Why People Feel Like Victims • Hacker News Board

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#311

Post by sagichmal » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:26 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: 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…

Macro vs micro.

Appropriate advice at the individual level is often very different than, and sometimes the complete opposite of, appropriate advice at the demographic scale. It's fine to tell your brother to quit the shit and pick himself up by his bootstraps or whatever; it's both inappropriate and ineffective to translate that notion into social policy.

Systemic racism is a macro concern. Talking about it, and what to do about it, is a conversation totally different than the conversation you have with your kids about their lived experience. Being aware of systemic racism doesn't make anyone a victim. It makes them cognizant, smarter, better actors in the system.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#312

Post by kstenerud » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:27 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #5

I'll be more brazen. I don't know about other countries, but if you live in the US and am an adult of sound mind and body, you're not a victim. If your life isn't working for you, reassess your situation, develop a plan, and get busy!

This is actually an artefact of America's protestant ethical roots: "Your circumstances are of your own sinful devising. Develop a strong work ethic and you'll live a good life; it's merely your choices and discipline that stand between you and a successful life."

It's an unfortunate moral code that creates unrealistic expectations, as well as handy judgments for those in the lower classes (and moral justification for those with too much wealth and power). The "meritocracy" is the modern form. I got to watch it in action during the few years I lived there.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#313

Post by indigochill » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:35 AM UTC

erulabs wrote: post #113

rayiner wrote: 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…

I grew up a middle-class white kid in a good family in California so was pretty much oblivious to victimhood until I went to college in Missouri where the notion of racial inequality was drilled into me to the point I actually learned to fear people of other races held a grudge against me.

Although I've been aware of this learned fear and done what I can to mitigate it, this means I might sometimes fear interracial interactions which means I might not give a black person an equal chance as a white, which then comes across as systemic racism, and so it's a vicious cycle.

On the topic of breaking the cycle, I had an eye-opening encounter with an Iranian Christian who said that he felt the US oppressed Iran (sanctions leading to economic and political instability) but as a Christian, he chose to forgive the US and pray that they'd see the harm they're causing. In this scenario, because he offered forgiveness, I feel more comfortable around him even despite agreeing that "my people" have been making life harder for "his", and not in vague systemic ways or hundreds of years ago, but right now in concrete ways.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#314

Post by 4gotunameagain » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:38 AM UTC

Klinky wrote: post #296

livinginfear wrote: post #243

I always considered the current culture of cultivated-victimhood to be rooted in the manner Western people fundamentally define themselves by their triumphs against adversity. In the absence of real adversity, people seek and create surrogate adversity for themselves to triumph over. From this process they can rationalise themselves as having the inner-strength to overcome such barriers.

How about the west being founded on slavery, and genocides while sustaining racism and misogyny for hundreds of years. I hear a lot of "head in the sand" thinking. If we don't talk about it, it doesn't exist and never happened.

That's the history of humanity, not only of the west.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#315

Post by swagasaurus-rex » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:43 AM UTC

Klinky wrote: post #296

livinginfear wrote: post #243

I always considered the current culture of cultivated-victimhood to be rooted in the manner Western people fundamentally define themselves by their triumphs against adversity. In the absence of real adversity, people seek and create surrogate adversity for themselves to triumph over. From this process they can rationalise themselves as having the inner-strength to overcome such barriers.

How about the west being founded on slavery, and genocides while sustaining racism and misogyny for hundreds of years. I hear a lot of "head in the sand" thinking. If we don't talk about it, it doesn't exist and never happened.

Believe it or not, slavery is alive and thriving in today's world.

You'll see most of it in developing nations where enforcement is non-existent. Rich nations still occasionally have trafficking busts, but nowhere compared to the scale and industry of some more equatorial countries. It's estimated that there are 38-46 million slaves worldwide.

