Victim Chic
Victimhood has become quite stylish these days. Jamie Bartlett writes at Little Atoms:
In a 1999 article for the New York Review of Books, Ian Buruma argued that there is strange contentment that comes with feeling like you're oppressed (rather than actually being oppressed which really is not nice). Victims, he said, "cannot escape a momentary feeling of vicarious virtue." He claims to have felt it himself - much to his own shame - as a Jew visiting Auschwitz, each time a German walked past. Buruma even thought he detected a shade of envy in privileged groups that they too can't be victims of similarly sufficient magnitude. This, he stressed, was not to deny, belittle or take pleasure in the historical suffering of many groups, much less the present suffering. What he spotted was a bigger trend at play, where 'communal identity is based on sentimental solidarity of remembered victimhood'. People were increasingly desirous to wear the scars of others, almost as a badge of honour.Buruma thought people liked to feel like society's victims, even where they were personally doing rather well, because modern life hollows out our identities. Hyper-capitalism is reducing meaningful beliefs and identity to fast food restaurants, sterile movies and empty gestures. But people want and perhaps need the authentic, the real, and the genuine in life. And so in an external world in which everything seems so empty, we turn inward in a search for authenticity. The only thing that can deliver authenticity is our feelings. And what more powerful feeling than victimhood and struggle?
Nothing more than feelings
It's quite true that feelings have become something of a modern obsession (Will Davies in his excellent new book about happiness calls feelings 'the new religion'). They are being elevated to the highest measure of what it means to be human: what matters is how we feel about something. And a growing number of writers - most recently Mick Hume in his new book 'Trigger Warning' - think that people's feelings are fast becoming the only test of whether something should be allowed. Prioritising feelings invariably means that if those precious feelings are hurt, upset, or offended, then these things should be banned or stopped.
The science of sex differences suggests that this victimism is feminism-driven. Researcher Joyce Benenson writes in her book Warriors and Worriers
With the identity of victimhood comes more practical applications. Specifically money, special perks, favors, and control over others.
Look at any oppressed minority. There is a trend to milk victimhood for all it's worth. "I'm a victim. Give me scholarships! Give me food stamps! Give me welfare! Give me SSDI! You can't say that; that's our word for only us to use. You can't."
And there is a certain smugness that the oppressed. Our suffering is unique, and no one can understand it but us. Whoopi Goldberg, for instance believes that you have to be black to understand racism, as she pompously declares to Rosie O'Donnell. (I don't watch The View, but I've seen some clips of it, and their fracases make it to the news, but I think this is the only time I've actually agreed with Rosie.)
Paradoxically, oppression often confers a feeling of superiority in its victims.
Patrick at August 29, 2015 12:15 AM
Feminism's influence in the law is going to be something to watch. It used to be that laws were written by men to conform to the way they thought a man ought to be treated: No compelled speech. No compelled religion. No search without a warrant. You broke it, you bought it. The concept of private property. And so forth. They even used to have a "reasonable man" standard for the judiciary to use.
As a guy, I liked it that way. I have no idea what a "reasonable woman" standard will look like.
Canvasback at August 29, 2015 1:05 AM
This is not a sex based phenomenon. As Patrick points out feminist victimhood is no different than race based victimhood. Just look at the grievance degrees in college. The key is to feel oppressed without actually being oppressed. That way you can justify and rationalize any action no matter how immoral or disgusting. You are just making things more fair. And since you are eternally and infinitely oppressed things can never be fair, so you are always free to do more immoral acts.
As for the supremacy of feelings philosophy, I blame the Germans more than the women. After WW2 we imported a lot of German professors to teach all those new students the GI bill created. A lot of those professors were nihilists. So they taught that there was not objective truth, no objective beauty, that all things can and should be torn down and destroyed. From that springs relative truth and relative morality. With no universal truth you instead end up with white truth, black truth, woman truth, man truth, everyone has to come up with their own moral code. And from that springs the supremacy of feelings. You can't take the moral codes of your ancestors, after all they are not you. So in building a personal and unique moral code it should be no surprise that people build simplistic systems based on how they feel.
Ben at August 29, 2015 4:39 AM
I do think academic feminism has a great deal to do with driving victimism's hold.
Amy Alkon at August 29, 2015 5:47 AM
Academic feminism is a symptom, not a cause. Or how many of those idiotic campus-speak tomes do you really think women outside the academy actually read? Aside from Catharine MacKinnon, how many of them get an actual hearing outside the academy? Their influence is more on the production of Womens' Studies majors, who then go on to "would you like fries with that" levels of poverty in the private economy, or hectoring college men as Title IX administrators. Harridans like Amanda Marcotte, Jessica Valenti, and Laurie Penny have to come from somewhere or other; summoning that hellmouth is the job of the academic feminist.
Rob McMillin at August 29, 2015 6:57 AM
It was already stylish when I was a kid. I'd say it's less stylish, and more a timeless classic.
NicoleK at August 29, 2015 8:06 AM
Men are pack animals, women are not.
To say otherwise requires pitching evolution in the dumpster.
Jeff Guinn at August 29, 2015 11:20 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/08/victim-chic.html#comment-6170280">comment from Jeff Guinn"To say otherwise requires pitching evolution in the dumpster."
Feminism does this.
Amy Alkon
at August 29, 2015 12:06 PM
I agree that academic feminism is a driving force of the grievance industry. But I think academic racism predated it and is just as much of a driving force.
Both are driven by destructive altruism. People let blacks get away with blatant racism due to blacks being perceived as poor and crippled by slavery. Similarly men have an inherent desire to protect women, so women get away with blatant sexism.
The key to both is a larger enabling culture. When black were truly oppressed you never heard of black rage. The entire black grievance industry didn't exist. But once there was something to gain black rage and the victim mindset became standard. The same it true for feminist victimhood. And that is why feminists are so interested in US university women who are the least oppressed in the world instead of 3rd world women who's lives are a constant struggle.
In many ways Obama has helped race relations in the US by being so blatantly racist and showing that nothing whites can do will bring parity. Once whites learn to give up white guilt black will give up black victimhood because there is just no value to it.
Ben at August 29, 2015 2:24 PM
Ditto what NicoleK said; it is now a timeless classic.
Just like that little black dress and pearl necklace. The dress might be hanging in the back of the closet and the pearls tucked away in a jewelry box; but, always ready to be brought out when the occasion calls for them.
charles at August 29, 2015 4:35 PM
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