Let me see if I can dig it up. It involves a student at NYU who was tearing down pictures of hostages, including children, and was filmed smugly grinning as she did it. She was proud of what she was doing, and she didn't care who saw. She wanted to be seen, because she thought she'd receive social approval and adulation for her actions.
Well, she was identified, and the university voided her scholarship which has caused her all kinds of problems.
She cannot figure out why she's facing consequences. She thinks she's the world's biggest victim and that life is so unfair. She cannot comprehend that her behavior was bad (and the interviewer nodding along sympathetically is not helping matters in the slightest. Adult enablers of this stuff are at the root of the problem).
The total lack of a moral compass blows my mind. It sometimes just looks like plain sociopathy. But it's not. It's a lack of self-awareness, ignorance of social norms, and a heaping dolloping of main character syndrome. They were taught this is completely normal behavior. We talk about bigotry and dehumanization, but how did we end up with a system that reinforces these things out of one side of its mouth while condemning it out the other?
The social sciences are just broken right now, but they will never self-reform. There are too many incentives and rewards for perpetuating the problems, and way way too many people willing to defend it by going full scorched earth on critics. The pressure has to come from the outside. And, of course, anyone from the outside is automatically labeled a right-winger. That's the tactic to resist fixing problems. It has worked remarkably well for a long time, but I'm hoping enough impetus is building up to change it now that masks are just flying off all over the place.
Found the interview:
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