700 the winds out of the, the sails of what you're trying to make.
00:34:37.900 Um, another interesting point you all made was that even individuals who, um, aren't victims,
00:34:45.700 but are actually, you know, considered the dominant group will use the culture of victimhood.
00:34:51.460 Correct.
00:34:52.080 So like, you know, uh, affirmative action is reverse racism or like individuals who are the,
00:34:59.140 the, um, who are the targets of who are supposedly doing these microaggressions.
00:35:03.940 Well, I'm, I'm the victim here.
00:35:05.200 Like I, I'm the one who's, you know, being, um, called out on Twitter and it's my, my life
00:35:09.840 is miserable.
00:35:10.280 So it seems like both, everyone wants to get a piece of the, the victimhood action.
00:35:16.500 And that's one thing I find fascinating about various kinds of human behavior, including
00:35:21.340 kinds of conflict management is that they sometimes have this self-replicating or self-reinforcing
00:35:28.120 quality.
00:35:29.280 One example that occurs to us is gangs.
00:35:33.300 You drop a violence gang into a neighborhood without a stable legal system and other gangs
00:35:38.700 form to defend themselves from this initial gang.
00:35:41.220 They might victimize others in turn, creating still more gangs.
00:35:44.520 And I think what we see in this spread of victim culture is a similar phenomenon.
00:35:50.400 When the structural conditions are right, sometimes the most effective way to defend yourself
00:35:55.540 from an accusation of being privileged and dominant is to point to how you actually are
00:36:00.520 victimized and to rely on the same language and style of complaining as your opponents.
00:36:06.240 And we even see this with people who might be personally opposed to framing conflicts in
00:36:11.080 that way or using this tactic.
00:36:12.560 They find the most efficient way to shut down the opposition or gain some support in the debate
00:36:17.800 is to use the very same tactic of complaining of victimhood that they might condemn otherwise.
00:36:22.940 There's an interesting example from blogger Megan McArdle who talks about how she was
00:36:30.080 in an argument with somebody and he was accusing her of microaggressing and she responded that
00:36:35.600 he was mansplaining to her, meaning to point out that this is how easy it is to microaggress,
00:36:40.740 but it actually worked and shut down the argument.
00:36:43.180 She's like, no, my point was to shut you down, but it illustrates how easily one can do that.
00:36:47.220 Yeah, that's really funny.
00:36:48.660 So, I mean, I guess the downside of this, so like honor cultures had this idea was that
00:36:53.680 you create this vicious cycle of blood feuding, right? 0.93
00:36:59.780 Dignity cultures, I'm actually, whenever I read your paper, like I'm a big fan of dignity
00:37:03.060 culture, but with like victimhood culture, it seems like the downside would be that, okay,
00:37:08.380 you're using this tactic to resolve conflict, but if both parties can use it, then like conflict
00:37:13.280 never gets resolved, right, on a meta level, right? I mean, if you can call someone a victim
00:37:19.280 or you say yourself a victim, the other person saying they're victims, like problems still
00:37:22.780 exist, but nothing's happened.
00:37:26.900 Yeah, one thing, I mean, in thinking of what might be the downsides, I mean, what, you know,
00:37:31.460 the kinds of, you know, if honor culture leads to a lot of conflict and it's violent conflict
00:37:38.280 in that case, but it's the same thing here. I mean, dignity, the idea is that if you're
00:37:44.600 ignoring lots of slights, you're not letting conflicts get going, right? You're essentially
00:37:50.220 tolerating a lot of behavior that you do find offensive, but you can see how that would help
00:37:57.240 people to have relationships with, you know, with people, to have, you know, civil relationships
00:38:04.080 and to, and to not have a lot of conflict. Well, if you're encouraging people to take offense
00:38:08.600 and slights, then it's, it's not like that somehow solves something. It, it, it often,
00:38:14.640 you know, as in, in, you know, you're saying it, it provokes responses. I mean, people, people
00:38:20.660 don't like being, you know, called racists or for their, you know, because of whatever they
00:38:26.940 said in a conversation, you're likely to promote more conflict. That's one thing. Conflict leads
00:38:32.300 to conflict. And so by, by making complaints over minor matters, matters, you're, you're
00:38:39.500 definitely going to increase the amount of conflict. Again, maybe that's a good thing.
