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Be yourself: Louis CK on stage in New York. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Bob Woodruff Foundation)
“Codependence” is one of those words people say so much they forget what it means. It becomes just another term to throw around, like “systemic” or “natural wine”. I spent a long time thinking about the concept, after realising I’d been in several codependent relationships, and wanted to avoid replicating the pattern in the future. I’d thought I’d mastered it. But not unlike my relationship to natural wine — which I very much like, but, when pushed, cannot explain what it is — over the years, my awareness fizzled into a buzzword.
The problem with codependence is that it feels like the right thing to do for many of us. We believe we are helping, supporting and empathising. We care about the wellbeing of those around us and about maintaining our relationships. We don’t want to discard people because they are troubled — we know everyone struggles, and who better than us to help? And actually, we have the solutions. Let us make you a list and set up an appointment and find you some hobbies and provide you with some constructive criticism and keep on loving you so much than you’ll have to love us back, and change into the person we know you can and should be, which would really make us feel a lot more comfortable.
Women are particularly prone to codependency, as we are socialised to be the sex that considers the feelings, needs, and desires of others before our own. Women who put themselves first are cold, selfish, bitches. We are meant to be caretakers, and stay in marriages no matter how much they hurt us. We sacrifice ourselves for what we tell ourselves is the good of the partnership. Some call it “emotional labour” — defined by the American sociologist Arlie Hochschild in her book The Managed Heart as having to “induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others”.
But the things we do to “keep the peace” do not actually make us feel more peaceful. They make us feel anxious and resentful; unheard, unseen, and misunderstood. Our lives become entirely focused on another — controlled by stress and fear attached to someone else’s behaviour. And rather than detaching, we stick around, trying to manufacture the perfect circumstances, behaviours, or scenarios, wherein we can finally relax.
In coming to these insights and revelations about some relationships in my life, it struck me that we’ve become enmeshed in one big codependent relationship with today’s modern activist — the “social justice warrior” we are now weary of hearing about. The young, self-righteous and woke.
Cancel culture, that ever expanding trend which sees individuals “called out” and burned at the virtual stake for various — usually insignificant — transgressions, from quoting someone else saying the n-word, to standing up for the rights of women and girls without acknowledging the men who are also women and girls, to tweeting a research paper showing that rioting does not tend to inspire public support, has left us all in fear. Rather than feel inspired by this activism, we feel controlled by it. We know the damage that can come from just one tweet; a text shared without context; an unflattering moment, caught on film; or the intentional or lazy misconstruing of one’s work, argument, or article. It takes so little to destroy a person’s life these days — it’s no wonder we all feel we are walking on eggshells.
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SubscribeNone of which is going to happen with a twitter character limit. Get off Twitter. Especially journalists. All journalists should go on a (minimum) month long twitter abstinence to rediscover their craft and actually write some news instead of screenshotting inane drivel that cannot, by definition, be nuanced.
It would take a lot longer than a month for the vast majority of journalists to ‘rediscover’ their craft, not least because they never ‘discovered’ it in the first place. As Tim Pool said some time ago, most journalists are now less intelligent than the average member of the population. In other words, they know nothing about anything. It is the ultimate consequence of allowing even the dimmest members of the middle classes to go to university. This is why we have all given up on the MSM.
The joke is that the long term effect of the ‘woke’ self censoring ‘left’ is that it helps puts people like Trump in power. People don’t change their minds when frightened into silence. They stay quiet, resentful and many then start to hold grudging respect for ‘populist’ leaders who come out and say sh*! anyway. Debate and proper conversation and open society is the only sensible way forward. The far left pushes people to the far right.
Anna, Trump is really, really, not the problem.
The far left pushes people to the centre right, and a bloody good thing too.
Exactly, this is why I think this ‘woke’ moment will set the stage for a Trump re-election. The silent majority will speak. That said, it may be his perceived handling of COVID pushes voters towards Biden, so its hard to say right now. Two awful choices of president again, Trump just has a semblance of personality versus the blank mind of Biden.
I actually think we need to join social media and make our voices known without self-censoring. I’m sorry to say, we must fight fire with fire ““ this is no time for shrinking violets or playing by the rules or doing things the quiet old English way. Our lack of comments on Facebook etc have given the woke the freedom to give their views unchallenged. The msm (and business) have taken this as a sign that either the majority believe all this crap and/or that the opposition can’t be bothered to do anything about it and therefore there is no loss if they endorse any of the current wokery.
A practical example – I’m a member of a small number of (non-political) groups like most people. How many times have middle class types chucked in a jokey but hostile line about Trump or Brexit or virtue-signalled their support for the NHS or BLM – certain in their knowledge that everyone agrees with them? But I jump right back at them and point out my support for the other side. But mainly I want to point out non-political groups are no place for their political opinions. We need to clean up social media and get politics out of it.
I totally agree but I find social media so vacuous I cannot be bothered with it.
