Luce campus speaker Christina Hoff Sommers has long been an outspoken adversary of modern feminism.
Her latest book, “One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture Is Eroding Self-Reliance,” co-written with Sally Satel, M.D., documents the ineluctable outcome of the anti-male movement — a culture that characterizes stress, neurosis and emotional fragility as badges of “personal authenticity” while competition and stoicism are harmful to the inner self.
“One Nation Under Therapy” exposes how “therapism” — “emotional self-absorption and the sharing of feelings” — has asserted itself in public education and American culture. Therapism devotees believe competition and criticism are harmful to children. In the chapter “The Myth of the Fragile Child,” Misses Satel and Sommers describe the demise of many schoolyard games, including tag, dodgeball, Simon Says, Red Rover and relay races: “[T]he games are based on removing the weakest links. Presumably, this undercuts children’s emotional development and erodes their self-esteem.”
Sensitivity monitors not only whitewash recess, but also history books and standardized tests. For instance, a narrative on black inventor and scientist George Washington Carver, who found many new uses for peanuts, was expunged from a Riverside Publishing national achievement test because, among other politically correct reasons, it might offend students allergic to peanuts. Likewise, a story that compares a decaying tree stump’s various insects, plants and animals to an apartment complex was removed because students “who have grown up in a housing project may be distracted by similarities to their own living conditions. An emotional response may be triggered.”
Misses Satel and Sommers correctly note: The idea kids can cope with only the blandest of stories is preposterous. Staples like “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and “Hansel and Gretel” delight children despite (or because of) their ghoulish aspects. Kids love to hear ghost stories on Halloween and to ride rollercoasters, screaming as they hurtle down the inclines. Therapeutic protectiveness is like putting blinders on children before taking them for a walk through a vibrant countryside.
Along with high self-esteem, stress management is seen as the pinnacle of the healthy self. The Girl Scouts of America, who have been on the cusp of the feminist ideal, introduced a “Stress Less Badge” in 2001. Girls aged 8 to 11 can earn the badge by keeping a “feelings diary,” exchanging foot massages and practicing “focused breathing.”
CBS Evening News latched on to this idea of children’s stress-filled lives in their 2002 report about “frazzled children overwhelmed by their homework.” The broadcast cited a study finding the time 6- to 9-year-olds spend on homework has tripled since 1981. However, Misses Satel and Sommers give the entire picture represented by a University of Michigan study: “In 1981, those 6- to 8-year-olds who had homework spent an average of seven minutes per night doing it, by 1997, this had increased to 18 minutes — not exactly drudgery. The fact is American students, on average and across all grade levels, do less than one hour of homework per night.”
“One Nation Under Therapy” also documents therapism in adult life, including the ever-expanding definition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a term originally coined by two antiwar psychiatrists during the Vietnam War era who subsequently helped “shape the image of the Vietnam veteran as walking time bombs.” Misses Satel and Sommers provide an excellent history on the political motivation of the PTSD diagnosis.
The definition of PTSD has since expanded to refer to virtually all feelings of “intense fear, helplessness, or horror.” Incredibly, PTSD has been invoked in instances of job termination, sexual harassment cases (by Paula Jones), false arrests and winning an Oscar (by Gwyneth Paltrow).
“One Nation Under Therapy” explodes the therapism movement’s false ideology and motive. Misses Satel and Sommers state, “Therapism will begin to recede when parents demand knowledge-based instead of feelings-centered classrooms. … [M]ost of all, therapism will lose credibility when more Americans come to understand how it fundamentally contradicts our ideals about character and about our national character.”
LISA DE PASQUALE
Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute
www.cblpolicyinstitute.org
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