I it is true that the phenomenon o microaggression complaints heralds a new stage in the evolution o conflict and social control, we should be aware that changing a moral culture also reshapes social lie beyond the realm o conflict. Moral ideas orient one’s entire lie. In an honor culture, or example, they affect people’s leisure and sel-presentation: Ever concerned with appearing brave and strong, the honorable oen gamble, drink heavily, and openly boast about their exploits (Cooney 1998: Chapter 5). Contrast these behaviors with the socialization toward restraint ound in dignity cultures, which do not value reckless behavior and abhor boasting in most contexts (Elias [1939] 1982: 230-286; Pinker 2011: 59-116). Te emerging victimhood culture appears to share dignity’s disdain or risk, but it does condone calling attention to onesel as long as one is calling attention to one’s own hardships – to weaknesses rather than strengths and to exploitation rather than exploits.
For example, students writing personal statements as part o their applications or colleges and graduate schools oen write not o their academic achievements but instead – with the encouragement o the universities – about overcoming adversity such as a parent’s job loss or having to shop at thri stores (Lieber 2014).
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And in a setting where people increasingly eschew toleration and publicly air complaints to compel official action, personal discomort looms large in official policy. For example, consider recent calls or “trigger warnings” in college classes or on course syllabuses to orewarn students they are about to exposed to topics that cause them distress, such as when a guide or aculty at Oberlin College (later withdrawn aer aculty complaints) suggested that the novel
Tings Fall Apart
,
because it takes place in colonial Nigeria, could “trigger students who have experienced racism, colonialism, religious persecution, violence, suicide, and more” (quoted in Medina 2014). Similarly, at Rutgers University an article in the student newspaper suggested that an appropriate trigger warning or
Te Great Gatsby
would notiy students that it depicted suicide, domestic abuse, and graphic violence (Wythe 2014; see also Jarvie 2014). Another inevitable consequence o cultural change is conflict – in this case, the clash between competing moral systems. As we noted at the beginning o this article, the practice o publicizing microaggressions has attracted controversy and criticism even rom within the academic communities that generate it. So too have various social media campaigns and pushes or trigger warnings (e.g., Schmidt 2014). What we are seeing in these controversies is the clash between dignity and victimhood, much as in earlier times there was a clash between honor and dignity. Looking at those clashes, we know that when contradictory moral ideals exist alongside one another people may be unsure how to act, not confident o whether others will praise or condemn them. Believing his public reputation would otherwise suffer, Alexander Hamilton elt compelled to fight a duel even though he wrote that his “moral and religious principles are strongly opposed to the practice o dueling” (quoted in Seitz 1929: 98). Yet aer Hamilton was killed the public vilified his opponent Aaron Burr as a murderer and denounced the practice o dueling – certainly not the reaction either man would have expected. oday among the poor in inner cities and in other environments where honor lives on, conflict and conusion about honor and dignity continue. Outsiders who enter such settings might misunderstand the local standards o provocation to their own detriment, while insiders who seek success in mainstream society might find their reaction to slights viewed as a sign o immaturity and low sel-control.
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At universities and many other environments in modern America the clash between dignity and victimhood engenders a similar kind o moral conusion: One person’s standard provokes another’s grievance, acts o social control themselves are treated as deviant, and unintentional offenses abound.And the conflict will continue. As it does each side will make its case, attracting supporters and winning or losing various battles. But remember that the moral concepts each side invokes are not ree-floating ideas; they are reflections o social organization. Microaggression complaints and other specimens o victimhood occur in atomized and diverse settings that are airly egalitarian except or the presence o strong and stable authority. In these settings behaviors that jeopardize equality or demean minority cultures are rare and those that occur mostly minor, but in this context even minor offenses – or perceived offenses – cause much anguish. And while the authorities and others might be sympathetic, their support is not automatic. Add to this mix modern communication technologies that make it easy to publicize grievances, and the result, as we have seen, is the rise o a victimhood culture. Tis culture arose because o the rise o social conditions conducive to it, and i it prevails it will be because those conditions have prevailed.
