Remember the children's party game "pass the parcel"? A much-wrapped gift is passed around a circle of kids sitting on the floor; each one takes a layer of wrapping paper and ribbon off the gift and then passes it on. The person who ends up with the last layer unwraps, and "wins", the gift. S/he is usually meant to share it with the whole group (it's often a box of candy).
Are we playing the Gift of Privilege game, as adults? Who gets to be "privileged" now? It was originally (allegedly) white men, then all white people, all educated people, and eventually all races and nations were vouchsafed "equal rights" according to late-20th century western liberal-humanitarian values.
But then, some identity groups claimed that this was only window dressing and that some groups were still more privileged than others. Black people, brown people, aboriginals, disabled people, trans-sexuals and a proliferation of other "identities" now clamoured for not equal but special rights. Equal rights were no longer an ideal, and "people" were no longer who we thought they were: they were not ethnic groups but "people of colour", not genders but "birthing persons" not women but "persons with vaginas" (though confusingly, not always ...) People were not physically or mentally handicapped but "differently abled". Then there's Non-binary people, Two-spirit people ... in short, there's no longer any "we" in "we the people".
This Pass the Parcel of Privilege game is the new infantilization, and it's gotten out of hand, as children's games tend to. Children start by agreeing to rules but end up howling "that's not fair" when they don't perceive themselves as winning. Now that attitude has invaded the world of universities (that speaker can't speak here), of government and corporate offices (follow DEI or your DEAD to this employer), and of media (take a look at current Submissions Guidelines of book publishers and magazines). The rules of academic, professional, public and media activities are in constant flux, depending on which participant howls "not fair" the loudest this week.
Remember when some decided that literacy and the existence of the "literati" was elitist? Elitist (from the French) simply means "chosen". Society's always going to make, and disagree about, choices. At present we've chosen a new elite army for the Culture Wars. These are the troops of the culture-cancelati. It looks like this uncivil war will be a long one. The fact that it will soon be fought by out of control Artificial Intelligence will only increase the casualty rate among independent-minded liberal-democratic classically-educated humanitarians.
