Brief thought on the appeal of so-called “vitalism:” As a child, I was bullied quite a lot, as were many socially awkward boys of my generation. At that time, appeals to sympathy about this fell on completely deaf ears. Any attempt to play the victim was not merely ignored, but in fact met with even more bullying.

While in some ways this experience was awful, what it did do was force me to internalize that no one is coming to help, and that it was solely up to me to change myself in such a way that people no longer hated associating with me. I had no choice because any other course of action was beaten out of me through harsh, relentless, unapologetic social punishment. Thus, when I eventually did succeed in changing myself such that my social standing improved, I developed a strong internal locus of control.

Schoolyard bullying probably isn’t the best way to instill this in people, but in Current Year it seems that it simply isn’t instilled at all. Everything is always someone else’s fault—even “conservatives” believe that it is the government’s duty to guarantee them a good job. Incels frequently believe that society owes them a girlfriend, their failure is Stacy and Chad’s fault, etc. Perhaps this void is what people (almost always men, it seems!) are responding to when they feel drawn to a “vitalist” aesthetic.