Retired Saint George Syndrome: What It Is And How It Is Reflected In Society
What happened to Saint George after killing the dragon? Well, he retired but, well, the man had to find something to entertain himself and he began to see dragons everywhere, with gruesome results.
The same thing happens to the activists of certain social movements who, after achieving the noble purpose for which they initially fought, end up finding something new to fight for that, sometimes, is not so noble and even promotes inequality. that they initially intended to combat.
This phenomenon is called Retired Saint George syndrome a peculiar event that we are going to see below, but not before explaining what happened to Saint George, the dragon slayer, after having ended the life of his reptilian enemy.
Saint George the Dragon Slayer is relaxing at home. He has earned it. He has managed to kill the dragon and saved the good people of the kingdom. Now he is a true hero, a man of legend who will be immortalized forever in the history of the village: songs, stories by the fireplace, written chronicles… all of them will be ways in which his feat will be narrated.
Never before had the kingdom seen such prosperity. With the vile reptile gone, fear vanishes from the lives of the villagers as did the last smoke exhaled from the dragon’s smoking jaws. Peace and joy are felt among the townspeople, and they all generously thank good Jorge. What a great feat! And what satisfaction! With the dragon dead, our hero has received his well-deserved rest: it is time for retirement.
Saint George the Retired is in the comfort of his home, calm and enjoying his new condition With no dragon to kill, the time has come to put away the armor, let the heavy sword decorate the mantelpiece and rest the tired buttocks on a comfortable armchair. Relaxed, he decides to look through the window at the blue sky, trying to clear his mind and enjoy the moment, living the “flow.”
No matter how beautiful the sky is, it is still a little boring, so he decides to lower his gaze and look towards his beautiful garden. It seems like everything is in order when suddenly she notices something. At first it doesn’t seem like anything, although that stimulus makes him feel… uncomfortable. Wait a minute… it seems like it’s a silhouette, something is moving through the bushes. It’s not a leaf moved by the wind, but rather it seems… No, wait, it can’t be. Is it? It’s a dragon!
Saint George rubs his eyes and looks again, but this time he gets up quickly from his comfortable chair and looks out the window to see better. No, he is not a dragon. There are hundreds of them everywhere!!! Small, fast and colorful lizards moving through the bushes, mockingly sticking out their tongues and sunbathing on this peaceful day. Peaceful for the lizards, but not for good old Jorge who, upon seeing so many reptilian vermin, reborn his old fears.
Seeing so many lizards loose makes Saint George clear: it’s time to save the town again The lizards are small, harmless and even cute, but in our hero’s mind he cannot help but make hateful comparisons with the great dragon that he once killed. “The village once again needs my heroic action,” Saint George says to himself, shaking the dust off his sword and armor and decking himself out to do what he does best: kill dragons.
Our saint goes out into the street and, invaded by power, passion and the desire to fight bravely, he takes his sword and kills one by one the little dragons that he finds in his path. No one harms him because, in addition to being defenseless, they do not see the quick but deadly thrust of the merciless sword of Saint George coming. The blind hatred that the old dragon, which did kill people, aroused in him has made Saint George have neither mercy nor hesitation in his new mission: all dragons must die, no matter how big he is.
Saint George returns at night, already a little tired but feeling truly fulfilled. Many, many little lizards have died. Almost every. He has become so motivated by killing lizards that he has made several endemic species in the area extinct. A disaster for environmentalists but who cares what they think? The important thing is that Saint George has done it again, he has saved the town from the threat of the dragon
The kingdom once again recognizes Saint George for his feat. It’s true that the dragons he killed hadn’t done anything, but what if they were planning to? “Better safe than sorry” say the citizens of the kingdom and, motivated by the new feat of their most illustrious neighbor, they organize a second tribute to him in the main square, right in front of the royal castle: a banquet with succulent dishes, stalls with art place, bonfires and people dancing and singing the feat of Saint George around them. Once again happiness floods the town.
Saint George sits comfortably next to the king, presiding over the banquet in his honor, but even though everyone is happy, he does not seem to be. There’s something in the air, he can feel it. Something’s not right. No, he hasn’t killed them all, he still notices the presence of the dragons. There must be more dragons to kill! There’s no way he killed them all! Our hero gets upset, starts shouting and the other attendees of the event look at him worried.
The king hears what Saint George says and says to him, “Honorable Saint George, what do you say? more dragons in my kingdom? It is not possible because you have killed every last one of them. Relax, enjoy the banquet.” But Saint George does not relax, quite the contrary, he worries even more in fact, how had he not thought about it? There must be dragons among the villagers and just what the king just said is what one of them would say when disguised as a man. We have to get back to action…
The party turns into a bloody massacre. Saint George takes his sword and slits the throat of his king, convinced that he is another dragon, while the rest of the attendees are horrified by the terrible scene. Lunge here, decapitation there. Fear takes over the people. Saint George has gone crazy because he sees dragons instead of men like when Don Quixote thought he saw giants instead of windmills. No one escapes the wrath of Saint George. Men, women, children and even pets. Everyone, absolutely everyone, is a victim of the alienation of someone who was once a hero for the village…
What is Retired Saint George syndrome?
