It is a commonplace observation among addictive/compulsive behaviours that those who engage in them become jaded with the stimulation they originally found satisfying and seek ever more extreme and “edgy” stimulation to recapture the original high. This can be seen in drug addiction, consumption of pornography, or compulsive programmers building intricate software systems only they understand.
It seems to me that we’re witnessing the same phenomenon in Western society as a whole. Remember how with every step along the road to decadence killjoys were warning of the steepening slippery slope toward the yawning abyss? “First it’s the birth control pill, then first trimester abortion, then abortion on demand until the moment of birth, and then infanticide.” “First it’s abolishing anti-sodomy laws, then it’s sanctioning homosexual ‘marriage’, then polyamory, then pedophilia, then—what—necrophilia?” The moment one thing becomes normalised, the next click of the ratchet rolls out as the next great human rights crisis of the time about which every bien pensant must be “proud”.
Further, it appears this addictive progression applies to a much broader scope of destructive behaviour than “social issues”. It used to be that politicians of both parties worried about deficits and debts. Now we have a Nobel Prize winning economist endorsing striking a trillion dollar coin to permit the government to print as much money as it wishes. One risks being excluded from polite discourse for using the term “illegal alien”, which is defined and used throughout Title 8 of the U.S. Code, and to-morrow, 2023-05-11, the borders of the U.S. will be opened to an unprecedented invasion of “undocumented migrants”. In testimony before a committee of the U.S. Senate, a witness declined to use the word “woman”, preferring “people with a capacity for pregnancy”.
I started the “Crazy Years” topic here because the madness seemed to be growing exponentially and the insanity defying parody. I find myself increasingly thinking of another Heinlein story, “The Year of the Jackpot”.