When the phenomenon is widespread, that becomes politically untenable and the bar for unacceptable deviancy has to be adjusted, as with anything else. This is a

When the phenomenon is widespread, that becomes politically untenable and the bar for unacceptable deviancy has to be adjusted, as with anything else. This is a cousin of the idea that "they can't arrest us all" that one sees in acts of collective disobedience--some of which, as we know, have been quite constructive in history and are laudably described as part of "social movements", while others are just hooliganism and criminality. Drawing the line is always messy. From what I had heard from my teacher acquaintances (most of whom are my former teachers) anecdotally, it sounds like behaviour trends were going sharply negative before Covid, and that Covid just provides a legitimate-sounding clinical cover, along with "mental health" and the rest. Of course, everyone says that all the time about everything any year, so it can be hard to separate noise from signal sometimes. But they had me pretty convinced.