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The Joys of Victimhood (1989)

nytimes.com

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Re: The Joys of Victimhood (1989)

#61

Post by nl »

fenomas wrote: post #50
alexandercrohde wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that explains why Chinese immigrants would be portrayed as victims less than hispanic immigrants, as just one example off the top of my head.

> I'm not sure that explains why Chinese immigrants would be portrayed as victims less than hispanic immigrants The question makes no sense - why expect all minority groups to be portrayed equally as victims in the first place? Just because many victims are minorities doesn't mean that the latter implies the former. You might as well ask why Swedish immigrants aren't seen as victims - the obvious answer is, because b…

Just because many victims are minorities doesn't mean that the latter implies the former.

Exactly. It's clearly not correct at all.

It's almost like he knew that bit was a weak part of his argument, so surrounded it with examples which would put people into ideological mode instead of thinking for a moment about it.

Re: The Joys of Victimhood (1989)

#62

Post by golergka »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #37
shawndumas wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Arabs like to say that there are two conflicting narratives of the conflict. The facts are far simpler. It starts in the end of the 19th century. At the time millions of Jews were fleeing Russia and flooding Europe with refugees because of Czar Alexander III "Russia for Russians" program which sanctioned pogroms in order to evict the Jews from the country. This was only the latest in a long history of expulsions of…

> Arabs like to say that there are two conflicting narratives of the conflict. The facts are far simpler. I'm aware that the conflict is old and complicated and there are good and bad people on both sides, but by your own account, the basis of it is that Brits decided that a group of people scattered across the world all had a natural right to live in roughly the same place their ancestors came from 2000 years previo…

> the same place their ancestors came from 2000 years previous

There was always a significant Jewish community in place which continued to have close ties with other communities around the world.

> regardless of the feelings of the people who were already living there

Most of the muslim arab population them migrated there during the 19th century. Also, quite a lot were forcibly converted mizrahim.

Re: The Joys of Victimhood (1989)

#63

Post by matt4077 »

moneytide1 wrote: post #8

Here in the South, there is this air of hospitality. But there is an irony because everyone always rejects each others volunteer assistance out of pride for their ability to take care of themselves. I see charity directed towards me almost as an insult, or subtle attempted ownership, and there is this competitive air about needing less than others. But I suppose in more densely populated areas, there is more victimho…

"The South" is neither morally superior, nor more independent/self-reliant, etc..

Guess which states get more than twice the taxes they pay to the federal government back? Alabama, Mississippi, New Mexico, and other rural southern states are taken the handouts from California and New York: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vby1dJlsXmM/VtkJnusdGXI/AAAAAAAAJ...

Guess which teenagers are incapable of not getting pregnant at 14? The southern, rural christians. Guess which states' citizen are dropping from Opiod addiction like flies? Again, the south (plus similarly rural Appalachia). Guess where food stamps are most used, where people are unable to control their eating and are morbidly obese, which people smoke more, where drunk driving is socially accepted, etc etc: the US South, and some rural northern states, are worse than the large cities in almost any measure you can think of.

Re: The Joys of Victimhood (1989)

#64

Post by matt4077 »

This is a hateful diatribe that only serves to show that today's mocking of calls for justice as "joyful victimhood" is not as new and creative as many seem to believe.

the "victim"-narrative is lazy yet insidious: because anyone mentioning a perceived wrong can be painted with the same non-argument, mocked, and ignored.

How are people like this author, bemoaning the loss of white male supremacy, never accused of playing the victim card? They are, after all, claim to somehow be personally harmed from the mere exposure to other people just mentioning poverty, discrimination, violence, etc.

Re: The Joys of Victimhood (1989)

#65

Post by GarvielLoken »

dfsegoat wrote: post #6

The number of parallels between now and 1989 are striking: victimhood == top social currency, etc... It really is almost like we have these 20-30 year social cycles... Perhaps this is known to the sociological literature - but that's not my area. Just the same I find it fascinating.

Doesn't cycle imply that it went down in between?

Re: The Joys of Victimhood (1989)

#66

Post by oceanghost »

nl wrote: post #21
alexandercrohde wrote: post #13

> Such a situation could never have come about without certain fundamental confusions having been firmly established, and these begin with language itself. Victims have traditionally been minority groups, but in fact women, who in the United States are a slight majority, have been deemed victims, whereas the Jews and the Chinese in America, though clearly minorities (and vastly less numerous than blacks or Hispanic p…

Minority status does not define victims, and instead it is about power. There were a lot less British in India during the Raj than there were Indians. It is pretty clear who the victim was then.

The focus on "power" in late stage cultural marxisms is nonsense.

I am white. I can gurantee you white people are not acting in concert to achieve anything. The people are the top are fking everyone below them, regardless of race or creed.

Re: The Joys of Victimhood (1989)

#67

Post by [deleted] »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #13

> Such a situation could never have come about without certain fundamental confusions having been firmly established, and these begin with language itself. Victims have traditionally been minority groups, but in fact women, who in the United States are a slight majority, have been deemed victims, whereas the Jews and the Chinese in America, though clearly minorities (and vastly less numerous than blacks or Hispanic p…

[deleted]

Re: The Joys of Victimhood (1989)

#68

Post by TimJYoung »

mherdeg wrote: post #10

Epstein's powerful prose captures well the New York intellectual views of a certain culture and a certain generation. It's a fascinating perspective on what people were thinking then. I was equally fascinated by the deep view of the popular psyche shown in his September 1970 essay for Harper's Magazine, featured on its cover ( https://harpers.org/archive/1970/09/homohetero/ ): > Yet if heterosexual life has come to s…

Nice catch, very enlightening read.

He seems to want to simply ignore the historical context in which homosexuals were "conflicted about" or "tortured by" their homosexuality. If society makes one's sexuality the defining aspect of one's personality by railing against it and excluding/tormenting/harming people based upon it, then of course it's going to result in psychological pain for those that are the subject of such treatment. He's completely mixing up cause and effect...

Re: The Joys of Victimhood (1989)

#69

Post by CydeWeys »

WalterBright wrote: post #40
CydeWeys wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget all of that even, there's plenty of places where the opinion piece collapses under simple faulty logic. Here's one example: > Such a situation could never have come about without certain fundamental confusions having been firmly established, and these begin with language itself. Victims have traditionally been minority groups, but in fact women, who in the United States are a slight majority, have been deemed…

> including in the United States "In the Confederacy, the population was listed as 5.5 million free and 3.5 million enslaved." https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm

Mississippi and South Carolina had a population that was majority slaves, and several other states were close: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana. Everywhere outside of the cities in these states the population was majority enslaved. Source: http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html

As for the Caribbean, the % of the population that was enslaved was as high as 80% in some places.

Re: The Joys of Victimhood (1989)

#70

Post by CydeWeys »

lsc wrote: post #43
WalterBright wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> including in the United States "In the Confederacy, the population was listed as 5.5 million free and 3.5 million enslaved." https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html It varied dramatically by state; according to that census, Mississippi and South Carolina were both majority slave. Certainly, the CSA was majority free, but I think that 'places'... 'including in the united states' is most correctly construed to mean that there were identifiable regions of the US that had more slaves than free people; I think states fit into the previo…

You are correct in interpreting the use of the word "places" in my comment to refer to areas/regions that were smaller than "the entire Confederacy". It's also worth pointing out that most slaves didn't venture rather than some small number of miles from where they were born, so what was happening 1,000 miles away two states over wasn't relevant to their life in the slightest. What was happening in their county was relevant. And outside of the cities in the South, where the plantations were, most counties were majority enslaved.
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