00:38:43.000 I don't, you know, I don't think it is, but I mean, you can, you can see somebody arguing
00:38:47.000 that, well, we don't need to, to ignore these things because they're so important. They're
00:38:51.380 doing so much harm. You know, we don't, we don't, for example, we don't say ignore it
00:38:56.320 if somebody is violent towards you, we say call the police. So there are, we don't, but,
00:39:00.460 but yeah, you're going to have more conflict and, or you might have people avoiding one
00:39:05.280 another. If you, you know, if you're going to offend someone when you talk to them and
00:39:08.880 try to have a conversation, maybe you just don't bother. And so those are, you know, the
00:39:13.980 kinds of things where it seems like it's, it's unlikely to accomplish what, what those
00:39:20.600 who are promoting the idea want. I mean, they're not wanting more conflict, more racial and other
00:39:26.720 kinds of conflict and, and more avoidance of one another.
00:39:31.220 Interesting. And so you guys talk a little bit too about the conflict between conflict
00:39:35.740 management styles. So, I mean, we're seeing this now with this, as we're transitioning
00:39:41.780 in some areas of the country, I'm not, again, we want to reiterate, this is like not happening
00:39:45.040 on a culture-wide level. People are sure some people think that, but it's happening in very
00:39:49.220 few segmented places. But there, there's conflicts between these two different types of moral
00:39:55.000 cultures. So you have the individuals who are appealing to a victimhood culture, bumping
00:39:59.800 up against these people who are, you know, the dignity culture of people. How is that
00:40:04.080 manifesting itself? I guess, I guess the only place you see it manifest is in the blogosphere
00:40:09.220 or in magazines or newspapers. I mean, are you seeing manifestations of that, of that conflict?
00:40:15.660 I would say certainly we are seeing manifestations of it in the sense that people will write blogs
00:40:22.640 and articles complaining about the oversensitivity of college students or the activist set, who
00:40:27.540 in turn will write blogs and articles complaining about the insensitivity of others who condemn
00:40:33.420 them or don't understand the nature of their complaints.
00:40:36.980 Gotcha. And I'm curious too, so you all talk about in the paper that cultures of morality influence
00:40:45.220 other aspects of life, right? So a culture of honor made people like very sensitive to insults and to
00:40:53.040 insults. They, they, they worked on being warlike so they can be ready to like pounce and go after a guy 0.55
00:40:59.840 if you needed to. How is a culture of victimhood influencing other aspects of just daily life?
00:41:07.340 There's so many examples here. Maybe, maybe Jason will have some too, but I mean, I could just give
00:41:17.040 two. One is, one is the idea of safe spaces. So you see a lot of the same language, you know,
00:41:22.580 when you're thinking of microaggressions, it's like somebody has done a kind of violence to you by
00:41:26.700 ways of work. But one of the terms used by activists is this idea of a safe space. So sometimes
00:41:34.120 the whole idea is that the whole college should be a safe space. Sometimes there are particular
00:41:38.340 places. There was last fall, so one year ago at Brown University, a speaker, Wendy McElroy,
00:41:48.540 who considers herself kind of a libertarian feminist, but she came to speak at a debate 1.00
00:41:54.920 and a thing with another feminist. And the idea was that she was going to criticize the term rape 1.00
00:42:00.860 culture and critique that. And there was a group on campus that created a safe space, which was a room
00:42:10.200 where there was Play-Doh and coloring books and cookies, and people could escape from the talk
00:42:17.280 if they needed to and come to the safe space. And so, you know, one student who made use of this safe
00:42:25.520 space said, I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and
00:42:32.440 closely held beliefs. So the idea is that if you're bombarded by viewpoints that go against your
00:42:36.600 beliefs, you're made unsafe. It's something that, you know, you have to get away from. I mean, I think
00:42:41.400 somebody recently said that if you've gone through four years of college and you haven't, you know,
00:42:47.440 had your views challenged, you should get your money back. You know, so the old idea would be it's good
00:42:52.440 to be challenged in your beliefs. And this is that not only is it not good, but it's something
00:42:57.460 that's actually harming you that you need to be protected from. Something that's equated with
00:43:02.220 violence. Considered a form of destruction or violence to offend or to challenge someone's
00:43:09.560 beliefs or make them uncomfortable in any way. And, you know, as thinking of other things,
00:43:16.840 in honor cultures, people boast about their bravery and things like that. And one of the
00:43:25.020 things in dignity cultures, you're not, you're supposed to be really modest, don't boast.
