THEODORE DALRYMPLE: How P.C. Redefines and Distorts the Definition of Child Abuse. “Child abuse started out as fractured legs and broken skulls, and has ended up as assaults on self-esteem.” Yes, this is a case of what Charles Krauthammer called defining deviancy up. “As part of the vast social project of moral leveling, it is not enough for the deviant to be normalized. The normal must be found to be deviant. Therefore, while for the criminals and the crazies deviancy has been defined down (the bar defining normality has been lowered), for the ordinary bourgeois deviancy has been defined up (the bar defining normality has been raised). Large areas of ordinary behavior hitherto considered benign have had their threshold radically redefined up, so that once innocent behavior now stands condemned as deviant. Normal middle class life then stands exposed as the true home of violence, abuse, misogyny, a whole catalog of deviant acting and thinking.”