St. George the Pensioner Syndrome: what is it and how does it affect society?

Let's see what is the syndrome of St. George Retired, linked to the world of claims.

What happened to St. George after slaying the dragon? Well, he retired but, well, the man had to find something to entertain himself and started seeing dragons everywhere, with lurid results.

The same thing happens to the activists of certain social movements who, after achieving the noble purpose for which they were originally fighting, end up finding something new to fight for that, sometimes, is not so noble and even encourages the inequality they were originally intended to fight.

This phenomenon is called the syndrome of St. George the RetireeWe are going to see what happened to St. George, the dragon-slayer, after having ended the life of his reptilian enemy.

The story of retired St. George

St. George the dragon-slayer is relaxing at home. He has earned it. He has managed to slay the dragon and save the good people of the kingdom. He is now a true hero, a man of legend who will be immortalized forever in the history of the village: songs, fireside stories, written chronicles... all of them will be ways in which his exploits 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 Smoking maw of the dragon. Peace and joy are felt among the people of the village, and they all thank the good George generously. What a great deed! And what satisfaction! With the dragon dead, our hero's well-deserved rest has come: it's time for retirement.

St. George the Retired is in the comfort of his home, calm and enjoying his new status.. With no dragon to slay, it is time to put away his armor, let the heavy sword decorate the mantelpiece and rest his tired buttocks on a comfortable armchair. Relaxed, he decides to look out the window at the blue sky, trying to put his mind at ease and enjoy the moment by living the "flow".

As beautiful as the sky is, it's still a bit boring, so he decides to look down and gaze out at his beautiful garden. Everything seems to be in order when suddenly he notices something. At first it doesn't seem to be anything, but the stimulus makes you feel... uncomfortable. Wait a minute... it seems to be a silhouette, something moving in the bushes. It's not a leaf blown by the wind, but rather it looks like... No, wait, it can't be. Is it? It's a dragon!

St. George rubs his eyes and looks again, but this time he gets up hastily from his comfortable chair and looks out the window to get a better look. No, it's not a dragon - it's hundreds of them everywhere!!!!! Small, fast, colorful lizards scurrying through the bushes, mockingly sticking out their tongues and basking in the sunshine on this peaceful day. Peaceful for the lizards, but not for good old Jorge, who upon seeing so many reptilian vermin, his old fears are reborn.

Seeing so many lizards on the loose makes it clear to St. George: it's time to save the village again.. The lizards are tiny, harmless and even cute, but in our hero's mind he cannot help but make hateful comparisons with the great dragon he once killed. "The village needs my heroic action again," says St. George, shaking the dust off his sword and armor, and gets ready to do what he does best: slay dragons.

Our saint goes out into the street and, overcome by power, passion and the desire to fight bravely, he takes his sword and kills one by one the little dragons he finds in his path. None of them harm him because, besides being defenseless, they do not see the quick but deadly thrust of St. George's merciless sword coming. The blind hatred aroused in him by the old dragon, who did kill people, has made St. George show no mercy or hesitation in his new mission: all dragons must die, regardless of their size.

St. George returns in the evening, already a little tired but feeling truly accomplished. Many, many small lizards have died. Almost all of them. He has become so motivated by killing lizards that he has extinguished several endemic species in the area. A disaster for environmentalists, but who cares what they think? The important thing is that St. George has done it again, he has saved the village from the dragon's threat..

The kingdom once again recognizes St. George for his feat. True, the dragons he slew had done nothing, but what if they were planning to do so? "Better safe than sorry" the citizens of the kingdom say to themselves and, motivated by the new feat of their most illustrious neighbor, they organize a second tribute in the main square, right in front of the royal castle: a banquet with succulent dishes, stalls with local art, bonfires and people dancing and singing around the feat of St. George. Once again, happiness floods the town.

St. George sits nicely next to the king, presiding over the banquet in his honor but even though everyone is happy, he doesn't seem to be. There is something in the air, he can feel it. Something is not right. No, he hasn't killed them all, he still feels the presence of dragons.... There must be more dragons to slay! He couldn't possibly have killed them all! Our hero gets upset, starts shouting and the other attendees of the event look at him worried.

The king hears what St. George says and says "Honorable St. George, what do you say? More dragons in my kingdom? It is not possible since you have killed every last one of them. Relax, enjoy the feast." But St. George does not relax, rather on the contrary, he worries even more in fact, how had he not thought of that? There must be dragons among the villagers and just what the king has just said is what one of them would say while disguised as a man. Let's get back to action...

The feast turns into a bloody massacre. St. 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. Stabbing here, beheading there. Fear grips the people. St. George has gone mad, for he sees dragons instead of men, as when Don Quixote thought he saw giants instead of windmills. No one escapes St. George's wrath. Men, women, children and even pets. Everyone, absolutely everyone, is a victim of the alienation of the one-time hero of the village...

What is the St. George Retired syndrome?

The peculiar story we have just told serves to illustrate very well a phenomenon that receives the name of our alienated hero. The Retired St. George syndrome is a concept that was first discussed by the Australian philosopher Kenneth Minogue in his book "The Liberal mind" (1963) to refer to that type of person, very widespread nowadays, that always wants to be in the front line of any social movement..