00:43:28.440 And so we would tend to see like in victimhood cultures, people are more likely to boast about
00:43:33.020 being a victim and about their weakness. You know, so I started seeing on, you know, letters that
00:43:42.400 students would write like for an applications for graduate school or for, for awards and things,
00:43:50.760 it would all be, they would all be focused on all these horrible things that have happened to them,
00:43:54.720 you know, instead of focusing on what I can do. I mean, and I can, you can kind of see that some of
00:43:59.480 it is, some of it isn't necessarily victim, but it's the idea that I've overcome these things,
00:44:03.820 but a lot of it is not. It's, it's, it's, and I think there's that parallel with honor and also
00:44:10.300 in honor cultures where you might shame cowards, you know, in victimhood culture, you, you know,
00:44:16.000 there's this shaming of the privileged and the shaming of oppressors. So people tell people,
00:44:21.200 check your privilege and, and things like that, which is kind of the equivalent. You see,
00:44:26.020 if a coward is the worst thing you can be in honor culture and being, um, black, you know, 0.98
00:44:30.440 privileged, but blind to it is, is it, or an actual oppressor is the worst thing that you can be. 0.98
00:44:35.660 Yeah. So, so Beowulf wouldn't have a good time on American campuses.
00:44:40.300 Or, or Achilles.
00:44:44.140 Yeah. I think it's interesting, this whole idea. So this idea that, uh, victimhood culture arises when,
00:44:50.480 um, things are extremely diverse, egalitarian, uh, the state is the power, the state is strong,
00:44:57.140 but at the same time, as you said, that it sort of forces people to turn inwards because they don't
00:45:02.460 want to get out and mix it up with people and the, the fear that they're going to possibly offend.
00:45:06.980 And it seems like I'm just kind of following this. And I mean, I know you guys don't really
00:45:10.400 take this leap in your paper, but it seems like victimhood culture could actually destroy the
00:45:16.080 thing. Like it could destroy democracy in a way. Um, the thing that made victimhood culture possible, 0.52
00:45:21.860 like victimhood culture will destroy it. Everyone's has to turn inwards and like not actually mix it up
00:45:27.980 with people with that are different from them. Um, because they might be offended.
00:45:31.980 I don't know. I'm just speculating there. I know you guys don't do that in your paper. You're just
00:45:36.300 sociologists. You guys are descript describing, you're not Nostradamus or prescribing.
00:45:40.980 We're maybe doing some of it, a little bit of it and something we're writing now. So Jason,
00:45:45.380 do you want to, yeah, I'm curious, like, where are you, where are you guys,
00:45:47.620 where are you going to take this work that you've done? Um, where are you going to go with it?
00:45:50.940 Um, so we're, we're, uh, hopefully we'll, we'll write a book. Um, but, um, right now we're writing
00:46:00.620 an article that's kind of a response to some of the, uh, the criticisms and things that we've gotten
00:46:05.240 and, um, we're trying to, um, has there been a lot of criticism?
00:46:11.300 Uh, actually a lot of the response has been positive.
00:46:14.340 A lot of it. Yeah. Yeah. There, so I guess there have been some misunderstandings.
00:46:19.500 Sure. There have been, you know, so, um,
00:46:22.460 Connor Friederstorf published something in the Atlantic about it and, um, he published a multi-part
00:46:30.080 series. And one of them was, uh, where he was publishing readers complaints about the term
00:46:36.120 victimhood culture. And so, yeah, you have people saying, well, the term victimhood culture is a
00:46:40.860 microaggression. And one person said, you know, it's a microaggression, actually a real aggression,
00:46:46.260 you know? Um, so which, you know, is kind of to be expected, right? If you, if we're saying that,
00:46:51.580 you know, um, that the adherents of this culture take offense very easily, they, they take offense
00:46:56.620 at the name that we've given it to. But, um, you know, we, we have reasons for that, you know,
00:47:01.260 for the use of the term that, you know, but, um, but yeah, that's been the most of it that they,
00:47:07.440 they see the term as, as offensive and in their various arguments. So I've tried to, um, you know,
00:47:15.380 to think about, I mean, when we, in our article, especially where we're, we're, um, describing
00:47:22.980 something and trying, trying to describe and explain, and we're not, you know, um, you know,
00:47:27.340 issuing moral condemnations, but, but, um, but it is, I think it is useful. Um, and this is
00:47:36.320 sociological work can be useful in, and understanding, um, in, in helping make moral
00:47:43.060 decisions, right? Even though it can't kind of say what's right or wrong, but if you're thinking
00:47:47.060 about the consequences, the natural consequences of particular cultures, you know, as I said before,
00:47:52.780 victimhood culture is going to lead to more conflict. Now, maybe you'll decide the trade-offs
00:47:56.020 are worth it, but, um, but it can, it can, you can even think about, you know, what are the trade-offs?
00:48:02.580 So are micro, one, one thing would be, are microaggressions even causing a lot of harm?
