Poll: Victims and Victimhood - a prediction from the past

[Chris Moses]

No, assuming malice where there was none is a representation of your bad faith. Misrepresenting it as doomsday predictions or pretending it was saying some other side was evil was representation of your bad faith. This passive aggressive reaction to having yourself corrected for outright being wrong in your assessment of the article (likely because you merely leaped off that bridge with everyone else, or simply didn't read that far into it) is representation of your bad faith.

I don't care if you agree with the article, but when you and others act like this because you disagree, you are demonstrating the point raised about how there is no allowance for a good faith disagreement anymore. You refused and still refuse to see the article as anything but an outright evil attack on your "us" from his "them". That is why I say you and others represent his point, because you are.

You are plainly wrong.

The article opens like this:

BACK in 1993, the misanthropic art critic Robert Hughes published a grumpy, entertaining book called "Culture of Complaint," in which he predicted that America was doomed to become increasingly an "infantilized culture" of victimhood. It was a rant against what he saw as a grievance industry appearing all across the political spectrum.

I enjoyed the book, but as a lifelong optimist about America, was unpersuaded by Mr. Hughes?s argument. I dismissed it as just another apocalyptic prediction about our culture.

Unfortunately, the intervening two decades have made Mr. Hughes look prophetic and me look naive.

Let me parse it down for you in case you still don't see it.

Robert Hughes... predicted that America was doomed ...Unfortunately, the intervening two decades have made Mr. Hughes look prophetic and me look naive.

If you don't see it now, I don't know what more I can tell you. You did read the article, right? Because, he launches from there right into complaining about liberal universities and their "safe spaces".

OT: Does "victimhood" sometimes happen? Yes. Is it rampant? Are we all going to die from it? I don't think so...

 

[runic knight]

No, assuming malice where there was none is a representation of your bad faith. Misrepresenting it as doomsday predictions or pretending it was saying some other side was evil was representation of your bad faith. This passive aggressive reaction to having yourself corrected for outright being wrong in your assessment of the article (likely because you merely leaped off that bridge with everyone else, or simply didn't read that far into it) is representation of your bad faith.

I don't care if you agree with the article, but when you and others act like this because you disagree, you are demonstrating the point raised about how there is no allowance for a good faith disagreement anymore. You refused and still refuse to see the article as anything but an outright evil attack on your "us" from his "them". That is why I say you and others represent his point, because you are.

You are plainly wrong.

The article opens like this:

-sniped for being repeated later-

Let me parse it down for you in case you still don't see it.

Robert Hughes... predicted that America was doomed ...Unfortunately, the intervening two decades have made Mr. Hughes look prophetic and me look naive.

If you don't see it now, I don't know what more I can tell you. You did read the article, right? Because, he launches from there right into complaining about liberal universities and their "safe spaces".

OT: Does "victimhood" sometimes happen? Yes. Is it rampant? Are we all going to die from it? I don't think so...

Or he could just be talking about the predictions of it being inevitable heading towards victim culture itself that he was naive about. Lets look at that whole block in context, and then at its point within the article itself.

Nice of you to try to cut out all context to try to make it support what you want it to though. I mean honestly, when you were going into the article, you had to see the full sentence bolded below there before you cut the thought in half in order to present it.

BACK in 1993, the misanthropic art critic Robert Hughes published a grumpy, entertaining book called "Culture of Complaint," in which he predicted that America was doomed to become increasingly an "infantilized culture" of victimhood. It was a rant against what he saw as a grievance industry appearing all across the political spectrum.

I enjoyed the book, but as a lifelong optimist about America, was unpersuaded by Mr. Hughes?s argument. I dismissed it as just another apocalyptic prediction about our culture.

Unfortunately, the intervening two decades have made Mr. Hughes look prophetic and me look na?ve.

Now, looking at the whole of that, I still see that bit about "I was naive" to be more about the predictions in general, not some claim of the end of the world. Considering it is the predictions about the victim culture itself that is the actual topic discussed through the article and that the "doomed" aspect refers to the inevitability of the culture heading that way according to the person he later deemed prophetic (bolded for reference), I stand by what I said, that no, it was not a doomsday prediction nor a malicious attack on one side. There is a difference between something being doomed to happen and claims of it being the end of the world.

