6 April 2024
Just prior to moving forward in time, to 21st century research, Maslow requires amplification. That amplification is necessary because Maslow is one of the most referenced sources of ideas—on hierarchical growth—with many of those ideas having been recently modified by Kaufman (2020) who went back to Maslow’s archives to create a revised take on Maslow’s thought.
In short, the clustering of needs is now grouped into security needs (safety, connection, and self-esteem) and growth needs (exploration, love, and purpose). Significantly, Kaufman (2020) found evidence supporting a more simultaneous and thus, less hierarchical, achievement of those needs. As before, their mutual finding was that individually unique satisfaction of those needs often results in a sort of transcendence, or passage beyond more quotidian concerns and into the realm of more humanitarian issues.
With the Maslovian theme of an evolving conception of the self in mind, Twenge’s (2023) research is of interest. She began with the research question (RQ), Why did teen depression spike beginning in 2012? Her well-supported answer is that cell phone use and ownership went from 50% of Generation Z, born 1997-2012 (Dimock, 2019) to 75% in that year thus enabling the dominant mode of communication amongst that cohort to be electronic and social media based. Alternate explanations were that academic pressure had increased (not supported); that more homework was being assigned, (not supported); and/or that the high achievers were more depressed than low academic achievers (also not supported).
The reason Twenge’s (2023) research is of interest is that it shows wildly different social factors affecting self-formation within Gen Z. In fact, by 2013, Gen Z had “…already accepted the idea that books, words, and ideas could hurt them” (Haidt, 2023, p. 1). Compare that thought with one of the seminal thinkers behind this paper, George Steiner, who lived a life of books, words, and ideas, as the key to mankind’s salvation i.e., an integral part of the solution for “those who come after…” Haidt (2023) stated that Gen Z has adopted ideas that lead to and promote depression by inverting much of what Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) holds true.
Specifically, Gen Z practices emotional reasoning, black and white thinking, and catastrophizing. The first two predate CBT by centuries as long-standing examples of logical fallacies. The well-supported fact is that these cognitive distortions are known to lead to depression. Here’s why.
Emotional reasoning is exemplified here:
Table 1
Emotional Reasoning, Gen Z, Anywhere in the West, 2024.
| Emotion | Facts | Conclusion |
| I feel jealous. | My spouse is apparently faithful and loving. | My spouse is unfaithful, because I wouldn’t feel jealous if my spouse were faithful and loving. (Psychology portal, Wikipedia, 2024). |
The same source defines emotional reasoning as “…a cognitive process by which an individual concludes that their emotional reaction proves something is true, despite contrary empirical evidence [italics added].” Empirical evidence is synonymous with evidence-based thinking, the practice advocated herein. As I’m sure some readers grasped quickly, the intersection of a generation of emotion-led people with the Wokust war on objectivist epistemology are preconditions of a perfect storm.
By objectivist epistemology I mean understanding that which exists (and does not) based on Aristotle’s dictum that A = A. A thing is what it is and, per his corollaries, cannot both be and not be simultaneously. By this epistemological method, which has brought us Western medicine, architecture, philosophy, skyscrapers, Rembrandt, Beethoven, moonshots, and the canon, you must provide demonstrable proof of a proposition before asserting its truth. Evidentiary proof is falsifiable, predictive, and repeatable.
If the emotional reasoner (an oxymoron, formally considered), above, uses her feelings (emotions) as her criterion for truth, everything she feels is real. If she doesn’t feel something is fair, it shouldn’t exist. If she wants something—like really badly—she ought have it. Combine this single attribute of Haidt’s (2023) findings with the Wokust affection for cancellation of speakers who have opinions contrary to Gen Z’s emotional reasoners. Unsurprisingly, they positively love it because it vindicates their unreal premise that if reality doesn’t feel good, it shouldn’t be, and they shouldn’t have to deal with it.
And here’s why this really hurts. Like many Canadians, maybe even most, my ancestors worked in truly wicked conditions to gain acceptance to this country. Despite the fact that my great-grandfather Chalykoff, and his youngest brother, emigrated with money sufficient to start small businesses, as Eastern European immigrants in 1907, they were legally required to work in mines or on railroads to gain status as British subjects.
Before you dismiss that as not so bad, those folks were working in Northern Ontario on railroad lines during at least two autumns, winters, and early springs—which is to ignore the horse flies of summer. The story I heard, when tracing my origins, is that there were so many Bulgarian immigrants working on Dimitr’s stretch of the Algoma Central that it was called the Sov Line after the Bulgarian general who fought to create an independent Bulgaria following 500 years of Ottoman rule (no research available at time of writing on General Sov).
Now imagine those men trying emotional reasoning.
