Do not medicalize shame. And music.

Posted on By Chris Gale

I despise the overly sensitive. Because they turn everything into a diagnosis as if that means that they have won their show trial and that things should change.

I have seen real PTSD. I have heard the stories. From war: from refugee camps, from accidents. I have nightmares from some of them (and I have lived through road crashes where I witnessed broken pelvises and death: I have my own nightmares that resonate with these things).

And being butthurt is not PTSD. Shame is not PTSD. Shame means you have a conscience, and the hounds of the Spirit may still encourage godly sorrow that leads to repentence.

But that is not allowed in this time’s ideology: it must all be someone else’s fault.

This denies our humanity: for we are no longer moral agents. We are not allowed to consider how our opponents think and feel, instead we are commanded to shriek, to hate, and to destroy.

But this hatred and shrieking is not merely noise that deafens, it dulls our sensitivity, blunts our intelligence, and makes our statements ridiculous. 

Of course, social justice isn’t the only option if you’re stuck, emotionally, at age 17. No disrespect to Our Lord and Saviour, but the church used to be a good career choice for sociopaths who get off on abusing other people. In many cases, the swooshy frocks and the free incense sealed the deal.

But if you hate yourself and you want to take it out on rest of the world, these days, you’re better off getting a job at Gawker. Today, it’s all about self-esteem, not self-indulgence, and nothing satisfies the ego like the warm glow of satisfaction you get after putting someone else down.

The impulse to cut has metastasised into the self-righteousness of social justice. Self-loathing has been externalised: rather than hurting ourselves, we hurt other people who look like us. Hence the social justice warrior’s hatred for his own ethnic group, straight white men. “Kill All White Men” is the new “Where’s the cheese knife?”

The culture around teen angst has dissolved accordingly. Gone are the long dark nights of the soul as embodied by emo icons Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson. These days it’s all about hollow chest-beating affirmation from the likes of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, which satisfies the Millennial’s constant requirement for mood fixes.

Honestly, things were better in my day, when we got the self-obsession and hatred off our chests by the time we hit 18, for the trivial price of a few white lines under our Omega Seamasters that stubbornly refuse to tan.

Personally, never saw the need to cut myself. Instead one can listen to the old stuff: predating anything Milo would have heard, the blues neat and without extra flavour. No, I won’t inflict much Byzantine Chant or Latin music on you today.

Whether antipodean (the song’s not written by Eddie, but by David Seymour, an Aussie

Or postmodern, with full emo,
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/27/im-worried-not-enough-teenagers-are-self-harming/

But eventually I am bought back to worship, away from anger, the self loathing and projection. As should we all be.