Furthermore, have a look at what was highlighted in blue above and other references like this a few lines down

"We can laugh off some of them, for example, the argument that the design of a Starbucks cup is evidence of a secularist war on Christmas. "

"And presidential candidates on both the left and the right routinely motivate supporters by declaring that they are under attack by immigrants or wealthy people."

So, while it does mock safe space, it also mocks the other side of the isle, making clear the point is targeting the victim-culture itself, rather than blaming one side or another.

Unfortunately, as the article itself mentioned, some are unable to see it as anything but an attack on them, and thus abandon any sort of good faith disagreement to instead rebel against a perceived evil.

And that is sad because the culture of victims is being abused by both sides of politics, but as we clearly see, you can't mention that fact without people rushing forth to defeat the evil -Insert opposite political party here-.

Running with the topic some, it is like the culture of fear that ran politics has seeped into the general media and then evolved itself into victim culture. Where rather than just making people afraid and offers a solution to the fear (vote for me because otherwise terrorism), it makes the people victims and offers to save them from that. It is no longer a simple fear, but instead a constant attack they are victimized by, be it saying they are victims of immigrant welfarers, anti-christmas crusaders, or just the scary different ideas you might run into on a college campus.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I agree, a culture of victimhood does tend to lead to doom. That's why you create a better system that leaves less victims. Seems pretty self explanatory. If anything the discussion sounds a hell of a lot like this;


Thing is, that victimhood only looks truly menacing to people who feel they need to protect something from a non-existent threat. There's always a kernal of truth somewhere. If there is empirical evidence of a problem, and it is sufficiently deleterious, people will champion it as a display of .... goodwill, auctoritas, whatever. People who perceive an insincerity in a few cases might then transpose that on real social grievances that persist and attempt to weaken any real examination of transgression.

In the end, benefit of doubt should always maintain. People who refuse to see transgressions are worse than even insincere champions of positive change, after all. In the end, if people are complaining then you at least owe it to yourself to comprehend there might be more to something than you know. Kind of a moral duty to form the best, most complete idea you can realistically create on soimething you have an opinion about.

'Victimhood' is only victimhood because people claim they are victims of victimhood.

 

[Silvanus]

I can't think of many scenarios in which it could be considered a significant problem. A minor irritant, upon occasion, but not a significant problem by any reasonable stretch of the imagination.

More likely to cause harm is the attitude of dismissiveness towards the experiences and problems of people who aren't them. That's in evidence in that NY Times article itself, which puts forward extreme examples to discredit a far wider group (and relies only on our unquestioning nature to assume these extreme examples actually took place, or that they're representative). It's quite a poisoned well.

Quite the hypocrisy of Mr. Brooks there to bemoan the lack of good-faith in argument, when he's making an argument in tremendously bad faith himself; one of assumption, generalisation, and misrepresentation.

 

[Lightknight]

I agree, a culture of victimhood does tend to lead to doom. That's why you create a better system that leaves less victims. Seems pretty self explanatory. If anything the discussion sounds a hell of a lot like this;

Nice to know someone else is also addicted to SMBC

Anyways, the implication here is not the culture of actual victimhood. No one is upset at true victims claiming it as part of their identity (or, if someone does want victims to just mind their place in silence then most of us here wouldn't be in favor of that nonsense).

The problems being presented are of non-victims assuming the mantel of victimhood either on behalf of other people who may not give a shit or due to incredibly trivial things and then try to appropriate the label of victim to bully the system into catering to them or their imaginary victim constituents in ways that serve no purpose or go way too far in proportion to the instigator.

 

[hentropy]

Part of the problems is that we live in a world/internet where #FirstWorldProblems is a thing. We're all kinda taught programmed that many of our petty problems are insignificant. Seinfeld may have even contributed to his mindset unintentionally, as the show often took complaining about small things to comedic extremes and made those types of complaints laughingstocks of sorts. That's right Jerry, I'm a Millennial tepidly criticizing you, come at me bro.

