Miserable teens, fascist nostalgia, and wellbeing as a weapon in the culture war: what is behind the rightward swing in mental health and disability discourse?
So well written. I’m really disturbed by Freya India’s writing because at face value it’s almost innocuous. Like it’s framed so similarly to the girlhood essays we see on here yet her work panders moral panic and individual failure. Thank you for putting to words what I’ve been struggling with for months.
thank you for writing this!! I’ve had such a similar piece in my drafts for months and have felt so weird about the lack of pushback FI has been getting. It’s all so insidious and unsettling…
I’d be very interested to read your piece too:) and yes, lack of pushback is concerning. Like it’s so obvious that they are “girlhood” essays framed for the conservative set ...
yes yes yes yes yes - she’s a conservative writer! which is … fine. but people don’t seem to realize it, because she dissects relatable malaise in the way of seemingly intelligent contemporary cultural critique - like yes social media has it’s dark side, and yes people are increasingly isolated and perhaps we are too fixated with micro identities and obsessed with our online lives - these aren’t hot takes per se? but because people across the political spectrum can agree and relate, it seems a lot of readers don’t notice the logical jump she makes from these statements (often citing micro online phenomena as proof) to her conclusions - which is that girls would be less depressed if they got married young, didn’t get divorced, shut up about their mental health, quit whining about social injustice and embraced religion.
its a very clever sleight of hand: you start nodding along to an article about how individualistic self-help culture has become shallow and meaningless (valid observation) and then suddenly find yourself arriving with the author at the conclusion that we just need to embrace religion more; completely overlooking other aspects of that could be at play: capitalism, cities that aren’t people-centric, a literal pandemic - because paying attention to those things would go against the author’s repackaged pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality
yessssss, and i think it’s also very sneaky how much more overt she is about this in other publications. i think seeing the sorts of biases these outlets have is a very good indicator of the core of the writers’ political instincts and the sort of politics they’re willing to tolerate - if you’re writing for konstantin kisin or quillette that is an immediate glaring red flag for me, lol.
YES to everything but especially that last sentence! That’s exactly what’s going on. If you aren’t hyper aware of political dogwhistles, or maybe you aren’t chronically online, it’s so easy to read her pieces as intelligent rather than far right. That’s what makes me so uneasy about her too!
Yes yes yes!!!! I want your comment to be an essay!! Perfectly well put about how her articles can trap anyone across the political spectrum to suddenly agree with quite far right sentiments.
this is so well written! i thought something was off with freya’s piece but people were sharing it so much on here that i thought i might be reading too much into it. there are valid critiques of the mental health/psychiatric industries and the way the uphold white supremacy and capitalism without blaming the people who rely on that type of care. especially when criticizing individuals just feeds into those issues too. it’s so scary to see how effective right wing/fascist ideology is on younger people.
thank you so much! honestly it's such a lazy cop out as well, there are far more interesting things to say about social stratification via class, race, gender etc than lumping everyone aged 12-27 in the same grouping as if they have grown up in remotely similar circumstances
My brain is capable of flagging essays like that as dangerous but not capable enough to explain my opposition to it in such a cogent and thoughtful way! Brilliant writing
Yes! Thank you for writing this beautiful and powerful essay; a few parts even got me a bit tearful. Your writing style is so sharp, clear cut, intelligent, and empathic. I think that you hit the nail on the head when you wrote about the underlying subtext behind this recent resurgence of ableist, antisemitic, and fascist rhetoric on both sides of the political spectrum: these traditionalists seem to think the world would be a better place if we did not exist. I admire the way you connect this current trend to vilify mental illness with dark histories in our past: the red scare of the early 20th century, the scapegoating of Jewish people in the Depression, the camps in Europe during WWII. In referring to Slouching Towards Bethlehem, you make a vital point about the nature of youth. Teenagers throughout history have been awkward, angst ridden, unruly, rebellious; that’s how kids learn and figure things out. Meanwhile, the whole system feels broken. Rather than build stronger social foundations or create structural change, many politicians seem more interested in pointing fingers at the “woke” kids over there, blaming already marginalized people, oh and banning TikTok? Honestly though, this current rise in fascist language has me shaken. As you wrote about so elegantly and meticulously, this as the rhetoric of dehumanization. It starts small, unnoticeable by most, but gradually this nostalgia for a fairy tale past leads to more and more people being radicalized while extreme views grow normalized. The Overton Window starts to shift. I’ve even noticed similar talking points against therapy and meds on the left as well (I try my best to avoid right wing fascists.) The ableist and antisemitic undercurrents of this new wave of anti med ideology terrify me. Not only does it perpetuate the myopic ‘pull em up by the bootstraps’ fiction, but also the anti med trend has a bit of a eugenics white supremacist vibe to me, as if the conservatives wish weed out the “weak” or “bad” people who suffer from illnesses. It feels like Social Darwinism, a perverse misinterpretation of evolution as ‘the survival of the fittest.’ I agree with you wholeheartedly, there is nothing more resilient than a person asking someone for help, admitting a need for change, having the self awareness to seek a healthier life in therapy. Excellent job naming names here: the posts on “chemical castrastion” and “victim mentality” by Freya India are specifically the two essays that came to my mind when I read your previous article from 2023 on the rise of Fascist Girl Bloggers. Your final line in this piece shook me to my core. Shame on them is right. Thank you for speaking up on this critical topic; your essay helped me to feel less alone. The courage, clarity, and brilliance in your writing is phenomenal.
