Victims have never been in short supply in the world, but the rush to identify oneself as a victim is rather a new feature of modern life. Why this should be so isn't very complicated: to position oneself as a victim is to position oneself for sympathy, special treatment, even victory
--Joseph Epstein, The New York Times, July 2, 1989
Recently watched a stream on Twitter in which a young woman posted about having been humiliated and victimized in connection with her time at a place called "Vice" and her picture was published along with a totally fabricated tale about her sex life.
After much consolation and tweets about how horrible this must have been for her, somebody said, actually, humiliation is something you feel when you have failed in some way; this had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the perverse fantasies of whoever made up this story about you. An avalanche of "You don't ever have the right to tell someone how to feel!" tweets ensued.
The original troll/bot/misanthrope weakly protested that we tell each other how to feel all the time, either directly, as when Bernie Sanders tells you to get angry about being exploited by the billionaire class, or subtly, as when someone tells you she was the illegitimate offspring of a drug addicted mother who sold her to pick fruit in the fields of California where she was raped. That whole story is put out there to evoke sympathy, and to wrap a life in drama.
Of course, even as he victimizes Hispanic immigrants, Muslims citizens, the Dotard in Chief constantly evokes victimhood: He his own self is the victim of "fake news."The California woman who was raped or maybe murdered (the story shifts) by a Mexican immigrant, factory workers who lost their jobs and towns because of a that Democratic plot called NAFTA, victims of the World Trade Center attack, every person killed in a terrorist attack, even if the shooter is a white guy using a bump stocked rifle approved by the NRA. Whites who have lost "their" country to demographics. Christians who have suffered egregiously from the War on Christmas.
Trump is the defender of these White, Christian, English only, under educated long suffering American victims.
Way back in 1989, Joseph Epstein observed how claiming the mantel of victimhood was becoming a new rite of passage: He described the electrifying speech by Anne Richards at the Democratic national convention in which she demolished George Bush with restraint and sophisticated lancinating lines like: "Poor George, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth." What struck Epstein was immediately after she left the podium, the newscaster remarked that she had been born poor and been an alcoholic and now look at her. A victim triumphant! The worm had turned!
Epstein noted that victim hood had been used throughout the Civil Rights movement and even Gandhi had made effective use of the tool.
He noted that Israel was a country of 2 million set in a sea of 200 million Arabs, and yet it was the Arabs who tried to portray themselves as the victims. They played that card because they had seen how effective the victim card could be: Without it, Israel would never have become a nation, never been recognized by the United Nations. After the Holocaust, no group in the world could claim to have been more thoroughly victimized than the Jews. There was no arguing their status as world's most aggrieved victims.
And yet the Israelis, especially those Holocaust survivors who arrived in Israel wanted no part of playing the role of victims. They wanted to fight, to be seen as people you can no longer victimize. They wanted to be tough, impossible to be led to the slaughter, weeping and wailing. They would rather die than be victims.
We do not need your sympathy, do not want it, Israelis said. We do not need to be saved. We are going to play the game with the cards we were dealt and just you try and stop us.
Of course, now 70 years later, one might look at Israelis building settlements, pushing around Palestinians and you might wish they had more sympathy for the people who get in their way.
But at least they do not play the victim card. That much is refreshing.
--Joseph Epstein, The New York Times, July 2, 1989
Recently watched a stream on Twitter in which a young woman posted about having been humiliated and victimized in connection with her time at a place called "Vice" and her picture was published along with a totally fabricated tale about her sex life.
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| Not a Victim |
After much consolation and tweets about how horrible this must have been for her, somebody said, actually, humiliation is something you feel when you have failed in some way; this had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the perverse fantasies of whoever made up this story about you. An avalanche of "You don't ever have the right to tell someone how to feel!" tweets ensued.
The original troll/bot/misanthrope weakly protested that we tell each other how to feel all the time, either directly, as when Bernie Sanders tells you to get angry about being exploited by the billionaire class, or subtly, as when someone tells you she was the illegitimate offspring of a drug addicted mother who sold her to pick fruit in the fields of California where she was raped. That whole story is put out there to evoke sympathy, and to wrap a life in drama.
Of course, even as he victimizes Hispanic immigrants, Muslims citizens, the Dotard in Chief constantly evokes victimhood: He his own self is the victim of "fake news."The California woman who was raped or maybe murdered (the story shifts) by a Mexican immigrant, factory workers who lost their jobs and towns because of a that Democratic plot called NAFTA, victims of the World Trade Center attack, every person killed in a terrorist attack, even if the shooter is a white guy using a bump stocked rifle approved by the NRA. Whites who have lost "their" country to demographics. Christians who have suffered egregiously from the War on Christmas.
Trump is the defender of these White, Christian, English only, under educated long suffering American victims.
Way back in 1989, Joseph Epstein observed how claiming the mantel of victimhood was becoming a new rite of passage: He described the electrifying speech by Anne Richards at the Democratic national convention in which she demolished George Bush with restraint and sophisticated lancinating lines like: "Poor George, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth." What struck Epstein was immediately after she left the podium, the newscaster remarked that she had been born poor and been an alcoholic and now look at her. A victim triumphant! The worm had turned!
Epstein noted that victim hood had been used throughout the Civil Rights movement and even Gandhi had made effective use of the tool.
He noted that Israel was a country of 2 million set in a sea of 200 million Arabs, and yet it was the Arabs who tried to portray themselves as the victims. They played that card because they had seen how effective the victim card could be: Without it, Israel would never have become a nation, never been recognized by the United Nations. After the Holocaust, no group in the world could claim to have been more thoroughly victimized than the Jews. There was no arguing their status as world's most aggrieved victims.
 |
| Definitely not a Victim |
And yet the Israelis, especially those Holocaust survivors who arrived in Israel wanted no part of playing the role of victims. They wanted to fight, to be seen as people you can no longer victimize. They wanted to be tough, impossible to be led to the slaughter, weeping and wailing. They would rather die than be victims.
We do not need your sympathy, do not want it, Israelis said. We do not need to be saved. We are going to play the game with the cards we were dealt and just you try and stop us.
Of course, now 70 years later, one might look at Israelis building settlements, pushing around Palestinians and you might wish they had more sympathy for the people who get in their way.
But at least they do not play the victim card. That much is refreshing.
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