en·ti·tle·ment
noun \-ˈtī-təl-mənt\
: the condition of having a right to have, do, or get something
: the feeling or belief that you deserve to be given something (such as special privileges)
: a type of financial help provided by the government for members of a particular group
I was asked last week when I posted the paper on PTSD to explore the psychology of “Special Snowflakes.” I don’t have time (or frankly my dears, the interest in them) to do an in-depth paper like I posted last week. That was a project that won’t likely happen again soon, as I am not taking any more psych classes unless something weird happens.
Anyway, I open with the definition of entitlement, because it seems to be the word most used to describe the sort of person I was asked to look at. One who believes that they are, somehow, more special than those around them. David Burkhead describes on his blog yesterday a conversation with a woman who firmly believed that it would be perfectly all right for her to own slaves, because, of course, she was entitled to be taken care of. Seems to me this one classifies as pure Fantasy.
This incident, on the other hand, seems to be a direct result of entitlement. Nevermind the student’s rights, the teacher felt hers trumped theirs. “In the crime report, which describes a conversation held between Miller-Young and a UCPD officer whose name has been redacted, Miller-Young took responsibility for taking and destroying the poster and refused to give the names of students who were “following” her. Although she said she did not know “what an acceptable and legal response to hate speech would be,” Miller-Young said her actions were justified. “Miller-Young went on to say that because the poster was upsetting to her and her students, she felt that the activists did not have a right to be there,” the crime report states.”
So the snowflakes do believe they are better than, and entitled to destroy those, who disagree with them. Acting Out, one of Vaillant’s immature defenses, has become a familiar screed to those of us who linger too long on the internet, and Sarah Hoyt’s blog on triggers addresses much of the lunacy we are seeing related to this teacher’s behaviour as it becomes more and more common.
How about Idealization? I made an offhanded comment about Margaret Sanger during a conversation about the Tuskegee Syphilis experiments, and one of my classmates huffed that Planned Parenthood, no matter what it was started for, had done much good. She also stopped talking to me… But here is what the bastion of feminism had to say in the Pivot of Civilization. “Such parents swell the pathetic ranks of the unemployed. Feeble-mindedness perpetuates itself from the ranks of those who are blandly indifferent to their racial responsibilities. And it is largely this type of humanity we are now drawing upon to populate our world for the generations to come. In this orgy of multiplying and replenishing the earth, this type is pari passu multiplying and perpetuating those direst evils in which we must, if civilization is to survive, extirpate by the very roots.”
Passive Aggression is easy to find. Indeed, it is difficult to avoid the passively aggressive online, only we usually call them “trolls” and those among us who delight in conflicts as being conducive to mental exercise bait them into emerging into the light, even if only briefly before they retreat to a comfortable lair. I’m less likely to engage, not finding them worthy of my time and energy, as they have no mind to change with cogent and reasoned arguments.
Vaillant’s classification of immature defenses:
- Acting out: Direct expression of an unconscious wish or impulse in action, without conscious awareness of the emotion that drives that expressive behavior.
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Fantasy: Tendency to retreat into fantasy in order to resolve inner and outer conflicts.
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Idealization: Unconsciously choosing to perceive another individual as having more positive qualities than he or she may actually have.
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Passive aggression: Aggression towards others expressed indirectly or passively such as using procrastination.
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Projection: Projection is a primitive form of paranoia. Projection also reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the undesirable impulses or desires without becoming consciously aware of them; attributing one’s own unacknowledged unacceptable/unwanted thoughts and emotions to another; includes severe prejudice, severe jealousy, hypervigilance to external danger, and “injustice collecting”. It is shifting one’s unacceptable thoughts, feelings and impulses within oneself onto someone else, such that those same thoughts, feelings, beliefs and motivations are perceived as being possessed by the other.
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Projective identification: The object of projection invokes in that person precisely the thoughts, feelings or behaviors projected.
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Somatization: The transformation of negative feelings towards others into negative feelings toward self, pain, illness, and anxiety.
What then? I have no desire to leave you despairing of our society, that has surrounded us with such defenses and lifted up the bullies over the bullied because it suits them to break down that which is good and beautiful. We are taught from childhood that there is no objective standard of truth, and beauty, and the neuroses of the special snowflakes are in a way, a response to that teaching. They have no hope, and they need – not just want, but viscerally need – to destroy all within their reach, in order for them to feel better about their own station and work in life. Having chosen to write works that do not sell, they proclaim that those who do sell fiction are hacks. Having chosen to write that which does not measure up to the works of the giants in their fields, they do not seek to become better, but to tear down the giants so they no longer need to look up. Vaillant points out in his paper entitled (partly) “The Beginning of Wisdom” that those who employ immature defenses prefer the company of those who agree with them. “The interpersonal relationships of such individuals remain perpetually unstable and entangled.” and he goes on, “Put differently, immature defenses are contagious.”
