We're all victims now: Americans of all ages increasingly want and expect adult supervision.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald
• Position: Columns - Microaggression

IN 19TH CENTURY America, insults and other forms of disrespect often provoked violence ranging from a punch in the nose to a duel. By die mid-20th century, minor offenses were treated as boorish and mostly shrugged off. But a new norm is emerging in which bothersome, often unintended slights, now styled as "microaggressions," are reported to authorities who then reprimand and punish the offenders.

In "Microaggression and Moral Cultures," the California State University, Los Angeles sociologist Bradley Campbell and the West Virginia University sociologist Jason Manning identify a "culture of victimhood" that they distinguish from the "honor cultures" and "dignity cultures" of die past. In a victimhood culture, they write, "individuals and groups display high sensitivity to slight, have a tendency to handle conflicts through complaints to third parties, and seek to cultivate an image of being victims who deserve assistance."

Insightfully complementing their analysis is a new study by the St. Lawrence University economist Steven Horwitz tided "Cooperation Over Coercion: The Importance of Unsupervised Childhood Play for Democracy and Liberalism." Horwitz makes die case that overprotective childrearing is undermining the "ability to engage in group problem solving and settle disputes without the intervention of outsiders," a capacity he calls "a key part of the liberal order." In other words, both studies find that Americans of all ages increasingly expect adult supervision.

Campbell and Manning begin by probing the rise of the "microaggression" phenomenon on university campuses. As defined by the Columbia University diversity training specialist Derald Wing Sue, microaggressions are "brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial, gender, sexual orientation, and religious slights and insults to the target person or group." Microaggressions include asking an Asian American where he or she was born, complimenting a Latino on speaking English well, or asserting that "America is the land of opportunity." In general, microaggressions are seen as instances of a larger narrative of structural inequalities. "Conduct is offensive because it perpetuates or increases die domination of some persons and groups by others," Campbell and Manning observe.

The authors argue that people seek the moral status of victim in situations where...