Robert – of course, it is tiresome, but then that is why the left pay people to do it. We have no such funding, but plenty of the money being scooped up by BLM etc will go into paying people to comment. We have to hit back on social media. To get yourself into it, join a few non-political sites (like the Ramblers or something) and if anyone puts in a negative throw-away comment about Brexit or Boris or whoever, jump in with “No politics on this site, thank you”.
I agree Geoff. That’s why I have decided to come out into the open with my views and post comments under my own name.
An old friend with whom I have only sporadic contact sent me a link to that odious Channel 4 programme about using implicit bias testing to root out racism in 11-year-olds (see Tom Chivers lead article). She had evidently assumed that I would nod approvingly and was completely taken aback when I messaged back with the words “This is evil”. I don’t think I was able to change her mind, but perhaps by explaining my objections I did sow a seed of doubt.
The importance of doubt cannot be overestimated. Nothing is quite as dangerous and deadly as the refusal of the righteous to countenance the possibility that they might just be wrong.
Bronwen – exactly. My sister lives in a classic LibDem lovely southern town in England. The surrounding countryside secures a Conservative win at General Elections, but the town itself (actually just like my similar town) is very Lib Dem. They seem to run all the social media and my sister used to get sick of the endless wokery. I have persuaded her to hit back. And I actually mean it – be polite but be sharp. As you say “the importance of doubt cannot be overestimated”.
Meghan, thank you for writing this. Bold. Inspiring. And I’m a big fan, especially, on the action steps. Very practical.
Keep writing.
First get off social media or don’t get on it in the first place. They are places for bullies to thrive. Second speak the truth and stick by it. Never apologise if you think you are correct. Stand up and be counted.
Dont think the metaphor here is the best – a relationship with the male as the abusive one to his long suffering female partner. Surely ‘cancel culture’ is the monstrous projection of what it’s like for a Male partner to be in a relationship with an abusive female?
I don’t see Wokery as very gendered at all. Though reputational damage is traditionally seen as a woman’s weapon (more often than not against other women) and women have always initiated most divorces in English-speaking countries at least.
I think it used to be called having integrity ! A quality sadly lacking in a significant number of people these days
After some tinkering, I have found a way of making Twitter useful to me. I registered my account simply to make sure that no-one else could use my name. I’ve never posted anything, largely because I have no reason to believe anyone in the world is interested in what I had for breakfast or when I’m brushing my teeth. If there’s a decent amount of useful factual information in the accounts I follow, fine. If not, I stop following them. Is that so unusual?
Except for the “woke” generalization about Men I support the gospel according to Meghan. Having been the victim of bullying, which is what today’s activism is, I can testify that speaking one’s truth can be emotionally draining. I hope someone will share their advice on healing one’s character and self after having been slashed by the “Red Guards” and their ilk. It is true that the first injury hurts the most and takes longest to heal. Eventually emotional scars become one’s first line of defense and the ability to empathize is deeply buried. Well, so it goes.
To abbreviate: Discipline = self discipline. Confident = self confidence. Positive and optimistic attitude. Listen and learn.
That should be a fair place to start. Oh! and for heaven’s sake have a laugh.
Insightful article Meghan. Codependancy is anice analogy which explains the effectiveness of certain bullying tactics. Having stood firm on socially conservative issues in Ireland, now deeply unpopular views in the public domain, I have really admired your courage in relation to women’s refuges in Canada. I have one other idea I sometimes follow. I ask myself, ‘Is this the hill I want to die on?’ Do I intervene verbally in social media battles or do something else? Recently, rather than get into the JK Rowling battle, I decided to engage for women’s rights by doing a fundraising challenge for Women’s Refuges in Ireland. Women from the local refuge often come to our church looking for prayer support. By posting all about Women’s Aid and the Refuges, then that narrative gets lots of air time. And funds too. Just an alternative to abandoning social media altogether.
Yes! Perfectly said!
A decent article, otherbthan the gratuitous feminist man-blaming.
I’m not sure I agree entirely with point 1 though. It seems that if you refuse to apologise they never leave you alone until they break you. There are a number of tales of journalists going after people’s families as a way of hurting their non-conforming target. Laurence Fox being a recent example.
Excellent article and insight, particularly:
“Like those trapped in codependent relationships, many of us have stopped trusting our own judgments.”
The focussed gas lighting by the adherents to the God/Goddess/Godhead/Superior Being of the Woke Religion is endemic in our culture at present.
The key focus of these fundamentalists attack is to disempower most folks into doubting themselves, their ethics and their world viewpoint.
We are being oppressed by followers of a second Witch Hunt. Modern versions of Witch Trials are a daily occurrence.
A lot of this is good advice, especially 2. But it doesn’t distinguish between things we should not apologise for and things which we should.
There are people who take “wokeness” too far, but equally there are people who say racist/sexist/homophobic things. Not only can saying so not be dismissed as mere “wokeness” but also these people are often in positions of considerably more power and influence than the young “overly woke”.