Anyone who identifies as part of a designated victim group is deemed to be beyond reproach. The only people who can ever be guilty are those deemed to be in power over such “victim” groups—men, the middle classes, white people, the sexually “hetero-normative.” In other words, mainstream society, whose principal crime is that it is mainstream and is therefore innately elitist, racist, exist, and oppressive towards any group considering itself to be disadvantaged by anything. Melanie Phillips

It’s as if people no longer see life as something that should be organized around a specific vocation, a calling that is their own way of doing good in the world. Everything feels personalized and miniaturized. The upper registers of moral life—fighting for freedom, struggling to end poverty—have been amputated for many. The awfulness of the larger society is a given. The best you can do is find a small haven in a heartless world. Melanie Phillips