Psychobabble and Seeing the World: "the near-worship of emotions and feelings at the expense of reason and thought"
Mental health profession and blogress Dr. Sanity has an interesting post about the deleterious effects of mixing pop pseudo-psychology with . . . well, just about everything else in modern life.
Here's a great one-line indictment of popular culture's descent into willful stupidity: "the near-worship of emotions and feelings at the expense of reason and thought."
She goes on to say this:
"The holy trinity of the emotionally sensitive in our midst can be summarized by the hysterical hyping of supposedly "scientific" psychology, includes
(1) (unearned) self-esteem (increasing your self-worth without actually having to achieve anything) - this one fits perfectly into the postmodern creed that dictates that your random thoughts, feelings and opinions are just as good as anyone else's; and that there is no objective reality or truth which can distinguish one set from another;
(2) (unrealistic) hope (achieving your goals without any real effort) - utopia and perfection are possible; simply rid the world of all those "bad" aspects of human nature; and
(3) (undeserved) victimhood (it's not your fault that you haven't achieved anything or made any effort) - there are endless moral benefits to being considered "oppressed." This is in part because many on the political left have an intense narcissistic need to see themselves as "champions of the oppressed", hence the constant need to find and maintain an oppressed class of people to champion. But it also dovetails nicely into the the Marxist dialectic that underlies that ideology. The world is divided up into two groups, you see: the oppressors (i.e., white, male, heterosexual, Republican, Americans or Israelis) and the oppressed (everyone else).The political left proudly stands in solidarity with the oppressed victims of the world; and it is worth noting that their stance is particularly ego-gratifying if those they champion are undeserving victims."
Preach it, Dr. Sanity!
<Digression> I add too that the ludicrously simplistic division of the complex real world into "oppressors" and "victims" has actually led to a self-proclaimed leftist white man calling me, an Asian woman (and therefore genetically identifiable as a victim twice over according to prevailing multiculti/PC dogma), an "oppressor." Why? Because I refused to identify myself as a victim who needed a champion on my behalf. No, I am not making this up! I said that I was successful by my own hard work, and he immediately called me an oppressor. This happened a couple summers ago. *snort of derision*
You know, a few days ago, no less than Thomas Sowell wrote that extreme leftists are invested in failure and don't actually want victims to succeed...because then they wouldn't be victims any longer who needed leftist champions. Hmmmm. </Digression>
PS: Dr. Sanity also links to a recent VDH article, thus saving me the effort of doing so myself!