In absolute numbers there are more enslaved people now than there ever has been in the past.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#316

Post by watwut » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:44 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: 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…

It has zero to do with kids being told that this or that is unfair, that racism or sexism exists. The article blames lack of emotional support from parents. That sentence is literally tl;dr for the following:

> So when a child is very young, and care is uncertain, perhaps the caregiver, or the male figures in the child’s life, don’t act consistently, sometimes they may act very aggressively without warning, or they don’t notice that the child needs care. That’s when the anxious attachment style or ambivalent attachment style is created.

and followed by the following:

> Yes, normally children internalize the empathetic and soothing reactions of their parents, they learn not to need others from outside to soothe themselves. But people with high TIV cannot soothe themselves.

It is quite odd to take that quote out of context and make it argument about something completely different, as if surrounding context in article supported the other claim.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#317

Post by Klinky » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:46 AM UTC

4gotunameagain wrote: post #314

Klinky wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the west being founded on slavery, and genocides while sustaining racism and misogyny for hundreds of years. I hear a lot of "head in the sand" thinking. If we don't talk about it, it doesn't exist and never happened.

That's the history of humanity , not only of the west.

Not exactly, if you want to narrow it down to North American history, compared to some other countries, NA was rather slow at coming to terms with these issues, and compromises were made over the decades which propped and continued institutionalized racism, bigotry, and misogyny, which have had lasting effects to this day.

Also saying it's a universal humanitarian problem doesn't make it "not a problem" or victimless.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#318

Post by Tade0 » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:48 AM UTC

gherkinnn wrote: post #300

giantandroids wrote: post #253

US tech appears rife in this right now. I follow lots of engineers on twitter and some folks seem to spend more time enrolled in their own victimhood or the victimhood of others who cause they love to rally to (because they get to point victims and their own invented perpetrators). I often want to point this out, but I would risk losing my job.

I remember seeing one of these very outspoken tech people at a conference. He tweeted a photo of a Mexican woman holding a presentation and saying what a great topic it was. Then he preceded to sit in a corner, ignore the talk, and work on his laptop. Or people who pull in >300k, go on about communism, but buy fast cars. Full of shit, the lot.

Back in the 70s my father hosted a few Americans in Poland and at a point the conversation shifted to the possibility of communism establishing itself in the US. It went somewhat like this:

"Aren't you guys afraid that communism will eventually get a foothold in the US?"

"Nah, if it ever does we'll just start selling hammer and sickle t-shirts."

I guess that's what eventually happened.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#319

Post by Klinky » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:51 AM UTC

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #315

Klinky wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the west being founded on slavery, and genocides while sustaining racism and misogyny for hundreds of years. I hear a lot of "head in the sand" thinking. If we don't talk about it, it doesn't exist and never happened.

Believe it or not, slavery is alive and thriving in today's world. You'll see most of it in developing nations where enforcement is non-existent. Rich nations still occasionally have trafficking busts, but nowhere compared to the scale and industry of some more equatorial countries. It's estimated that there are 38-46 million slaves worldwide. In absolute numbers there are more enslaved people now than there ever has…

Is this supposed to excuse the consequences of the past? What is your point exactly?

Even much of global human trafficking leads back to forced labor, exploited by major western corporations through obfuscated supply chains.

Re: Why People Feel Like Victims

#320

Post by refurb » Fri, May 07, 2021, 7:52 AM UTC

vitus wrote: post #215

rayiner wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Because “systemic racism” is a term used mostly by college educated white people for other college educated white people. Not only that, it deliberately repurposes a label that ordinarily refers to prejudi…

There are more factors to systemic racism than just worse economic outcomes, so it's naive to assert that only black people experience its negative effects. Immigration comes to mind, where profiling is rampant in enforcement (but only really for people who look Mexican, not for people who look / sound Canadian). Or even immigration quotas -- there's the same annual green card cap per country, whether it's India or C…

Whoa. Now you’re using “systemic racism” to cover a lot of stuff that isn’t racist at all.

Immigration quotas that you speak of were created to increase diversity of immigrants. If we didn’t have them, then Chinese and Indian immigrants would get most of the visas pushing out other countries. It’s actually the opposite of systemic racism since it’s increasing racial diversity of immigrants.