Microaggression and Moral Cultures
One-upmanship of absorbed pain may be the strongest force behind the rise of the microcomplaint. "Whatever happened to Gary Cooper?" Tony Soprano asked, in his first therapy session, on the pilot episode of "The Sopranos," back in 1999. "The strong, silent type. That was an American. He wasn't in touch with his feelings. He just did what he had to do. See, what they didn't know was once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings that they wouldn't be able to shut him up! And then it's dysfunction this, and dysfunction that. ..."
While Tony was talking explicitly about the culture of therapy and confession, he identified a general transformation in the way we regard stoic reserve versus expression of vulnerability.
He surely would have agreed with the conclusions drawn in a 2014 paper in the journal Comparative Sociology called "Microaggression and Moral Cultures." The authors Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning argue that the increased attention recently given to microaggressions (commonplace exchanges that denigrate marginalized groups; see the recent controversy at Yale over Halloween costumes) on college campuses is a result of "the emergence of a victimhood culture that is distinct from the honor cultures and dignity cultures of the past."
The conclusions drawn in a 2014 paper in the journal Comparative Sociology called "Microaggression and Moral Cultures." The authors Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning argue that the increased attention recently given to microaggressions (commonplace exchanges that denigrate marginalized groups; see the recent controversy at Yale over Halloween costumes) on college campuses is a result of "the emergence of a victimhood culture that is distinct from the honor cultures and dignity cultures of the past."
The authors of the paper assert that we are now in a culture that valorizes victimhood. "The moral status of the victim, at its nadir in honor cultures, has risen to new heights," they write, which "increases the incentive to publicize grievances." Instead of pursuing violent or legal confrontation or letting the insult slide, the victim now appeals for support from third parties while "emphasizing one's own oppression," often through social media.
So pervasive is this sentiment that it breeds "competitive victimhood," infecting even those who have relatively little standing to cite their persecution -- for instance, white people who bring up reverse racism, or various Fox News broadcasters. (As one may expect, the paper has been endorsed by social centrists and conservatives such as Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist who has written about discrimination in his field against conservatives.)
Although microcomplaints are an apolitical phenomenon and distinct from complaints arising from microaggressions, there may be a connection. Since whatever the microcomplainers have endured casts their adversaries as villainous (whether it's a tardy cable technician or inclement weather), it correspondingly raises their own moral status as innocent victims.