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Why People Feel Like Victims

nautil.us

111–120 of 510 posts

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#111
post #73
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was about 14 I was diagnosed with autism; specifically, PDD-NOS ("Pervasive Development Disorder Not Otherwise Specified"; nice catch-all). This diagnosis wasn't accurate, and was mostly based on my lack of social ability (I never really had most of the other signs of autism). Today I'm plenty sociable, and I'm basically just a normal guy. I can't blame them for making this misdiagnosis though. I grew up in a…

You make a good point about how your attitude affects your behavior. I see it with immigrants who didn't grow up in the south like I did. I've repeatedly heard "oh, I wouldn't want to go visit southern Virginia because of all the racists." I kid you not, I was just in southern Virginia with my white wife, our mixed kids, and a Chinese friend and her Jewish husband. It was great! Everyone was great. It's a lovely part…

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Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#112
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who were the people that put forward the “say happy holidays not merry Christmas” issue? Or was the issue invented (and lost) by conservative talking heads?

I like how at no point it's occurred to you that maybe people are just being polite or considerate towards the beliefs of others...or that a business might not want to stipulate a specific theological belief it's employees must put forward. That just can't be it for some reason, it's got to be a conspiracy against christianity! Talk about victimhood...

Depending on where you live in the US, this actually did happen. I'm one of the people who bought into that crap.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#113
post #30

> So victimhood is a learned behavior after a certain age. As a brown guy with kids in the school system, that's why recent trends in education alarm me. I don't want my kids to be taught that there's this amorphous but pervasive "systemic racism" and "white supremacy" out to get people who look like them, but which they can't do anything about. It's dangerous experimentation with kids' psychology. Growing up as one…

I value what you've written, and I agree although my experience was (possibly?) the inverse.

I was a poor white kid in a wealthy white area. While I lived in that area, I only got to briefly attend a private school because of my mothers boyfriend. Everyone knew I was the "poor kid", and my mother, who did her best, was _obsessed_ with the fact that everyone knew we were "imposters" - not wealthy, not married, from a broken home, "gold-digger", etc etc etc. The list of victim-tokens is miles long. It was an illusion - I don't think more than a small handful of adults and certainly no kids ever held my status against me.

When I lived on my own as a teenager, I had no shortage of people explaining why I was a victim due to my life experiences. Obviously, this isn't even close to the the same level of experience as racism, but I completely agree with "they never let on, and frankly I think I'm better off not having dwelt on what was in their deepest thoughts".

Fearing what was in the "deepest thoughts" of others crippled many people in my life. If anything, in my experience, that fear of judgement "in a deep thought" is a _much_ larger hindrance than any actual action that was taken against us. I see echos of this in the politics of people I've met all around the country. And the great irony is that kids who grew up in wealth and surrounded by healthy parents seem oblivious or to not care whatsoever about such judgements from others. Are they ignorant or inoculated?

I'm _extremely_ cautious of even inhabiting the thought that the victim mentality hurts more than the victimization, as obviously that can turn callous incredibly quickly... But it's not a _useless_ thought either.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#114
I think there's a huge divide between people who recognize that TIV exists, and those who only see victim signalling as purely authentic, hence it's manipulative capabilities.

There's an Inuit signer [1] who is adamant that other aboriginals cannot do the 'throat singing'. The thing is - nobody cares that much about the art form, however, the CBC (Canada) and other entities will do some national coverage when they want to do 'Aboriginal Focus' because it's authentic and unique. This made an Inuit throat singer a little bit of a sub-star within the community. Along comes another Aboriginal doing it to steal some of the shine and the original lady went full into cultural appropriation diva mode.

I've never heard of an art form in my life, which almost nobody practices where the practitioners want to stop everyone else from participating because of very narrow and specific blood lineage.

"Throat singing is not a “pan-Indigenous free for all,” says Tanya Tagaq"

This is 'power in victimhood' and using identity to garner social capital and leverage.

The challenge is, there is often some degree of kernel of truth in the matter - i.e. it's not a completely irrational argument to contemplate if people who are not from a certain culture do something very culturally specific, and this is how arguments I think can get populist. Similar to the situation wherein there is some kind of confrontation between a Black and White person, wherein 'racism' may have nothing at all to do with the situation, but since there is the possibility, it's held as though there is de facto racism on the news.