But anyway, it seems like we reached a point where the expectation that we all "not sweat the small stuff" actually had the opposite effect on a lot of people. People started to want to make smaller problems into big, social injustices and wrongs in order to make them seem less like the Seinfeld complaints that they were, and making them seem less like babies. So the effort to not seem like babies made us a bit like babies.

Maybe it's because I never went to a big state college, but I see this on the right wing much more than the right really. Petty complaints about the securalization of Christmas that had little to no impact on their life was turned into the "War on Christams" and even some kind of war against Christianity in general. In order to overreact to some of those liberals that do go out of their way to see offense in everything, they've started being offended at everything. It reminds me of South Park's Sarcastaball episode where after a certain point the sarcasm stops becoming sarcasm and starts becoming serious. What was once petty complaints meant to mock the "PC Police" has since become serious whining.

 

[Zen Bard]

I think the article is spot on.

And while it's pretty obvious that Brooks is addressing the current political arena in the United States, the victimhood culture is definitely pervasive.

But let's be clear; in his view, the "Culture of Victimhood" is one where people appropriate the identity of "victim" to justify negative behavior. That's the common thread between Trump shouting that all Muslims be "rounded up" because Islamic extremists attacked the U.S. and fanboys screaming for a reviewer's death because s/he criticized something they liked.

"YOU did THIS to ME so I am ENTITLED to do THAT to YOU."

As Brooks says, this type of approach "...generally seeks to restrict expression in order to protect the sensibilities of its advocates." It closes the door to any type of real dialogue or exchange of ideas.

I've joked that in this country, we've become the "Offended State of America", where someone's always looking for a reason to be offended. Why? Because it justifies their anger. I can't speak for my fellow Escapees abroad, but here in America, we're pretty pissed. And playing the "victim card" is as good a reason as any to level that rage a someone else.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

To be "victimized," you merely have to be wronged in some way or, if you're in a particularly frisky mood, feel that you've been wronged in some way. Nobody's arguing or diminishing the plight of victims of crimes, actual oppression, or something equally terrible.

The author of the article did just that. He doesn't know what made the participants in the first experiment feel wronged. As far as the third experiment goes, losing in a video game because of a glitch isn't the same thing as being discriminated against. The author also doesn't seem to realize that if someone acts a certain way when they lose in a video game, it only proves that they act a certain way when they lose in a video game. People really should stop making those embarrassingly unscientific extrapolations.

Bah, missed this.

I'm not getting how the author is, as I said, "diminishing the plight of victims of crimes, actual oppression, or something equally terrible." He doesn't say that they haven't been wronged in some way, nor does he attempt to discredit or downplay their feeling of being "treated unfairly." The focus is, instead, on the results of feeling victimized, for whatever reason.

He doesn't know what the participants said, exactly, because the article doesn't tell us any of that stuff. It does, however, explain what constitutes "unfairness." Basically, it's a wide range of potential things that, ultimately, just make the person feel bad, wronged, or slighted. The way they word it, however, seems like this was used for generalized complaints and grievances rather than something traumatic.

I'm sure you'd be reading a pretty different article if this experiment involved only victims of rape or families of murder victims- yet, at the same time, the study wasn't trying to argue the legitimacy or value/severity of people's victimization, only the result of having been victimized as it pertains to entitlement and selfishness.

And, yes, I agree with you that the study is...lacking. Too many assumptions.

As I said before though, the sample size alone makes me discount their findings out of hand.

 

[UmberHulk]

speaking of "the illusion of recency" I'm pretty sure victim-hood culture has been around since the old testament.

 

[Terminal Blue]

"So who cares if we are becoming a culture of victimhood? We all should. To begin with, victimhood makes it more and more difficult for us to resolve political and social conflicts."

This is, quite simply, one of the more ridiculous claims I've seen recently.

The meaningful resolution of conflicts requires the acknowledgement of grievances. If you live in a culture which frowns upon or discourages the sharing of grievances, then political and social conflicts are not being resolved, they are being suppressed from occurring in the first place.

