We keep hearing about increased anxiety in young
people, and an increase in perceived victimhood. This might not be so strange
except for the fact that there’s a good argument to be made that, negative
social media influences aside, young Brits have been brought up in one of, if
not the most, privileged, safest, most prosperous, most peaceable societies
that’s ever been created. So, on the surface, you might think it strange that
there is increased anxiety in young people, and an increase in perceived
victimhood. But I have a theory that probably explains at least some of it.
This current society is one in which material risk and genuine adversity are relatively scarce - so in economic terms, you could say that the demand for meaningful challenges has begun to exceed the available supply. This imbalance creates a kind of market distortion in which individuals, unable to compete effectively in the constrained market for competence, shift toward the effectively more elastic market for perceived victimhood. In other words, because competence is constrained by reality (inelastic) while victimhood claims are effectively limitless (elastic) – the dynamic creates an effect whereby, because claims of harm can be produced at near‑zero marginal cost and yield high and often unjustified social returns in the form of various signalling effects, the result is inflation.
On top of that, there is another tactic employed to expand the supply of available victimhood claims – just keep broadening the definition of a problem until it applies to you. For example, in a society where racism, sexism or other forms of unfair discrimination become less frequent, the incentive emerges to stretch those categories to capture ever‑smaller offences or affronts, effectively increasing the pool of actions or events that can be framed as unfair discrimination.
It’s perhaps to be expected, therefore, that when genuine crises are diminished, synthetic ones emerge to satisfy unmet demand, allowing individuals to capitalise, and help create a market supply that caters for needs that have been exaggerated or fabricated.
I say all this, not because I’m insensitive to genuine need, victimhood, and harm – because I’m really not. I’m actually highly sensitive and attuned to other people’s pain and suffering. No, I’m saying it because cultivated or courted victimhood is actually a malady for people’s well-being, because it makes them easy to manipulate. In a hyper-connected world, there is no shortage of bad actors who are looking to invoke your outrage, provocation and disharmony – and in the many exaggerated or fabricated cases, this not only diminishes your well-being, it also distracts you from primary responsibilities, and is highly likely to keep you perennially anxious, unsettled, ungrateful and resentful.
