Jonathan Haidt summarises a paper by sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning.

*Haidt copies and pastes quotes from Campbell & Manning’s paper, then adds his own comments in square brackets [Haidt]. The following are a few of Haidt’s comments:

"Campbell and Manning describe how this culture of dignity is now giving way to a new culture of victimhood in which people are encouraged to respond to even the slightest unintentional offense, as in an honor culture. But they must not obtain redress on their own; they must appeal for help to powerful others or administrative bodies, to whom they must make the case that they have been victimized. It is the very presence of such administrative bodies, within a culture that is highly egalitarian and diverse (i.e., many college campuses) that gives rise to intense efforts to identify oneself as a fragile and aggrieved victim. This is why we have seen the recent explosion of concerns about microaggressions, combined with demands for trigger warnings and safe spaces, that Greg Lukianoff and I wrote about in The Coddling of the American Mind."
"The key idea is that the new moral culture of victimhood fosters “moral dependence” and an atrophying of the ability to handle small interpersonal matters on one’s own. At the same time that it weakens individuals, it creates a society of constant and intense moral conflict as people compete for status as victims or as defenders of victims." 

... "[Why worry?]In this way, victimhood culture causes a downward spiral of competitive victimhood. Young people on the left and the right get sucked into its vortex of grievance. We can expect political polarization to get steadily worse in the coming decades as this moral culture of victimhood spreads."

Campbell, B., & Manning, J. (2014). Microaggression and moral cultures. Comparative sociology, 13, 692-726. [Link to journal online;  Here is a link to an ungated copy at Academia.edu]

See also,

Shorts 3-sequence, Politics theme: https://keepinganeyeonedi.ca/2024/01/12/shorts-3-a-politics-we-are-not-american/