Ending the Spectacle of Infantilism
The youth mental health crisis speaks to the abnegation of responsibility among adults—liberals and leftists foremost. Unmediated expressions of distress in spectacle-oriented activities must be rejected for a mature, radical politics.
The prevalence of mental illness among young people has been framed as a social problem in desperate need of both awareness and attention. The largest national and international agencies are already attuned to the matter. According to studies done by the World Health Organization, one in seven 19-year-olds has experienced “a mental disorder.” In the United States, one in five people between the ages of three and seventeen have experienced “mental, emotional… or behavioral disorders,” according to Dr. Vivek Murthy, surgeon general under Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden.
However, this very same official recognized only one social ill that might be causing their distress: the climate crisis. Economic insecurity or childhood hunger, for example, are not mentioned. It isn’t hard to generate a more plausible, if basic, hypothesis as to why American youth today seem particularly hopeless: their social and economic prospects are extraordinarily grim. Indeed, nothing seems to change—except the climate. Late Imperial blandishments regarding “freedom” by conservatives, or “tolerance” by liberals, ring hollow. We seem to lack credible promises for the future, as well as the words to diagnose our ills. Language itself is worn out—no wonder AI is so dumb!