Finally, this is not to suggest there are not real victims. Those who can't see TIV exists will see all cynical reaction to claims of victimhood as straight up fascism or some kind of deep insensitivity when it may or may not be the case.

[1] https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/should-non-inuit-perfo...

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mere act of caring about your children's schooling, and taking measures to ensure its quality is a far more solid predictor of good outcomes than nearly anything else. At least, that's what economic data from the last fifty years says. These "narratives" are just that, fictional stories told to support a prevailing social ideology, and yes, they are dangerous, not the least because they ignore the facts.

We can debate all day long about the merits of explaining systemic racism to young black kids vs keeping them ignorant about it. However the people ignoring the facts are the ones who deny systemic racism exists. It may be better for children of color to be ignorant about it, but certainly not adults of any racial background.

I'd argue there's a lot more nuances to system racism than the general narrative that is currently being perpettuated. Looking into those nuances would be frowned upon because certain groups differ from other groups for reasons that are not truly understood but would cause us to ask questions we're not comfortable with.

Though anecdotal, I know several adults who have fallen into the "it's because systemic racism that I can't get ahead" trap. One example is a low-achiever socially awkward friend of mine that complains about not being able to find a tech job, yet spends the vast majority of his days playing video games. Instead of recongizing that his skills (social and coding) are subpar and addressing it, he chalks it up to systemic racism, makes an angry post on Facebook and calls it a day.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#116
post #9
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, and from my anecdotal experience, this seems to be true across political and ideological divides.

True, but it's been weaponized extremely well by one side in recent years (2012~14 and onwards). Reminds me a lot of how it was weaponized by the other side in the late 80s and 90s.

I honestly have no idea which “side” you mean. Seems to me that both mainstream political sides are mainly about victimhood now. The whole point of Trumpism is “actually I’m the victim”

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define wealthy Walter? I’m 25 and “unremarkable” and my net worth is only a quarter million. I make about $200k at a company you’d probably consider unimpressive. Not everyone can be remarkable enough to go to CalTech.

I'm confused by your argument, because I'd consider making $200K/yr to be firmly on the side of wealthy. Also, I think he was talking about the circumstances being unremarkable, not the people themselves. (Minor note, since you brought it up: it's spelled "Caltech".)

Id wager if you asked most of your graduating classmates if $200k@25 is impressive, most or all would say no. That’s a new grad’s total compensation and I’m several years in already.

Appreciate the correction on spelling. I’m more a Midwest guy myself.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#119
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people's conditions are contingent on forces largely out of their control. That's a factual statement. It is a factual statement, I agree, but in the US it is not true. Peoples' lives are the sum of their choices, large and small. One can choose to learn how to make better choices. I spent a significant portion of every day learning to make better choices and doing things that will improve my life. Such as exercisi…

> in the US it is not true That is patently false. You can divide Americans into any number of segments which they are born into and reliably determine that segment's success. E.g. white people earn more than black people. Children of rich parents do better in school than children of poor parents. Lawyers who graduated in 2000 are more successful than ones who graduated in 2008. Forces out of their control determined…

Yes, like your lawyer example there's plenty of evidence where outcomes for people doing basically the same work varies a lot across times and places.

Maximally small government / libertarian people would like to pretend that everything is about individual character because this would justify their preferred public policies, but thinking about it even a little bit it should be obvious that internal and external factors both matter.

I remember in a previous discussion here Walter was objecting even to the use of standard economic terminology around things like what wealth-creation means (dating back to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in 1776), so I'd take his views here with a grain of salt.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mere act of caring about your children's schooling, and taking measures to ensure its quality is a far more solid predictor of good outcomes than nearly anything else. At least, that's what economic data from the last fifty years says. These "narratives" are just that, fictional stories told to support a prevailing social ideology, and yes, they are dangerous, not the least because they ignore the facts.

We can debate all day long about the merits of explaining systemic racism to young black kids vs keeping them ignorant about it. However the people ignoring the facts are the ones who deny systemic racism exists. It may be better for children of color to be ignorant about it, but certainly not adults of any racial background.

Instead of just saying systemic racism exists, why not point out examples? Then people can judge for themselves what effect it may have on them instead of feeling like there's this oppressive "other" which is the cause of anything they don't like about their life and there's no point struggling against it because it'll just crush them anyway.
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