(2020-09-12) Falkovich Against Victimhood

Jacob Falkovich: Against Victimhood. The reason I never talk about being a victim is that I’m extremely averse to victim mentality. It’s an insidious mindset, one that’s self-reinforcing both internally and by outside feedback. I’ve seen it claim people, groups, entire nations. On the flip side, I’ve noticed that the less often I think of myself as a victim the less I am victimized, which in turn makes that mindset even rarer. If I do feel on occasion that I have been harmed through no fault of my own by hostile actors I keep it to myself. This is a bad time to be a victim on the internet.

What’s bad about victim mentality? Most obviously, inhabiting a narrative where the world has committed a great injustice against which you are helpless against is extremely distressing. Whether the narrative is justified or not, it causes suffering.

See yourself as a victim prevents you from improving your situation by your own power, since doing so will contradict the story of your own helplessness. In particular that’s true of the story you tell yourself. That story is your identity.

Avoiding bad things is a usually a great tactic, but it’s not available to victims.

Most importantly, victim mentality leaves no room for empathy. Victims can’t see anyone else’s struggles or suffering, especially those of their perceived victimizers.

Claiming publicly that you’ve been victimized by X will immediately attract everyone with an axe to grind against X. Any pure souls trying to help will get swallowed up by the sheer number and energy of anti-Xers. The anti-Xers have a vested interest in your continued victimization by X. Nothing is more detrimental to their cause than X’s victims making peace with X on their own terms. Victimhood-mongering provides purpose and gainful employment to countless individuals

Global recognition of one’s victimhood is pretty much the worst thing that can happen to anyone. It happened to the Palestinians.

Isn’t this all victim blaming? This is a reasonable objection, although I have some issues with the concept itself and its provenance

Equating the perception that victims have even a modicum of responsibility with prejudice gives up the game before it started. With this axiom in place “victimology” is not a field of inquiry, it’s a tool of advocacy to be used in competitions for victimhood status.

we need to clarify two distinctions.

The first difference is between being a victim in a particular instance and victimhood as an ongoing story

The second, related distinction is between public status and individual mindset. Blame is at its core a social concept

The main way to change individual mindset it to talk about your own experience

we must address privilege. It’s sure easy for someone who is safe from oppression to talk about the pitfalls of victim mentality; not so for the victim!

My first answer is that there is a strong bias in favor of overstating victimhood that needs to be corrected

Victim mentality is manufactured en masse by the American education system. It can only be resisted by individual efforts to reject it for yourself

Victimhood is a vicious cycle. It leads to helplessness which leads to victimization which leads to external recognition of victimhood which in turn leads to helplessness and so on down the spiral. Rejecting victimhood works the same way, small decisions that compound until one reaches escape velocity.