The entire article could, ironically, be viewed as a product of the very "victimhood culture" it's claiming to describe. The author is essentially claiming that they, or the society they live in, is being "victimized" by those who they feel are claiming victimhood without deserving it, blissfully ignoring the fact that this is also an appeal to victimhood. Victimhood is a privileged rhetorical position, that is nothing new and nothing which will go away any time soon. Indeed, victimhood should be a privileged rhetorical position because it serves as a necessary counterpoint to prevailing distributions of power which would otherwise be denied to the victimized but potentially available to their oppressors. In other words, it's crucial to the maintenance of an ethic of equal power on which a liberal society (in the general sense of a society which values public liberty) is based.

It is perhaps understandable why those who feel unable to access the rhetorical power inherent to victimhood should themselves feel victimized, and in a way that's a productive impulse because it helps to give rise to a more critical perspective on victimhood itself, but to use this as a basis for denouncing the expression of victimhood altogether is, at a basic level, hypocritical.

The point about free speech is equally vacuous. The article itself is an attempt to regulate speech, it's an attempt to enforce an informal social rule that you shouldn't express victimhood in ways which are offensive. Again, what makes that less an expression of "victimhood culture" than any other attempt to control speech in the name of preserving a desirable social order?

Finally, the notion that people are purely individual and that victimization has to be viewed purely in individual terms is pure conservative wafflespeak. It implies that certain people (generally privileged, white conservatives who hold appropriate, "inoffensive" views) are capable of authoritatively understanding multiple perspectives on victimhood, while victims themselves are only capable of understanding one. Obviously, that's bullshit and the argument could just as easily be inverted, but even more cruicially it once again represents a black and white view of a morally fragile universe which is threatened by the "victimizing" powers of those who refuse to think, say or do whatever the holder of these views deems "proper".

In other words, it's exactly the same as the phenomenon its purporting to describe.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

speaking of "the illusion of recency" I'm pretty sure victim-hood culture has been around since the old testament.

Moses was clearly a professional victim. What with all the wining about wanting people let go.

 

[Pinkilicious]

Basically society doomsday predictions based around bitching about the younger generation. Welcome to the same thing that happens in every generation ever.

THE (older/younger) GENERATION IS (going the same way/going the opposite way/refusing to choose because lazy)
THERE CAN BE NO MISTAKE, WE'RE ALL (doomed/super doomed/spicily doomed/extra spicy with lettuce doomed)

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Nice to know someone else is also addicted to SMBC

Anyways, the implication here is not the culture of actual victimhood. No one is upset at true victims claiming it as part of their identity (or, if someone does want victims to just mind their place in silence then most of us here wouldn't be in favor of that nonsense).

The problems being presented are of non-victims assuming the mantel of victimhood either on behalf of other people who may not give a shit or due to incredibly trivial things and then try to appropriate the label of victim to bully the system into catering to them or their imaginary victim constituents in ways that serve no purpose or go way too far in proportion to the instigator.

Right but that assumes that the problem that causes that problem disappears when you write off even insincere attempts of positive change. For example, plenty of people saying they're for trans equality. They don't act it and tend to talk over trans people when discussing issues, and generally are easy to point out their insincerity. That doesn't weaken the real point of listening to trans people given that there is provable cases of severe iniquity inflicted upon trans people.

You can't say you maintain the moral high ground by pretending a problem isn't a problem because a few insincere 'proponents' exist and benefit from more people examining that problem. The true moral stance is merely ignoring insincere commentators and listening to people with genuine grievances, not pretending that ignoring both insincere advocacy and sincere displays to incite positive change is due.

I mean, let's say if we applied your logic to victims of natural disaster. Should those people putting in fraudulent claims at all decide any measure of whether you should help with reparations and assistance? Of course not. Severity and accessibility (and effectiveness) of aid should. Can you realistically help those people with real grievances whilst weeding out those that will be wasted upon?

When it gets right down to it, real people are asking for assistance and acceptance, they aren't making demands. That should be easy enough to spot. The same criticism you have can be levelled at anybody, any respondent to a social, political, environmental or economic issue. Not merely people saying there's a problem. I mean, you say 'bully' ... but someone telling someone not to call them a ****** in the workplace is hardly unfair nor is it bullying. What is bullying is saying those people have no right to fair treatment in the public arena, nor any means to guarantee their fair treatment as a public entity.