Table 2
Emotional Reasoning in 1907, Near Cochrane, ON.
| Emotion | Facts | Conclusion |
| I feel angry and unappreciated. | Do the work or be escorted to the port of Montreal so you can head back to Europe—for good. | This is exploitative, wrong, racially based, and unfair. I want and deserve to stay in Canada without doing this forced work. |
The difference between the two examples is that the latter conclusion has more truth in it. Nonetheless, if Dimitr had succumbed to that emotional reasoning, my grandfather, my father, and I would never have been born. If the young woman, in Table 1, above, acts in accordance with her emotional reasoning, chances are high she will drive her partner away. Further, if she continues to base her findings on feelings, rather than evidence-based facts, she may find herself frustrated, angry, and at odds with most people and institutions with whom she engages.
A large rock on a mountainside road has no stake in whether or not cars can pass. All the anger, frustration, and swearing in the world won’t budge the rock. A crane, a backhoe, or other equipment will clear or break up the boulder.
Think of the power of a crane that arrives, straps the boulder into a secure grasp, and easily moves tons of stone to a safe plateau in a single lift. That machine, and the thousands of parts that make up that crane, were invented, designed, manufactured, and assembled to tolerances of perhaps a couple millimeters or less. All of the crying, screaming, protesting, and cancelling in the world can’t bring such a machine into existence or operate it. And, as anyone who has ever studied collectivist industrial production knows, capitalism, that is, the free, voluntary association of skilled and semi-skilled people, in a context of stable currency and binding contracts is the fastest and best means of such endeavours. Think of that the next time you see a train wreck or a highway crash…emotion may move you to brake more quickly preventing a pile-on but crying, screaming, objecting may actually prolong the implementation of a solution. Yet this is what Twenge (2023) and Haidt (2023) has found Gen Z using to run their lives.
And in that story of emotional reasoning lies one of the most important points in this book: the culture war in which we’re all involved is as much epistemic as it is ethical. What that means is that when you have an entire generation that believes feelings can determine external truth, the way that generation gains knowledge—and what they consider knowledge (epistemology)—is vastly different from the way the crane manufacturer—and everyone associated with that work—thinks and acts. One culture proceeds based on skill, facts, and agreements while the other culture proceeds on feelings, a victim-mentality, and cancellation.
Before leaving Twenge (2023) and Haidt (2023), let’s look at combining feelings, a victim-mentality, and cancellation with black and white thinking.
The Black-or-White fallacy or Black-White fallacy is a False Dilemma Fallacy that limits you unfairly to only two choices, as if you were made to choose between black and white.
Example: Well, it’s time for a decision. Will you contribute $20 to our environmental fund, or are you on the side of environmental destruction?
A proper challenge to this fallacy could be to say, “I do want to prevent the destruction of our environment, but I don’t want to give $20 to your fund. You are placing me between a rock and a hard place.” The key to diagnosing the Black-or-White Fallacy is to determine whether the limited menu is fair or unfair. Simply saying, “Will you contribute $20 or won’t you?” is not unfair. The black-or-white fallacy is often committed intentionally in jokes such as: “My toaster has two settings—burnt and off.” In thinking about this kind of fallacy it is helpful to remember that everything is either black or not black, but not everything is either black or white. (Dowden, 2024)
The example of coerced labour, on Canadian railways or mines in the early 20th Century, might be telling. An emotion-led, victim-mentality canceller could conclude that such labour practices are the product of laissez-faire capitalism. If that’s the white position, the black response might be, “Well, no wonder everyone hates capitalism. I’d rather live in a shared-labour commune.”
In these examples, there’s no room for variance of degree or testing of assumptions against fact. For example, the actual coercion of labour, above, was government sanctioned, that is, the capitalists behind the rail line or mining contracts paid these men a wage but those men were obliged, if they wanted to become British subjects, to do that work for two years. Understanding the difference between economic and political power is just one unexamined issue in this example.
Another issue is the two-choice response to the rejection of this exploitative labour practice. Rather than starting or joining a commune, correcting that labour injustice by challenging the government in the press or in protests, would be better-targeted effort. However, if you see the world in black-and-white terms, your choices are capitalism or communism and none of the many variants between those two.
With that in mind, who would you choose as jury members if you were charged and on trial? Who would you hire to teach your children to reason well? Who would you hire to cover proposed new government legislation for a news service? And yet, education faculties in Canada endorse most of the same victim-mentality, identity politics* promoting this myopic and fallacious thinking.
The final finding of Haidt (2023) is that Gen Z relies on catastrophization*. Catastrophization is an unexamined forward projection soaked to the core in negative assumptions. In my clinical experience, catastrophization leads to more depressive thoughts and a phenomenon I call stacking. Stacking happens when we pile our problems, one on top of the others, building such a tower of negativity that life itself seems futile.