I found a quote which captured my imagination earlier this week, and have included it. “In The Saturday Review of Literature, a Mr. Louis J. Halle, author of a book on Civilization and Foreign Policy, answers as follows a lady who – “lowering,” he says, “her pince-nez” -has inquired what he finds in Tolkien: “What, dear lady, does this invented world have to do with our own? You ask for its meaning – as you ask for the meaning of the Odyssey, of Genesis, of Faust – in a word? In a word, then, its meaning is ‘heroism.’ It makes our own world, once more, heroic. What higher meaning than this is to be found in any literature?”
Indeed! Heroes! That is what we want, not special snowflakes withering in the heat of the sun, feeling that they are better than we are, simply because they say so. We aren’t better than they are simply through our determination. No, we are better because we strive to become better, to write better, to live better… we have embraced hope, and joy, and humor, knowing that we will live happier, healthier lives because of it. We are creative, as defined in Vaillant’s study of gifted women as “Putting something in the world that was not there before.” I highly recommend a look at this study of 60 extraordinary women, keeping in mind the study was done almost one hundred years ago. When did feminism become not about equality, but supremacy?
Mad Genius Club 
34 responses to “Immature Defenses”
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Oooo! Now if the special snowflakes read this they’d just have to do an awful lot of projecting to protect their wittow fewwings. Or perhaps their perception filters are so sensitive they’d not understand that they fit this self-victimized group.
One of the studies – I think it’s The Beginning of Wisdom cited in the article – points out that those who utilize immature defenses are unwilling to admit they have a problem and seek help, and if you show them their behaviour, they will lash out.
What frightens me is the increasing legitimization of these behaviors through the force of law. When an injury that exists only in the mind of the alleged victim is considered grounds for legal action–both civil and criminal–then the rule of law is discarded in favor of arbitrary whims.
Her seeing a sign she didn’t like was a threat requiring her to assault a teenage girl; assaulting a 16 yera old girl was OK because… um… she disagreed with the “professor.”
Yes, and the scary part is that we no longer require people to grow up and lose the immaturity.
But the world still does, and all our (societal) attempts to delay this – however successfully – are only building the backlash.
Well, young lady*, you’ve managed to provide a number of hero(ine)s in “Pixie Noir” (Lom and Bella) and in “The Eternity Symbiote” (Jed and Gabi). You’ve certainly provided examples of (ahem!) _exemplary_ human beings. The special l’il snowflakes with their hurted feewings can go cower in the corner. Pay no attention; it simply encourages ’em.
(*Christopher Stasheff isn’t the only one who thinks so!)
Why, thank you! I really appreciate the review you did for the Eternity Symbiote.
A pleasure, I do assure you.
That was a very interesting study, there at the end. If nothing else it highlights some problems modern society needs to address.
I’ll admit that I’m surprised that the negative correlation between successful careers and motherhood started so early.
It’s not so much the graphic images that anger me, so much as the gall of people like that calling themselves Holocaust survivors. I get just as upset at modern feminists who compare the lot of women throughout history (and by extension themselves) to black slaves.
But I also know that they’ve got the right to say it, and neither I nor they have the right to never be offended. Didn’t this teacher ever learn that lesson?
Just re-read the story. To be fair, the teacher was pregnant, dealing with some other issues, and might not have been functioning optimally at the time. I’d be more forgiving if she hadn’t tried to justify her behavior afterward instead of immediately apologizing.
So, being pregnant and planning to apply eugenics depending on a test result justifies attacking a 16 year old girl, stealing and destroying a sign, with a mob of college kids, because that girl was involved in making it clear what exactly you were planning to do to your child?
Interesting.
If I actually thought pregnancy made women into such helpless idiots, I’d be forced to support those stances that treat us as an odd for of adult child.
Having been pregnant four times, I can say that yes, it affects your thinking. But no, not that much… and she has now been arrested, which gives me hope for law enforcement.
Three times here– it did have a notable effect, but I could tell something was off. And I assuredly didn’t try to use it as a justification for criminal behavior, and it’d be a tough job to divide actual “pregnancy brain” from lack of sleep, especially for the last one.
I’m impressed, too– way I heard it, the initial responders were going to brush it off until they saw the video(s) of the whole thing, including the assault.
