Young, Liberal and Depressed (Pt.II)

Yesterday's post addressed the sense of hopelessness that, according to surveys, seems to be afflicting the young, particularly liberal, or progressive, young people.

This "nihilism index," as it was called in yesterday's post, is much more pronounced among young females than young males and to a greater extent among young progressives than young conservatives.

According to an article at slowboring.com,

[L]iberal girls have the highest increase in depressive affect and conservative boys have the least. But liberal boys are more depressed than conservative girls, suggesting an important independent role for political ideology.

Why should this be? One possibility suggested in the article is that "progressive institutional leaders have specifically taught young progressives that catastrophizing is a good way to get what they want.

The article quotes a podcaster named Jill Filipovic who writes that she is increasingly convinced that,

there are tremendously negative long-term consequences, especially to young people, coming from this reliance on the language of harm and accusations that things one finds offensive are “deeply problematic” or even violent.

Just about everything researchers understand about resilience and mental well-being suggests that people who feel they are the chief architects of their own life — to mix metaphors, that they captain their own ship, not that they are simply being tossed around by an uncontrollable ocean — are vastly better off than people whose default position is victimization, hurt, and a sense that life simply happens to them and they have no control over their response.

This makes sense. Young progressives are often see themselves as perpetually oppressed and victimized. They often believe the world is soon going to end in climate catastrophe, and they find it very difficult to maintain much of a sense of humor.

They're often bitter, angry and judgmental. Such individuals can hardly help being depressed.

Filipovic continues:

That isn’t to say that people who experience victimization or trauma should just muscle through it, or that any individual can bootstrap their way into well-being.

It is to say, though, that in some circumstances, it is a choice to process feelings of discomfort or even offense through the language of deep emotional, spiritual, or even physical wound, and choosing to do so may make you worse off.

Leaning into the language of “harm” creates and reinforces feelings of harm, and while using that language may give a person some short-term power in progressive spaces, it’s pretty bad for most people’s long-term ability to regulate their emotions, to manage inevitable adversity, and to navigate a complicated world.

It's also a pretty reliable way to make oneself feel miserable, angry and perhaps bitter, and other people don't usually enjoy spending much time around someone who's miserable, angry and bitter unless they themselves are also miserable, angry and bitter. And when the only people who care to spend time with a person are people who are themselves miserable, angry and bitter then everyone's misery, anger and bitterness is amplified and reinforced.

Why, though, are girls more affected than boys? Perhaps it's because girls are more sensitive to all the things mentioned above than are boys, and being more sensitive they're more vulnerable to them.

I don't know, but whatever the case, it does seem that progressivism is a very unhealthy mindset. At least it is if one wishes to be a happy person.