If we dare consider the combined impact, on a Gen Z consciousness, of catastrophization, black & white thinking, a victim-mentality, and a keenness for cancellation, it can hardly be surprising that we have far too large a proportion of one generation mired in anxiety and depression. To add insult to injury, in Canada, we have allowed our hard-earned and highly taxed dollars to foster and promote more of the same through uncritical support of university research that seeks to justify such epistemic tragedies as progress toward greater enlightenment. The irony cannot be more caustic for what this thinking fosters is epistemic and social chaos. Welcome to the 21st-century.
To be continued next week.
Dan Chalykoff is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying). He works at CMHA-Hamilton and Healing Pathways Counselling, Oakville, where his focus is clients with addiction, trauma, burnout, and major life changes. He writes to increase (and share) his own evolving understanding of ideas. Since 2017, he has facilitated two voluntary weekly group meetings of SMART Recovery. Please email him (danchalykoff@hotmail.com) to be added to or removed from the bcc’d emailing list.
Definitions
Catastrophize “v. to exaggerate the negative consequences of events or decisions. People are said to be catastrophizing when they think that the worst possible outcome will occur from a particular action or in a particular situation or when they feel as if they are in the midst of a catastrophe in situations that may be serious and upsetting but are not necessarily disastrous. The tendency to catastrophize can unnecessarily increase levels of anxiety and lead to maladaptive behavior. The verb, as well as its synonym awfulize, was coined by Albert Ellis” (American Psychological Association, 2024).
Ellis identified and documented Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT), the parent of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), arguably the most dominant practiced mode of psychotherapy. “With its focus on the perceptions and responsibility of the individual, REBT is rooted in secular humanism. According to Ellise (1992), ‘Secular humanism is relativist, skeptical, and nondogmatic and emphasizes the best and most practical aspects of the scientific method together with human choice and meaningfulness.’ Secular humanists view people as unique individuals who usually value and choose to live in interdependent social groups. The see people as neither good nor bad but simply human; only people’s acts are evaluated. People who adopt a philosophy of secular humanism typically are concerned with social systems and advocate peace, fairness, and democracy. They seek possibilities and alternatives rather than absolute truths. Overall, REBT encourages people to develop a rational philosophy of life” (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014, p. 275). I invite readers to compare these ethical-epistemological roots with those listed in the definition of Identity Politics, below.
Identity Politics, n. A postmodern belief that one’s racial, social, or victim-based identity is of greater ethical-judicial value than one’s acts. “In Critical Race Theory, racial identity is fundamental instead of irrelevant. Race indicates whether you are victim or oppressor [exclusively, i.e., no other categories or choices] and therefore deserving of compensation or contempt. In Critical Race Theory, it is racist to deny the intrinsic advantage of white privilege or to claim to be colourblind. The new racism means failing to condemn or favour the right races.
As political tools, Critical Theory and its variations are brilliant. Any challenge to their legitimacy can be interpreted as a demonstration of their thesis: the assertion of reason, logic, and evidence is a manifestation of privilege and power. Thus any challenger risks the stigma of a bigoted oppressor. James Lindsay, an independent American critic of Critical Theory and Social Justice, calls Critical Theory a ‘Kafkatrap.’ ‘Notice race? Because you’re a racist. Don’t? Because you’re privileged, thus racist.’ If you deny that you are a witch, then you are a witch. And if you do not deny it, then you are a witch for sure. Pointing out that Critical Theory makes no sense misses the point: making sense is Western and privileged.’” (Pardy, in Milke, 2023, pp. 6-7). I invite readers to compare these ethical-epistemological roots with those listed in the definition of Catastrophize, above.
References
American Psychological Association. (2024, 19 February). APA Dictionary of Psychology.
https://dictionary.apa.org/catastrophize
Dimock, M. (2019, January 17). Defining generations: Where Millennials end Generation Z begins. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/
Dowden, B. (2024, 19 February). Fallacies. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#Black-or-White
Haidt, J. (2023, March 9). Why the mental health of liberal girls sank first and fastest: Evidence for Lukianoff’s reverse CBT hypothesis. https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com
Kaufman, S. B. (2020). Transcend: The new science of self-actualization. TarcherPerigee Books.
Milke, M. (Ed.) (2023). The 1867 Project: Why Canada Should Be Cherished—Not Cancelled. Friesens.
Seligman, L. & Reichenberg, L. W. (2014). Theories of counseling and psychotherapy: Systems, strategies, and skills. Pearson Education Inc.
Twenge, J. M. (2023, March 15). Academic pressure cannot explain the mental illness epidemic: It’s not the homework. It’s the phones. https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com
Wikipedia. (2024, 5 April). Emotional reasoning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_reasoning
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