this is so so kind, thank you so much! it absolutely feels like a social darwinism thing and i'm glad you identified it by name, because it really does feel like that is at the root of a lot of fascist sentiment atm - i don't think it is a coincidence that it has massively exploded since COVID where right-wing ideologues were going on about the merits of 'letting it rip' for herd immunity etc
This piece is phenomenal Millie ❤️ you are so wise. I have been having exactly the same thoughts about the substack author you discuss in this but hadn’t managed to word it so well!
I enjoyed reading this so much! After being laughed at by someone older when I said I was on anti-anxiety and antidepressant meds and being made to question if I was weak or not, I would love to be able to send them this post.
thank you!!! honestly i think 'raising awareness' is such a redundant phrase but people's knowledge of how fascism operates is so lacking and so divorced from its various historical contexts that they don't even realise how it creeps into facets of every day life - walter benjamin wrote about the aestheticisation of politics and how it upholds fascism as it allows the proletariat a means of self-expression without ever changing property relations or making them think too hard about doing so, while the communist response is to politicise aesthetics. i think we should be ready to politicise and interrogate the optics of any oversimplified ideological trend that looks too good to be true, relies on mocking, dehumanising or exploiting vulnerable people, or which seems predatory in its approach (think andrew tate et al). ultimately i think a lot of it comes down to having the intellectual curiosity to respond to everything with 'but why'
Thank you so much for this! Really well done. I’ve been thinking lately that the generational stuff is all just more capitalism bs to keep us isolated.
if i had a dollar every time i came across an essay about how gen z is overdoing therapy i'd have two dollars, which is not much but still concerning since these are from decidedly left-wing "girlhood" substack writers
it all comes down to capitalism and the lack of support. in the US conservatives are always decrying big government and of course we can't rely on it for everything but damn...individual charity cannot cut it all the time.
So well written. I’m really disturbed by Freya India’s writing because at face value it’s almost innocuous. Like it’s framed so similarly to the girlhood essays we see on here yet her work panders moral panic and individual failure. Thank you for putting to words what I’ve been struggling with for months.
thank you for writing this!! I’ve had such a similar piece in my drafts for months and have felt so weird about the lack of pushback FI has been getting. It’s all so insidious and unsettling…
I’d be very interested to read your piece too:) and yes, lack of pushback is concerning. Like it’s so obvious that they are “girlhood” essays framed for the conservative set ...
yes yes yes yes yes - she’s a conservative writer! which is … fine. but people don’t seem to realize it, because she dissects relatable malaise in the way of seemingly intelligent contemporary cultural critique - like yes social media has it’s dark side, and yes people are increasingly isolated and perhaps we are too fixated with micro identities and obsessed with our online lives - these aren’t hot takes per se? but because people across the political spectrum can agree and relate, it seems a lot of readers don’t notice the logical jump she makes from these statements (often citing micro online phenomena as proof) to her conclusions - which is that girls would be less depressed if they got married young, didn’t get divorced, shut up about their mental health, quit whining about social injustice and embraced religion.
its a very clever sleight of hand: you start nodding along to an article about how individualistic self-help culture has become shallow and meaningless (valid observation) and then suddenly find yourself arriving with the author at the conclusion that we just need to embrace religion more; completely overlooking other aspects of that could be at play: capitalism, cities that aren’t people-centric, a literal pandemic - because paying attention to those things would go against the author’s repackaged pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality
yessssss, and i think it’s also very sneaky how much more overt she is about this in other publications. i think seeing the sorts of biases these outlets have is a very good indicator of the core of the writers’ political instincts and the sort of politics they’re willing to tolerate - if you’re writing for konstantin kisin or quillette that is an immediate glaring red flag for me, lol.
YES to everything but especially that last sentence! That’s exactly what’s going on. If you aren’t hyper aware of political dogwhistles, or maybe you aren’t chronically online, it’s so easy to read her pieces as intelligent rather than far right. That’s what makes me so uneasy about her too!
Yes yes yes!!!! I want your comment to be an essay!! Perfectly well put about how her articles can trap anyone across the political spectrum to suddenly agree with quite far right sentiments.
this is so well written! i thought something was off with freya’s piece but people were sharing it so much on here that i thought i might be reading too much into it. there are valid critiques of the mental health/psychiatric industries and the way the uphold white supremacy and capitalism without blaming the people who rely on that type of care. especially when criticizing individuals just feeds into those issues too. it’s so scary to see how effective right wing/fascist ideology is on younger people.
brilliant as usual. the generational warfare thing is so constructed and harmful and it’s a shame to see younger people playing into it too.
