Thanks for this.

I brought a clinical psychologist in to talk to the staff at my high school way back in 2003.

His talk was on the danger of perfectionism. His take was that not only is it insidious and all consuming but it is also ultimately dehumanizing: especially for children.

He said that sociologists can usually tell what is plaguing a society by what people are unwilling to talk about. Human beings cannot be perfect and yet our social institutions not only expect it but also force educators to inculcate it.

Your piece addresses the lack of purposeful action taken, since the warning bells were ringing decades ago, against the dangers of perfectionism and one of its many corollaries: the absolutism in over-generalizations.

And with social media exacerbating the trend towards perfectionism and the debilitating blame-game shaming anxiety it creates, it has not gotten any better.

BUT, your writing is trying to get us to talk about it…to bring us back from the edge of this abyss of divisiveness. Men and women need each other.

And that gives me hope.