Therapeutic Arguments

by Daryl D. Tan



I recently started reading Paul Gottfried's 'Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt' and right from the get-go - I see the arguments put forth in the first part of his book playing out in real life (read below and then watch video clip above).

The first part of Gottfried's book deals with the transition from the Managerial State to the Therapeutic State with public administration officials across the world shifting their priorities from stimulating the economy to socializing "citizens" through the public school system.

As the Therapeutic State seeks to exalt the Civil Rights movement and Multiculturalism above all things and to ensure that citizens see these ideologies as the ultimate arbiters of morality, it has to utilize therapeutic arguments that are visceral in nature and appeal solely to emotion in order to persuade the masses.

Thus, when the Federal Government of Germany went against Bavaria's ministry of education in 1995 by requiring that crucifixes be removed from public school classrooms in the predominantly Catholic state, ecstatic supporters of the removal of crucifixes relied on therapeutic arguments to make their case. One such supporter, Protestant North Elban bishop, Maria Jepsen, stated, "I consider a crucifix, that is the constant sight of a tortured man, to be of questionable value in a classroom. I would object to hanging a cross there if I had my own child."

Gottfried makes the point in his book that this argument "may have trumped other considerations for those who cheered the federal incursion into Bavarian education."

Likewise, we see the Therapeutic State at play here with Governor Cuomo utilizing the same sort of therapeutic arguments to make his case. Nevermind the efficacy of masks, we must wear masks "to honour essential workers" and to "show our respect and solidarity to doctors and nurses."