I mean, let's say you had a government. They imposed a carbon tax on big polluters. Do we instantly regard any industry complaints as 'victimhood'? What about a person complaining about a new tax on the top 5% of earners? Necessarily 'victimhood'? What about a former politician claiming that the electoral system is kind of broken? Automatically 'victimhood'?

Why is it that these issues are never usually considered part of 'the culture of victimhood'? That was why I linked the above video. The people that seem to complain the most about victimhood are the ones that seem to trash the fact that the world is getting progressively better for most people. That's why you get idiots writing the 'world is doomed' because of political correctness, or some other nonsense. It's egotistical, and displays a high degree of cognitive dissonance. I mean the flamboyant use of prose ... dare I say it's almost megalomaniacal.

Put it this way, if I said the same of any person questioning their government, and said that; "People who complain about our government is going to doom [insert nation here] ..." You'd call me delusional. But apparently a person complaining about civil liberties and a growing sensibility of divergent expression and civil acceptance as threatening the stability of a nation to operate... that's entirely appropriate is it?

Thing is, the "olden days" were shit. I mean there were a few economic bonuses. Cheap land, steady employment. But our treatment of people? Shit. Well, more shit.

It's the same story every generation....


....that.... is far more nuanced, less pointed, and far more representative of Robert Hughes and other people talking about new cultures emerging as old ideas are replaced with new ones.

 

[God'sFist]

So what if there are people with worse problems? Does that mean others can't complain? They are both being oppressed by the same ruling class, just on a very different magnitude.
What you're trying to do is dividing the working class making them fighting against each other.

I don't know why you posted that video, Dennis is absolutely right on all accounts, the worst he did was maybe being a slight annoyance to others.

So small problems should be held at the same rate as bigger problems. People who are not allowed to get educated because of their gender is the same as a large person being upset that poster doesn't have a "realistic" figure. Yeah they have the right to complain but we don't have to give a toss what they are complaining about when there are bigger problems to worry about.

Mostly from what I have seen of "Victim culture" it's people complaining about some trivial nonsense or people complaining about people complaining, or like on the escapist allot people complaining about people complaining about people complaining.

It's all horse shit anyway so why bother?

 

[Timeless Lavender]

I do not know why this author/writer/ whatever should be taken seriously. This guy is a great example why I am very skeptical towards the 'Victim hood' culture. It is very depressing when people rather chastise others for being disadvantage rather to help them and find a solution.

OT- No, I do not think 'Victim Hood' culture exist in reality. It is just a ball used in a politically charged football match between the 'those who have a right to call themselves victims' and 'those who should not dear call themselves victims'.

 

[Loonyyy]

All in all, it is exactly what one could expect from the American Enterprise Institute. He's literally employed to spin this stuff, it's his job.

Oh is it AEI again? Yeesh, they're everywhere these days.

So, what do you make of this? Are we too far down the victimhood path?

Nah, but we're making good progress down the "whining about victimhood" path.

Yep. We're back in the "think tank" spin zone.

I liked spin doctors better when they were a corny soft rock band that appeared on Sesame Street.

It's rather more annoying seeing these political think tanks being used as sources when their sole reason for existance is self justification, apologism, and spinning everything into their political narrative. It is what they do. AEI promotes conservative ideals, that's what they do. Sure, maybe some of those ideas aren't all wrong, but that's not their job. Their job is to start at the answer and work backwards, and so they often end up little more than reactionary. Like those abominable CHS videos.

-snip-

Thankyou for saying what I wanted to, just much better.

 

[Angelblaze]

Yeah, here's a prediction from the past that would've gone alot better.

'All actions have an equal and opposite reaction'.

At best, this 'Pc Police' culture that they're complaining about is the response to 'its the internet, get over it' subculture in which we essentially let people run wild and do what they wanted without fear of someone calling them out on their bull -- and I don't mean cutesy 'trolling'.

I mean people committing legitimate crimes such as hacking and doxxing. I mean people like 4chaners who go to places like tumblr and intentionally spam the site with gifs and gorey auto-play videos (such as rape videos and women being assaulted/killed in the feminist tag, which happened earlier this year) then run and hide behind 'freedumb of speech' or better yet, 'grow thicker skin' if anyone dares to question their utterly flawless moral standing.