Nope, no justification, but a possible mitigation IF due to some issues, chemical or otherwise, she weren’t functioning rationally. And in any case she disqualified herself from that by claiming she had the right to do so and not apologizing, thus demonstrating that she was acting in accordance with her normal attitudes.
And when exactly did I say or imply that she was justified? Or attempt to extend my (disproved in the same post) speculation to all pregnant women?
You said:
To be fair, the teacher was pregnant, dealing with some other issues, and might not have been functioning optimally at the time.
That is a justification– a defense of an action– even though you then say that additional information indicates that she was behaving like herself.
Potential mitigation does not equal defense or justification. And I was unaware of the degree to which Holocaust survivor could be expanded, my mistake. Point conceded.
It’s not so much the graphic images that anger me, so much as the gall of people like that calling themselves Holocaust survivors. I get just as upset at modern feminists who compare the lot of women throughout history (and by extension themselves) to black slaves.
Difference being that “people like that” actually did face being legally killed in quite graphic ways, including being burnt injections, poisoned, chopped up, being beheaded, or simply being induced and left to gasp away their lives with lungs that cannot function in normal air. They have also been exploited as non-persons, and there are constant pushes to expand the human experimentation allowed.
Contrast with women claiming women were treated like black slaves in the US because they had limited property and civil rights.
You do have a right to believe that abortion is an acceptable thing, but they are biological living human beings, they are being killed (evidenced by the graphic images) quite gruesomely, and there are survivors who have given testimony about it and been attacked for doing so.
See also, the abuse of “Godwin’s Law.”
If any of those protestors survived a literal abortion, then I’m sorry and I spoke out of turn.
And comparing that to the state-mandated policy with the end-goal of exterminating an entire people? It would be a different story if they were talking about a place like China where policies made abortion mandatory, but I don’t believe any of those protestors’ parents ever had a knock at the door from guys in uniform telling them they HAD to get an abortion.
I thought that “Holocaust survivors” was a general reference to a generation of young people born while so very very many others were killed and not reference to actually having survived an abortion attempt on their lives. It *has* happened that a baby survives and I know there is at least one anti-abortion activist for whom this is true.
It is somewhat hyperbolic to say “holocaust”, but I’m not so sure if it’s actually inappropriate because, as Foxfier pointed out, ripping small humans into pieces actually really happens with regularity… which makes it different from comparing some mere annoyance or discomfort to lampshades and gas chambers.
And comparing that to the state-mandated policy with the end-goal of exterminating an entire people?
Please note WHY the woman interviewed claimed to be justified in attacking a 16 year old girl.
Then go look up what the survival rate for those diagnosed with Down’s before their birth looks like– or a range of other possible genetic issues, even considering how inaccurate many tests are.
If any of those protestors survived a literal abortion, then I’m sorry and I spoke out of turn.
Do you also require that someone have been gassed and live before you’ll allow that they can be termed a “Holocaust survivor”?
What percent of a group has to be killed before you’ll allow that they can, indeed, liken themselves to Holocaust survivors?
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Strictly speaking, the proper comparison would be to the overall “cleansing” program of which the Holocaust was a part– the various examples of “life unworthy of life” and “unfit” persons who would be a burden.
Sadly, not much is mentioned about the systematic slaughter of the non-Jewish ‘undesirables,’ and schools tend to include all people sent to the camps in the “Holocaust” section, including non-Jewish heroes like Saint Kolbe, probably because of the simpler horror. (And lack of popularity for killing off Jews in America, especially compared to “helping” those unworthy of life not be burdened with it.)
Even more sadly, those “cleansing” programs are getting popular again, in new and creative forms. (And again, and again, and again….)
Okay, you’ve convinced me.
Those kids are the same as people liberated from Auschwitz at the end of WWII and they are perfectly justified in claiming that status if they so desire.
Congratulations, you’re a living example of “inability to rationally argue for your disagreement.” You don’t like an idea that is expressed, but are unable to formulate a rational argument to support your view, so you pile on sarcasm and misrepresent what they have actually said and several points that I made. That is passive aggressive arguing– if you did not want to defend something you already said, you could be honest and say “I just really don’t like them using that word.”
I guess you deserve half points for managing to do so without making ironic accusations against those with whom you disagree or, as the woman in the posted storied did, committing criminal assault.
Feel free to actually set the standards you would require to be met before someone can make an allusion to the Holocaust– you made yourself quite free to throw a fit when someone you found unfit did so.
