Column | VANCE’s anger is that of an adolescent

I just checked it, and found this about ‘adolescence’: it is « the transition period in the development between youth and full adulthood, the period in which a person is biological, but not emotionally fully grown » (Wikipedia). And I also learned that the world health organization defines adolescence as the period of a person’s life between the tenth and nineteenth year of life. We say ‘young adults’ in Dutch, where the young and the adult part can overlap in an inimitable way.

Reason: The Netflix miniserie Adolescencethe story of thirteen -year -old British Jamie, who is arrested for the murder of a classmate. Jamie’s father initially does not believe the indictment, but gradually it becomes clear what has happened, even because of a long conversation that Jamie has to have with a psychologist appointed by the judiciary.

In episode three, this psychologist, played by Erin Doherty, only with her young client- the ‘rich’ is a bare room, where there are only plastic seats, specially designed to be able to withstand strong throwing and throws. The long dialogue is at the albees level Who’s Afraid or Virginia Woolfthe same cat and mouse-like sadism, and the acting of both Doherty and that of Owen Cooper, who plays Jamie, should be overloaded with everything that is available at prizes.

Jamie against the psychologist: « You don’t determine what I do. Let that penetrate your pussy head. »

Jamie’s anger is suddenly there, like a flash flame, and is interspersed with uncertain boys, which is also foolish. That anger is impressive, an anger that does not date from yesterday, but that now focuses on the highly educated, and therefore in Jamie’s eyes elitaire, and also female psychologist. She becomes the personification of all girls and women who do not see him stand, because « 80 percent of women fall at 20 percent of men, » as it is in the digital manosphere in boys like Jamie.

A security guard pops up behind glass when Jamie is tieren again. The psychologist indicates that she only manages. Jamie cannot leave that good deed unpunished. Intimidating, he comes to stand in front of her, and screams: “What did you do there, damn it. Waving him away like one fuckin ‘ Queen ”. The male security guard, sent again, stands for all the boys and men such as Jamie, who are gone away by the other sex as difficult moped flies. The hatred of that thirteen -year -old boy is breathtakingly deep and adult.

And now over to the real world, to Trump and especially to vice president JD Vance. There too, anger sets the tone, it still surprises me, because after the Second World War there was a Ferm alliance between the US and Europe, as well as in a fairly bearable marriage. Vance in particular seems to have a personal resentment against Europe. In the text conversation that became public and is now known as ‘Signalgate’, Vance talks about the European continent as the enemy. He makes it clear that the America’s task is to weaken and even punish Europe. As if the continent does not know her submissive place.

The image that rises: the old world consists of ‘freeriders« ; There they play nice weather while the US is slugs and swings. Europe is the classic maintenance, the arrogant, elitist ‘socialite’ that must be maintained.

Europe, I understood after seeing Adolescence, Is in Vance’s eyes what the psychologist is for Jamie. Europe as the woman, who hardly knows how to hide her contempt from the Hillbilly side of America. Lady with splashes.

The anger of Vance is that of an adolescent, which is now more than mature and very powerful. And so Europe became its own ‘Kutkop’.

Stephan Sanders is an essayist.

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