Complaining about the culture of complaining
It appeared thirty years ago The culture of complaint, Robert Hughes' essay satirizing political correctness. And here we are, still complaining all day long. I'm not just talking about the so-called Wokeism, but also the new right, which has made an argumentative corkscrew by complaining about the complaints of others and formulating its own. As a result, everyone feels victimized and everyone can promote or receive a lynching, thanks to the multiplying effect of social networks. Public opinion has been democratized, but democracy always has a trick; in the case of networks the trick is that the debates are oriented, that most of the debaters are bots or paid agitators, and that the algorithm rewards bipolarization. We live in a society of interchangeable aggressors and victims, while the most sensible are afraid to demonstrate (this was the great threat that Hughes foresaw) because the possibility of stepping on a tempranillo, using an incorrect term or causing collateral damage is tremendously high.
When Hughes sang about the culture of complaint because of its "paralyzing" effects, perhaps he did not suspect that thirty years later things would go so far. In fact, in 1993 the Australian essayist went rather too far. neocons Americans took advantage of the situation to counter feminism, multiculturalism, educational anti-elitism, and also state interventionism in favor of the most disadvantaged. But the objective victims of the system did very well to complain, as did the union workers, the women suffragettes, and even before that, the segregated blacks and Indians. Like it or not, all the social advances in history have been achieved on the basis of complaints – which when collective, organize strikes, riots, or revolutions..
Needless to say, minority grievances are still alive and well. But in the US, and increasingly in Europe, the new right has also learned to play the victim. And so they combine their traditional individualism – "Get the state out of my pocket!" – with the defence of radical interventionism in matters that have nothing to do with the economy (religion, sex, gender, race, values). This is the Trump formula, which has achieved electoral success with an oxymoron: the victimhood of the powerful. Thus, the culture of grievance has not only not subsided but has spread like an oil stain.
The left – in the broadest sense – has contributed by trivializing the concept of victim, preaching to people, turning every mistaken gesture, every unfortunate phrase and every misunderstanding into a cultural battle, putting ethical and moral values (individual) above the traditional defense of social justice (collective) that has opened a gap that s.
It is not merely a political issue. Victimhood is the fuel of demagogues, opportunists, and aspiring politicians. celebrity and conspiracy theorists. It is the tool of many self-help gurus, of failed pedagogical models, of the perversion of anti-punitivism, of a very lax idea of individual responsibility. But it is also, although it may seem impossible, the seed of an argument that the powerful use to perpetuate their privilege. Elon Musk complaining about the limitations of freedom of expression, Trump complaining about immigrants, Real Madrid complaining about referees and Mazón complaining about the imposition from Valencian. This type of victims Yes, they justify our complaint. And I'll leave it here, because I'm beginning to suspect that this article is contradicting itself.