00:48:08.320 And so, uh, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt posted a big piece in the Atlantic that had a lot
00:48:13.940 of attention, the coddling of the American mind. And what they said is that, um, you know, that if you
00:48:20.000 draw on insights from, um, um, you know, from, uh, from psychology, right? From, um, from,
00:48:27.520 from therapy, the idea is usually that, you know, you don't want to magnify things and make them
00:48:33.200 bigger than they are. Um, imagine that, you know, people's intentions when you don't. And so they,
00:48:38.300 they see these things, uh, uh, microaggression complaints, demands for trigger warnings and stuff
00:48:42.460 as, as probably harming the people who are, um, who they're intended to help, you know, because
00:48:48.520 they're, they're making them, um, you know, not only unprepared for society at large, but probably
00:48:53.500 leading to anxiety and depression and these other things. And so, and yeah, I think it's also
00:48:59.120 if, um, if in dignity culture, the idea is that there is this powerful state, but we don't invoke
00:49:06.220 it for small things, only for big things. Right. And so that, that's kind of, um, you know, uh,
00:49:12.460 there's that discrepancy because you want general freedom in your life, except if there's violence and
00:49:17.900 things like that. And then you want the Leviathan to come in, right. And, uh, and, and suppress it. Um,
00:49:22.760 and, and, but, um, but if you, you know, if you invoke the Leviathan for, um, for every little
00:49:29.420 thing, then you, yeah, I mean, you, you really are going to destroy the kind of, um, um, liberal
00:49:35.460 democratic order that has been associated with, with dignity. Okay. So I think. Right. And that is
00:49:42.820 one example we draw on in our discussion, uh, talking about social control and totalitarian
00:49:49.120 societies. And I'm not making some claim we're headed towards totalitarianism. I'm not
00:49:52.120 not being an alarmist, but, um, we do talk about how, um, one of the things that makes
00:49:56.860 totalitarian societies totalitarian is that people can drag the state into every little
00:50:01.920 dispute, usually by accusing their neighbor of being disloyal or whatever, uh, being part
00:50:06.660 of some, uh, category that will attract social control from the state. And a lot of the executions
00:50:12.960 you see in a place like Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia are people informing on each other as a
00:50:19.080 means of handling their conflicts. So I'm not, again, and I'm not making the argument
00:50:22.800 we're near that in any way, but this, your point about, uh, democracy made me think of
00:50:28.020 this, that carrying forward this culture of complaint far enough in one direction, you
00:50:33.780 get something that looks like totalitarianism.
00:50:36.240 Interesting.
00:50:36.320 It would be, it would be totalitarianism if it were the state doing it right. Wouldn't
00:50:40.700 it, Jason? I mean, it's something, there's something like it on college campuses that's
00:50:44.680 arising. You're not, but the difference is of course, I mean, they're not executing people.
00:50:49.620 They're just banning speakers. I mean, which is less of a consequence, but there's, there
00:50:53.620 is this kind of mindset. I mean, there was, um, the university of Manchester, Manchester recently
00:50:58.760 had two, two journalists in to talk. Here was going to be the talk, um, from liberation
00:51:04.180 to censorship. Does modern feminism have a problem with free speech? And there were two 1.00
00:51:08.260 speakers coming in and talk about this. Then both of the speakers got banned by this student
00:51:12.960 unit. Um, and they said that it was because, um, you know, and you know, there was an editorial,
00:51:18.720 um, you know, I mean, that was another, another incident actually, but, uh, but, but they, um,
00:51:27.140 yeah, but you see, see this happening all the time. Speakers being banned. The idea is that
00:51:30.840 they can't even come on a campus and speak because they're going to imperil people's
00:51:35.340 safety. So that, that, yeah, that's, that's a totalitarian mindset, even though, you know,
00:51:39.080 it's not nothing, nothing like being sent to the gulag, but it's, uh, I mean, I think
00:51:44.320 even, even see it online, right? Like when individuals who do something like microaggress
00:51:50.040 online, like they could be completely shamed on the internet and like their life in the real
00:51:54.900 world could be ruined. Like they lose a job. Uh, you know, people send, I don't know,
00:52:00.880 they people drive by their house and threatening phone calls, like say they're going to kill
00:52:04.500 me. Like, I guess who was, there's something like, uh, what's that French philosopher's
00:52:07.540 name? Foucault? Foucault.
00:52:10.120 Anepticon, yeah.
00:52:11.300 Yeah. He said basically like, you know, the state isn't going to be the one who comes in
00:52:15.260 with the totalitarianism, like with the, the, the, the Jack heeled boot against our throat.
