How society encourages activists to behave like infants
In infants, the chief causes of outrageous behavior — impulsivity, attention-seeking, and a sense of entitlement — are considered normal, but in adults they’re key symptoms of the “cluster-B” personality disorders. All four such disorders — narcissistic, histrionic, antisocial and borderline — are associated with heavy social media use, most likely because impulsive and dramatic cluster-B behaviors, such as playing the victim and catastrophizing, excel at getting attention on such platforms.
The ease with which dramatic behavior gets attention online has convinced many political activists that a better world doesn’t require years of patient work, only a sufficient quantity of drama. Many activists on both the Left and Right now hope to bring about their ideal world the same way a spoiled brat acquires a toy they’ve been denied: by being as loud and hysterical as possible. This is neotoddlerism: the view that utopia can be achieved by acting like a three-year old.
It’s an ideology for an age of instant gratification, activism for the attention-deficit generation. Just as convenience culture has led us from hours-long films, to half-hour-long TV shows, to minutes-long YouTube videos, to seconds-long TikTok clips; so the same dumbing-down is happening to politics: the arduous process of discussion and debate is giving way to the instant hit of shocking outbursts and other viral moments.