You say:
Those kids are the same as people liberated from Auschwitz at the end of WWII and they are perfectly justified in claiming that status if they so desire. (with sarcasm clear in the original)
That means that neither being Jewish or other ancestral group nor having actually been the victim of a direct attempt to kill by violent means is required for Bob’s permission to allude to the Holocaust.
The dictionary definitions all include mass slaughter in their list of meanings.
Based on the contestants for the first Miss Holocaust Survivor award, Israel doesn’t require someone to have been in the camps to be considered a Holocaust survivor. The first lineup specifically mentioned many managed to avoid them.
I know I was stressed when I found out about abortion, and how it fit into those attitudes of adults I was exposed to. I was much younger then.
It did fit in with how I understood humanity. Archeological evidence of butchered human bones on one end, and an extensive reading of the adult world’s advertised mores on the other.
So I think all of the things mentioned here can be understood as normal run of the mill human inhumanity.
The way I would argue that abortion shouldn’t be classed with the Holocaust, or the specific type of slavery would be to argue that it should properly be classed with Dahmer, Bundy et al. That said, this only covers part of what I see as the motivation, even if it was the main part I saw as a child. Sanger and others seem to have been fairly intent on using it as a tool to eliminate minorities.
Sanger and others seem to have been fairly intent on using it as a tool to eliminate minorities.
And the disabled, on the same logic. The minorities are “unfit.”
Glad we agree on that, though I’d disagree on the Dahmer thing. (That’d be a “sit around drinking beer” type argument. Which kind of psycho mass killing goes in which category, weeeeee…..)
If all abortion supporters were comfortable with open and honest internal ethnic killing and terrorism, there should be signs of it. I do not see signs to that degree.
That tells me that there is also some other mechanism involved.
When I was a kid, I knew that children were kidnapped for reasons unrelated to ransom. I concluded that it was adults satisfying their libido.
The evil, madness and stupidity motivated by love, lust, and sex seem to fill the gap between what I see and what I would expect solely from matters of power, blood, and utopianism.
I think a lot of it comes down to basic selfishness– not even intrinsically disordered selfish, but… “I don’t want to deal with X problem or result, so let’s make it go away” kind of selfish.
That explains the focus on old people, illegitimate kids and possibly disabled kids, especially if you take into account the frequent claims of it being more “kind.” Some folks are probably sincere, but… a sort of foster grandmother to me was killed by her son, because she had cancer and needed a lot of care. My parents were taking care of her until he he talked her into moving out to his area, and a week later she was dead. He 95% admitted it when we were driving to scatter her ashes after the funeral. (And there’s not a damned thing we could do, either. Probably why the sick SOB told us.)
Different ethnic groups with no distinguishing features don’t get targeted. There’s no discomfort.
When I was a kid (Before God invented dirt, I admit) just after the war. The reported NAZI kill in the camps was 6 million Jews, 13 million undesirables. People rated as Insane, Retarded, Politically incorrect, and anyone considered ‘not worthy’ of passing on their human genes. I understand that the numbers have been changed now but, haven’t kept track. I see the same concepts in modern abortion, not just in racial abortion but the abortion of females vs males in many countries. The ethics of this subject transcend more than one field or concept.
We concentrate on the Jews (and I’m not saying we ought not) and forget the gypsies and Germans… lots of Germans. Any “Aryan” who wasn’t genetically perfect enough… certainly the disabled and people with Downs… people working in hospitals hid those imperfect people, sometimes, when they could, from the eugenicists.
The US and Britain were big on eugenics then, but were appalled when Hitler took it to a logical conclusion. The concept wasn’t abandoned, but became more focused on moving the genetic cull (if I may be so blunt) out of the public eye, to somehow keep the undesirable (mentally frail or, well, *brown*) from having babies, if not through contraception or sterilization (often without consent), then through encouraging abortion of any who would be, for whatever reason, better off dead.
Any “Aryan” who wasn’t genetically perfect enough… certainly the disabled and people with Downs… people working in hospitals hid those imperfect people, sometimes, when they could, from the eugenicists.
I remember doing some studying on my own and finding an explanation of where the Jews came into that– those sick SOBs considered “Jewishness” a trait that could be measured. Folks here probably read enough to have a good chance of running into some of the metrics they used to decide how “Jewish” someone was. You could be a “Jew” with narry a known Jewish ancestor for a dozen generations.
My Dad had a comment about how the Southern Slaver owners decided “who was black” (IIRC a black great grandparent would make a person black) which I think applies to “Jewishness”. His comment was “just shows how powerful black blood was”. So those SOBs considered Jewish blood very powerful. [Evil Grin]