00:52:20.060 It'll just be like, we'll all just welcome it because we have, we're all watching each
00:52:24.960 other and we'll just suddenly watch ourselves. Like that's, that's how totalitarianism comes.
00:52:29.960 Like we just sort of allow it to happen because we're always constantly watching each other
00:52:34.520 with our devices and our smartphones and the internet and all this stuff.
00:52:40.360 It's interesting stuff. And I'm curious too, and I know you guys are sociologists and you're
00:52:43.620 trying to, excuse me, you're academics and you're trying to be descriptive, but I mean, I think
00:52:47.280 you don't want to cast moral judgment. It sounds like it's in your interest though, as academics
00:52:51.780 to, I mean, you guys got, you've guys got some skin in the game. If, uh, if you, I mean, just
00:52:57.640 from what you just said that people objected to the idea of victimhood culture, like how does,
00:53:04.200 I mean, it seems like victimhood culture could get in the way of, uh, academic pursuits because
00:53:09.300 people will say, well, that's that, that what you're doing is offending me. Um, even though
00:53:14.680 it might be true, right? Like, I mean, it sort of, it could prohibit people from academics
00:53:19.720 from exploring uncomfortable truths that might be a net benefit to society, but it gets shut
00:53:26.080 down because someone's, it doesn't feel safe.
00:53:31.340 Exactly. Exactly. And while we don't pass any judgments at all in our original paper, we
00:53:36.020 did write an editorial for the Chronicle of Higher Education calling for academic freedom.
00:53:41.440 You know, however, whatever position you take in this debate, uh, about microaggressions
00:53:45.980 and so forth, you have to recognize and preserve academic freedom or else you've given away the
00:53:50.320 game. That the spirit of free inquiry requires, we say things that are new and that might challenge
00:53:56.380 people's beliefs and that are likely to cause offense somewhere down the line. You can't have
00:54:00.580 free inquiry without offense.
00:54:03.040 That's one of the reasons we've, um, you know, we've sort of, um, you know, we're not
00:54:07.400 activists and, and, and we don't normally make judgments and didn't in the, in the, the academic
00:54:12.560 article, but, um, yeah, we did make an exception there because as you said, we are academics and
00:54:18.560 this is, is crucial to our, our ability to, to be able to, um, to do our work. Um, you can't
00:54:26.020 have an, an, an, an, you know, if the university is going to be an environment where people pursue
00:54:30.400 knowledge, then people are going to be offended. And it's, um, you can't have an environment like
00:54:36.060 that that's free of offense. And so, you know, we're, we're definitely, um, you know, I mean,
00:54:41.200 I, I don't, you know, certainly don't mind saying, you know, that I am critical of these
00:54:45.960 things. I don't see, you know, that a university trying to deal with microaggression and then
00:54:51.560 to say, well, opposition to affirmative action is a microaggression that's banned, you know, and, uh,
00:54:56.140 and even they say that we're not banning it, it's just advice, but you, you, you, what, what does
00:55:01.740 that mean? If you're, you're in your faculty training, you're telling people not to say these
00:55:06.480 things or what ultimately happens if someone says it, says it. So it's either, you know, it's either
00:55:12.160 pointless or it really does limit, uh, academic freedom. Very interesting. Well, Bradley, Jason,
00:55:18.740 this has been a fascinating conversation. I'm sure we could just talk more about it. Um, but, uh,
00:55:23.380 thank you so much for your time. Where can people learn more about the work or read
00:55:26.120 the paper themselves if they want it to? Uh, Google. It's online. Okay. That's where
00:55:32.040 I found it. We were the first result to come up with our names and the paper title. Okay.
00:55:36.800 So microaggression and moral cultures is the title of our original paper. And there, you
00:55:41.820 know, there've been other things written about it. Um, Jonathan Haidt and his blog called the
00:55:46.120 righteous mind wrote a post and, and many others. So it's, it's, um, it's pretty easy to be
00:55:52.120 easy to be able to find, or they can certainly, uh, look us up and contact us if they want it.
00:55:58.480 Fantastic. Well, Bradley Campbell, Jason Manning, thanks so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:56:03.140 Thanks.
00:56:04.380 My guests today were Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning. They are sociologists and, uh, you can
00:56:08.840 find their paper. You just got to Google it, Google honor, dignity, victim hood. You're going to find
00:56:15.380 that's how I found it. Go check it out. I think you'll really enjoy it.
00:56:21.520 Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice.
00:56:26.080 Make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com. And if you
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00:56:43.120 telling you to stay manly.