I recently picked up a second-hand copy of Theodore Dalrymple’s Spoiled Rotten. Like almost anything by the good doctor, it’s as disheartening as it is a ripping read. Drawing, as he so often does, on his experience dealing with the refuse of Britain’s criminal and welfare systems (often a tautology), Dalrymple explores how a culture of infantilism and toxic sentimentality has become entrenched in British — indeed, Western — public life. Stephen Fry agrees, arguing that “deep infantilism” cripples public discourse.
We need only consider the fetishising of Greta Thunberg and the “climate kids”. Especially Thunberg’s signature diatribes, in which one of the most indulged, privileged people in human history scowls and stamps her feet. Anyone who’s ever dealt with a spoiled brat recognises Thunberg’s, and her army of privileged children’s, tantrums for exactly what they are.
As Stephen Fry has noted, “It’s so simple to imagine that one is hard done by, that things are unfair, and that one is underappreciated” […]This often manifests as a tendency to blame others for one’s grievances.
How can anyone read that and not immediately think of Thunberg’s petulant whining? “How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood.” That nearly every child who isn’t a spoiled, immature offspring of Swedish multi-millionaires could only dream of the kind of life she has never occurs to her.
The childlike Greta Thunberg, for example, has been lionized for demanding simplistic solutions to the complicated problem of climate change. It is highly unlikely, however, that she understands the far-reaching social, political and economic implications of her demands. What is most surprising is that world leaders play along with her.
In fact, by posing as the perpetual child-victim of wicked grown-ups — by metaphorically slamming her bedroom door and shouting, “It’s not fair!”, over and over again — Thunberg is tapping into the most powerful narrative of toxic infantilism: imaginary victimhood.
Immature people tend to resort to self-pity. In today’s victimhood culture, grievances serve as social currency. However, “self-pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have, and the most destructive,” says Fry. Self-pity stifles human development on both the individual and the societal level.
Young children tend to display a strong sense of entitlement. They make demands on the adult world—in particular, their parents—without having done anything to earn what they desire.
In our current culture, this manifests in the grim sight of armies of middle-class children, marching in expensive private school blazers and snapping rivers of selfies with the latest iPhones, collectively stamping their feet and throwing tantrums because they haven’t been instantly granted the environmental paradise their teachers have told them is their right.
Don’t expect the kids to grow out of it, though, when their teachers and thought leaders remain government-supported “kidults” all their lives.
Failure to grow up makes for a toxic personality. As Jordan Peterson has remarked, “People who don’t grow up don’t find the sort of meaning that sustains them through difficult times … and they’re left bitter and resentful and without purpose and adrift and hostile … and vengeful and arrogant and deceitful and of no use to themselves and of no use to anyone else.” In short, “there is nothing uglier than an old infant.”
Areo
We only have to look at the sad old Boomers trying to re-live the 60s by dressing up in silly costumes and making geriatric fools of themselves at an Extinction Rebellion protest. Or the Nosey-Nannas, long past their usefully fertile or working age, wobbling their flabby upper arms and varicose-veined legs at a “refugee” protest.
Or, indeed, the hideously ugly aged infants posing as our “leaders”.
