Real problems erase fake ones

Last week, a friend quoted a two-year-old email of mine: ‘I’m starting to root for a plague or world war to purify western culture, burning to cinders all the petty, neurotic, witch-hunting cliques with the white heat of real problems.’ Depressed by my own foresight, I wrote back: ‘The trouble with this solution is that then you still have the real problems.’

Yup. But since the real problems aren’t going anywhere any time soon, and we’ve so little to celebrate while the world goes to hell without the comfort of even a hand basket, let’s consider the possible benefits.

I’ve often remarked that identity politics is the product of prosperity. The movement’s nitpicking about undetectable-to-the-human-eye ‘microaggressions’ is an indulgence, most commonly among affluent white people hungry for the illusion of having problems (and enemies) for a sense of meaning. By definition, neurosis is the gratuitous invention of problems, and now properly unimaginary problems are dropped off daily on our doorsteps (please retrieve with latex gloves), with more than enough to go round for everybody.

Arguably, humanity by nature requires challenging obstacles to overcome in order to feel purposeful, so that when societies become too coddling, too safe and too comfortable, they also become neurotic: they construct make-believe problems to chafe against, like scratching-posts for pets.

This isn’t to dismiss racial friction — identitarians’ leading obsession — as already sorted or trivial. Should these panic-driven lockdowns continue, we’re seriously inching towards at least partial societal collapse. In a more Darwinian environment, disparities of power will really matter: who has stockpiles of food, who can defend their property, who can command resources like energy. When faced with inability to buy groceries or pay the rent, minorities at such palpable disadvantage will not give two hoots about removing statues of university benefactors who profited from the slave trade.