5 Comments

Great piece. You say you are not a psychologist but this piece demonstrates a deep level of insight into the psyche of these types.

I hope you continue writing these pieces. Cheers!

Expand full comment

Thanks for writing this!

I just wanted to harp on one aspect of this sad and ridiculous performance:

It is bizarre and hilarious (and certainly something that tells us much about the time we're living in) how the most coddled, lauded, safest, richest, successful, most "represented" and most free in every possible way, women of upscale liberal-arts America can't go on a bad date or survive a minor disappointment without blaming the nebulous invisible force and all-purpose conspiracy theory called the "Patriarchy".

My guess is it serves the purpose of Satan, this invisible omnipotent evil that is always out there conspiring against them, but also it gives them that Handmaid's Tale frisson of oppression, which they seem to fear yet oddly also crave. (Also, as they were all indoctrinated by Foucault acolytes, they truly believe that every evil in the world comes from Power Dynamics and that ultimate Satan, the European man who inscribed his power-knowledge into their unwilling bodies).

I know a few young women in the arts and media and journalism (my wife is a writer and mentor), and they all seem to be incredibly brittle and constantly anxious. Trump gave them a monumental nervous breakdown, then George Floyd had them kneeling and apologizing to any black person they could find, and they treat Covid like the Black Plague or Ted Bundy climbing through their window.

Maybe the "Patriarchy" provides a handy excuse for why they're all so neurotic and miserable.

Expand full comment

Great article once again. Rough times we live in, glad folks like you are correctly identifying the issues at hand.

Expand full comment
Jan 4, 2022·edited Jan 4, 2022Liked by Apex

>Whole Foods Enjoyer

more like Whole Foods Fan !shatter

ece article, this is a great substack you've made

Expand full comment

One of my parents was a narcissist. The description of other people as shadows is apt. I’d add that to the narcissist, they’re useful shadows. Because they’re not persons, their actions are constantly re-interpreted to prop up and support whatever narrative of Self is playing in the narcissist’s mind at that moment.

At some point Honor viewed her husband and children as necessary to prop up her internal Self as Professional-class Wife and Mother, having it all. Then, her internal Self collided with the reality that spouses, and children especially, require a degree of self-sacrifice. So she had to re-cast the shadows as impediments to her true Self as Liberated Woman Throwing Off Her Shackles.

As kid, this constant re-casting is very tough. You’re always on shifting ground. I pray for her kids. If there’s any bright spot, it’s that the responses I’ve seen to the article have been uniformly appalled, whether coming from the left or the right.

Expand full comment