The peculiar story that we have just told serves to illustrate very well a phenomenon that is named after our alienated hero. The Retired Saint George syndrome is a concept that was first commented on by the Australian philosopher Kenneth Minogue in his book “The Liberal mind” (1963) to refer to that type of person, very widespread today, who always wants to be on the front line of any social movement
The “retired Saint Georges” are demanding people who are deeply convinced of the need to continue with a specific social struggle, even though the main demands of the movement have already been satisfied. That is to say, despite the fact that in the last century there have been many social victories that have been achieved, those who suffer from the Retired Saint George syndrome are not completely satisfied with it, asking for recognition and rights to be achieved that, perhaps, border on absurd or meaningless.
These people would have liked to be part of great historical events that have brought greater freedom, equality and rights to different groups that were oppressed. Today’s “retired Saint Georges” would have been helpful if they had participated in the civil rights marches in the United States, the Stonewall Inn riots, or protested alongside the suffragettes in Great Britain. However, since these events are already a thing of the past and since there are few genuinely legitimate struggles in which to participate, people look for the first social demand they find.
Delving deeper into the phenomenon
Since the 1960s we have lived in a time when all the great oppressions have been collapsing. Through social struggle it has been possible to confront inequalities that, in the past, were unquestionably seen as natural: racism, misogyny, homophobia, and even slavery, are aspects that, through social movements and the organized action of the people, have managed to overcome. It is true that we do not live in a perfect and utopian society since there are still inequalities but these are milder than they have ever been.
As a general rule, when a social movement appears, it remains until it achieves what it set out to do. After achieving its objective, it enters a paradoxical situation: on the one hand, what the movement arose for has been achieved and there is a feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction, but on the other hand, there is a void, a lack of common objective among its activists, which generates discomfort and does not calm the desire to continue with the revolutionary spirit.
Both the old followers of the movement and its most recent members are eager for action and, not satisfied with entering a period of calm, they decide to fill that void with a new demand. As the first social objective to be achieved set the bar very high in that it was very noble and legitimate, the new objectives are less transcendental The new objective to be achieved may be supremely foolish or may even contribute to generating more inequality, only now what is being done is turning the privileged into the oppressed.
Example of the phenomenon: having dreadlocks and being white
A peculiarity of those who experience the Retired Saint George syndrome is their ability to turn a mundane and unimportant issue into a real problem that, if not solved, He perceives it as a true injustice, something that makes the world a truly oppressive hell We have a very clear example of this phenomenon with the recent controversy of wearing dreadlocks and not being of African race, especially if you are white.
Currently, racism is highly frowned upon and is even legally criminalized in many countries. No Western country worth its salt prohibits people from voting if they are of one race or another, and racial segregation in Europe has no legal status. Obviously, there are still racists in the world and there are differences between white people and black people in terms of their rights and recognition in a multitude of contexts, but the situation is much better than it was in, for example, the 1950s.
The anti-racist movement has fulfilled its main objective, which was to recognize the legal equality of people regardless of their race. Subsequent struggles have been responsible for equalizing people of different races on different smaller but not insignificant issues, such as the difference in salaries between whites and blacks in the US, ghettos, the lack of representation of blacks in television, put an end to the Ku Klux Klan…
However, some people who call themselves anti-racists, invaded by the Retired Saint George syndrome They have done the same as the hero of our story These people, instead of killing innocent lizards, have taken it out on white people who wear dreadlocks, stating that only black people can wear this hairstyle. Under their “logic” these supposed anti-racists say that if a white person wears dreadlocks he is oppressing black people.
The funny thing about saying this and harassing white people who wear their hair like this is that, curiously, oppression is being committed. On the one hand it is being oppressed in that people are told what they can and cannot do with their own body and appearance. On the other hand, it falls into racial discrimination, prohibiting all people who are not black from wearing certain hairstyles, especially white people.
These “anti-racists” prefer to focus on an issue that does not even remotely appear to be racist instead of focusing on problems that do have to do with the issue of race and involve real inequality, such as the socioeconomic differences between whites and blacks in the United States.
Social consequences
The main negative consequence of suffering from Retired Saint George syndrome is contribute to more inequalities in society, being an effect very far from what is supposedly intended to be achieved. The “retired Saint Georges” are so obsessed with continuing to fight, even if it is something absurd and harmful to society, that they forget everything that the true heroes of history have achieved.
The scales of equality become unbalanced very easily, whether on one side or the other. Those who were oppressed one day can become oppressors in a very short time but, protected by history, they reproach others for having oppressed them when they are now doing the same, whether it is a question of race, gender, sexual orientation, origin. ethnicity, religion or language.
In turn, this syndrome leads to counter-responses, causing more people to support just the opposite, that is, that all advances in different issues are eliminated and we return to the situation of several decades ago. If you raise one end of the stick, you also raise the other, that is, if a certain social movement opts for extremist positions that are far from the equality that it initially promoted, the other opposite side will gain followers.
For example, within the feminist group, whose objective is to achieve equality between men and women in all aspects, there are positions that lean towards hembrism and are even in favor of taking revenge on men for thousands of years of oppression. Because of these “retired Saint Georges” those who do not define themselves as feminists believe that feminism implies privileging women. As a result, many men are against feminism, saying the typical thing about “neither machismo nor feminism, equality” without really knowing that, in principle, that is what feminism is, equality.
But the worst of the counterresponse to hembrism is the most recalcitrant and outdated machismo. Fearing that they are going to absolutely lose their privileges and rights, many men take a position radically opposed to the advances that feminism has achieved, feeling nostalgia for those times when “women were well controlled.” In other words, the Retired Saint George syndrome contributes to generating more inequality on both sides and generating a dangerous dynamic that can end in tragedy.