thank you so much! honestly it's such a lazy cop out as well, there are far more interesting things to say about social stratification via class, race, gender etc than lumping everyone aged 12-27 in the same grouping as if they have grown up in remotely similar circumstances
My brain is capable of flagging essays like that as dangerous but not capable enough to explain my opposition to it in such a cogent and thoughtful way! Brilliant writing
Yes! Thank you for writing this beautiful and powerful essay; a few parts even got me a bit tearful. Your writing style is so sharp, clear cut, intelligent, and empathic. I think that you hit the nail on the head when you wrote about the underlying subtext behind this recent resurgence of ableist, antisemitic, and fascist rhetoric on both sides of the political spectrum: these traditionalists seem to think the world would be a better place if we did not exist. I admire the way you connect this current trend to vilify mental illness with dark histories in our past: the red scare of the early 20th century, the scapegoating of Jewish people in the Depression, the camps in Europe during WWII. In referring to Slouching Towards Bethlehem, you make a vital point about the nature of youth. Teenagers throughout history have been awkward, angst ridden, unruly, rebellious; that’s how kids learn and figure things out. Meanwhile, the whole system feels broken. Rather than build stronger social foundations or create structural change, many politicians seem more interested in pointing fingers at the “woke” kids over there, blaming already marginalized people, oh and banning TikTok? Honestly though, this current rise in fascist language has me shaken. As you wrote about so elegantly and meticulously, this as the rhetoric of dehumanization. It starts small, unnoticeable by most, but gradually this nostalgia for a fairy tale past leads to more and more people being radicalized while extreme views grow normalized. The Overton Window starts to shift. I’ve even noticed similar talking points against therapy and meds on the left as well (I try my best to avoid right wing fascists.) The ableist and antisemitic undercurrents of this new wave of anti med ideology terrify me. Not only does it perpetuate the myopic ‘pull em up by the bootstraps’ fiction, but also the anti med trend has a bit of a eugenics white supremacist vibe to me, as if the conservatives wish weed out the “weak” or “bad” people who suffer from illnesses. It feels like Social Darwinism, a perverse misinterpretation of evolution as ‘the survival of the fittest.’ I agree with you wholeheartedly, there is nothing more resilient than a person asking someone for help, admitting a need for change, having the self awareness to seek a healthier life in therapy. Excellent job naming names here: the posts on “chemical castrastion” and “victim mentality” by Freya India are specifically the two essays that came to my mind when I read your previous article from 2023 on the rise of Fascist Girl Bloggers. Your final line in this piece shook me to my core. Shame on them is right. Thank you for speaking up on this critical topic; your essay helped me to feel less alone. The courage, clarity, and brilliance in your writing is phenomenal.
this is so so kind, thank you so much! it absolutely feels like a social darwinism thing and i'm glad you identified it by name, because it really does feel like that is at the root of a lot of fascist sentiment atm - i don't think it is a coincidence that it has massively exploded since COVID where right-wing ideologues were going on about the merits of 'letting it rip' for herd immunity etc
amazing!!! it has been very disorienting to see younger ppl talking like little fascists and then retweet chloe 7yay or whatever... strange times
thank you!!! genuinely it's so depressing, it really seems like people are sleepwalking into extreme right ideology without even a second thought
This piece is phenomenal Millie ❤️ you are so wise. I have been having exactly the same thoughts about the substack author you discuss in this but hadn’t managed to word it so well!
thank you so much!!! you are too kind <3
Thank you for this ugh that writer really frustrates me lol
I enjoyed reading this so much! After being laughed at by someone older when I said I was on anti-anxiety and antidepressant meds and being made to question if I was weak or not, I would love to be able to send them this post.
I keep wanting to add something intelligent to this but can't! This is great—I'm hooked and subscribed now :)
Wonderfully written!! How do you suppose ( alongside sweeping government and social changes) we can fight against this swing?
thank you!!! honestly i think 'raising awareness' is such a redundant phrase but people's knowledge of how fascism operates is so lacking and so divorced from its various historical contexts that they don't even realise how it creeps into facets of every day life - walter benjamin wrote about the aestheticisation of politics and how it upholds fascism as it allows the proletariat a means of self-expression without ever changing property relations or making them think too hard about doing so, while the communist response is to politicise aesthetics. i think we should be ready to politicise and interrogate the optics of any oversimplified ideological trend that looks too good to be true, relies on mocking, dehumanising or exploiting vulnerable people, or which seems predatory in its approach (think andrew tate et al). ultimately i think a lot of it comes down to having the intellectual curiosity to respond to everything with 'but why'
this is insanely good you're so eloquent - and the way she sandwiches stuff you can agree with around the dogwhistley stuff is pipeline 101
thank you so much! yeah it's very sneaky, makes you wonder what truly terrible beliefs are hiding beneath the surface
Thank you so much for this! Really well done. I’ve been thinking lately that the generational stuff is all just more capitalism bs to keep us isolated.
if i had a dollar every time i came across an essay about how gen z is overdoing therapy i'd have two dollars, which is not much but still concerning since these are from decidedly left-wing "girlhood" substack writers
it all comes down to capitalism and the lack of support. in the US conservatives are always decrying big government and of course we can't rely on it for everything but damn...individual charity cannot cut it all the time.
great piece!