The "retired St. Jorges" are vindictive people who are deeply convinced of the need to continue with a given social struggle, even though the main demands of the movement have already been satisfied. That is to say, despite the fact that many social victories have been achieved in the last century, those suffering from the syndrome of St. George Retired are not entirely satisfied with it, asking for recognition and rights that, perhaps, border on the absurd or lack any sense at all.

These people would have liked to have been part of great historical events that have brought greater freedom, equality and rights to different groups that were oppressed. Today's "retired St. Georges" would have been helpful if they had participated in the civil rights marches in the United States, the Stonewall riots, or protested alongside the suffragettes in Great Britain. However, as those events are now a thing of the past and as there are few genuinely legitimate struggles in which to participate, people are looking for the first social vindication they can find.

Going deeper into the phenomenon

Since the 1960s we have been living in an era in which all the great oppressions have been collapsing. By means of 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 have been overcome through social movements and the organized action of the people. It is true that we do not live in a perfect and utopian society, since there are still inequalities, but they are milder than they have ever been.

As a general rule, when a social movement appears, it is maintained until it achieves what it has set out to do. After achieving its objective, it enters a paradoxical situation: on the one hand, it has achieved what the movement arose for and feels fulfillment and satisfaction, but on the other hand there is an emptiness, a lack of common objective among its activists, which generates uneasiness and does not calm the desire to continue with the revolutionary spirit.

Both the old followers of the movement and its newer members are eager for action and, not content with entering a period of calm, decide to fill that void with a new claim. 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 far-reaching. It may be that the new objective to be achieved is a sovereign nonsense or even contribute to generate more inequality, only now what is done is to turn the privileged into the oppressed.

An example of the phenomenon: wearing dreadlocks and being white.

A particularity of those who live the syndrome of St. George Retired is their ability to turn a mundane and unimportant issue into a real problem that, if not solved, is perceived as a real injustice, perceived as a real injustice, something that makes the world a real oppressive hell.. A very clear example of this phenomenon is the recent controversy of wearing dreadlocks and not being African, especially if you are white.

Racism is currently frowned upon and even legally penalized in many countries. No self-respecting Western country 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 around the world and there are differences between black and white people in terms of rights and recognition in many contexts, but the situation is far better than it was in, say, the 1950s.

The anti-racist movement has achieved its main goal, which was to have the legal equality of people recognized regardless of their race. Subsequent struggles have taken it upon themselves to equalize people of different races on different smaller but nonetheless not negligible issues, such as the black/white wage gap in the U.S., the ghettos, the lack of black representation on television, ending the Ku Klux Klan....

However, some people who call themselves anti-racists, invaded by the syndrome of St. George Retired have done the same thing as the hero of our story.. These people, instead of killing innocent lizards, have taken it out on those white people who wear dreadlocks, claiming that this hairstyle can only be worn by black people. Under their "logic" these so-called anti-racists say that if a white person wears dreadlocks, they are oppressing black people.

The funny thing about saying this and harassing white people who wear dreadlocks is that, oddly enough, oppression is being committed. On the one hand, it oppresses by telling people what they can and cannot do with their own bodies and appearance. On the other hand, they are engaging in racial discrimination by prohibiting all non-black people 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 race and involve real inequality, such as the socioeconomic differences between whites and blacks in the USA.

Social consequences

The main negative consequence of suffering from St. George the Pensioner syndrome is to contributing to further inequalities in society.This effect is far from what it is supposedly intended to achieve. The "retired St. Georges" are so obsessed with continuing to fight, even if it is absurd and detrimental to society, that they forget all that has been achieved by the real heroes of history.

The balance of equality is very easily unbalanced, either for one side or the other. Those who were once oppressed can quickly become oppressors but who, protected by history, reproach others for having oppressed them when they are now doing the same, whether it is a matter of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion or language.

In turn, this syndrome leads to counter-responses, causing more people to advocate just the opposite, i.e., that all the progress made in the past should be reversed.This means that all the 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 originally promulgated, the other side will gain followers.

For example, within the feminist collective, whose objective is to achieve equality between men and women in all aspects, there are positions that tend towards hembrism and are even in favor of taking revenge on men for thousands of years of oppression. Because of these "retired St. Georges" those who do not define themselves as feminists believe that feminism implies privileging women. As a result, many men turn against feminism, saying the typical "neither machismo nor feminism, equality" without really knowing that, in principle, that is what feminism is, equality.

But the worst of the counter-response to hembrismo is the most recalcitrant and old-fashioned machismo. Fearing that they will absolutely lose their privileges and rights, many men are radically opposed to the advances that feminism has achieved, feeling nostalgic for those times when "women were well controlled". In other words, the syndrome of St. George the Retired contributes to generating more inequality on both sides and generating a dangerous dynamic that can end in tragedy. that can end in tragedy.

Bibliographical references:

• Minogue, K. (1963) The Liberal Mind. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
• Joludi (2020). The Retired St. George Syndrome. Joludi.blog.wordpress. Retrieved from: https://joludiblog.wordpress.com/2020/06/24/el-sindrome-de-san-jorge-jubilado/.
• Milián-Querol, J. (September 26, 2020). Sant Jordi does not retire. ABC. Retrieved from: https://www.abc.es/espana/catalunya/abci-juan-milian-querol-sant-jordi-no-jubila-202009261041_noticia.html.