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Unraveling the Mindset of Victimhood

156 points by Udik 6y ago

sicnus 6y ago
The 5 questions seem to ignore peoples backgrounds and circumstances. If you typically aren't facing injustice often then you aren't going to think you are a victim. It is a privileged position to assume everyone should "score" the same if they aren't marginalized.
- Godel_unicode 6y ago
  """It’s important to point out that the researchers do not equate experiencing trauma and victimization with possessing the victimhood mindset. They point out that a victimhood mindset can develop without experiencing severe trauma or victimization. Vice versa, experiencing severe trauma or victimization doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is going to develop a victimhood mindset. """
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  "If you typically aren't facing injustice often then you aren't going to think you are a victim." That's not necessarily true. Many people are really good at deceiving themselves and making themselves out to be the victim when they're not. Hypocrisy also plays a role. Not naming any names here, but there's a certain well-known person in a tremendous position of power, who is constantly victimizing others, yet endlessly whining about being a victim. The so-called Dolchstoßlegende (ie. "stab-in-the-back myth") was a critically important piece of propaganda in Nazi Germany, where the Nazis made up scapegoats to blame for Germany's loss of WW1.[1] They also, of course, famously scapegoated Jews, and made themselves and Germany to be the victims of Jews, all the while actually victimizing and exterminating Jews in Germany and the rest of Europe. Nazis were in all these cases the aggressors, not the victims, yet it was important for them to see themselves as the victims and for others to see them as such, so they could feel more justified in using violence against their enemies, and so they could acquire more power to "protect" themselves. Much of this is paralleled in contemporary politics, and the powerful continue to create myths that they are the victims of the powerless, while in fact themselves committing violence against the latter. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth
  - seigando 6y ago
    I think you raise some interesting points. FTA: "However, the researchers found that an anxious attachment style was a particularly strong antecedent of the tendency for interpersonal victimhood." So what precedes an 'anxious attachment style'? "When a child feels safe, seen, and soothed by their parent in a consistent way, they are able to form a secure attachment to that parent. However, when a parent is available and attuned at times and insensitive or intrusive at others, the child is more likely to experience an anxious ambivalent attachment pattern"[1] I think it's a reasonable assessment that the-unnamed did experience a form of trauma growing up...and now we as a society are dealing with the consequences of putting someone like that into power. I wonder if maybe those who elect these kinds of people relate to them on that fundamental level. Food for thought. [1]https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compassion-matters/201904/how-anxious-attachment-style-affects-relationships https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compassion-matters/2...
  - watwut 6y ago
    Nazi also complained that Jews are making themselves victims while they supposedly are not. And they also liked to frame themselves as strong manly man whose will and power will win over all obstacles. The primary identification was not victim, it was strongman. We can play the nazi game both ways.
    - pmoriarty 6y ago
      "Nazi also complained that Jews are making themselves victims while they supposedly are not." Sure, they can say that, but they would be lying. How were Jews not victims when millions of them were being murdered by Nazis? I don't remember Nazis being locked up in ghettoes, concentration camps, or death camps by Jews in WW2. The Nazis were clearly the aggressors, and their attempts to paint themselves as the victims were transparent lies. It's truly sad that this still needs to be pointed out to some people. "The primary identification [of the Nazis] was not victim, it was strongman." It was both. They wanted to have it both ways, so they can pretend to be defending themselves and Germany when they attacked. And they wanted all of Germany to run to them for protection against the Jewish and Communist boogeyman. Tragically, their strategy worked. And it was they, not the Jews, who were doing the attacking. "We can play the nazi game both ways." To you it may seem like a game, but the sorts of lies you're repeating have resulted in the deaths of millions of people, and may do so again. This is no game.
- bityard 6y ago
  It seems like you didn't read the full article. The research that the article talks about was careful to separate the _mindset_ of victimhood from the actual experience of being a victim of someone else's antisocial or even violent behavior. The two are not the same. One can experience prejudice, social bias, and outright physical violence without developing a permanent self-image as a victim. But we all know that one crazy friend or family member who thinks (and says) the world is against them yet never had a truly traumatic experience in their whole life.
  - watwut 6y ago
    But like, I also know people who talked about being wronged and then it eventually turned out they really have been wronged. And it took them quite a lot of effort to get made sorta kinda equal - had they been accepting and silent, none of that would happen.
    - lopmotr 6y ago
      If it can be made right, then yea but if not, then it's probably better to imagine you weren't wronged. I have a personal experience with this. I suffered an injury that caused a permanent disability, but because I was also knocked out, I don't know what caused it. Maybe I was assaulted or maybe I had an accident. Should I feel wronged just in case it turns out to be an assault? No! I'm kind of lucky not knowing whether to blame someone else or myself! Maybe if I knew, that emotion of being wronged would motivate me to fight for justice and the perpetrator could get convicted but I'm comfortable assuming it was an accident. That's a lot better than fighting and losing.
      - watwut 6y ago
        In cases I have in mind, it looked futile until it did not. In the situation you described, you don't know what happened. So a good guess of your feelings would be confusion, I see no reason to force "feeling lucky" or "blaming yourself" or "feeling wronged" or any other emotion you don't actually feel. I don't understand this prescribing what people should feel and I think it does more harm then good. People do feel, they also think and the two interacts. It is much more important to understand what your feelings actually are and how they are influencing you, rather then analyse what theoretical person should feel or try to force yourself to feel the things you dont.
- hour_glass 6y ago
  It's just about the perception of injustice. A privileged person facing minor injustices could completely have this mindset. In fact I've met many many people like this. A journalist came up with this concept at the World Economic Forum, I think it was fractal poverty??, and it was this observation that from the poorest people in the world to the absolute richest there was this sense that they were excluded from and oppressed by someone more powerful. Absolutely anyone can feel this way.
  - efavdb 6y ago
    Interesting observation. I feel it's all about baselines: To decide if you have a lot of something, you need to compare your allotment to some baseline. You'll feel like a victim if you're more mistreated than your baseline of choice. If zero -- that in the ideal world with no mistreatment -- you'll always feel put out. If it's the median amount of mistreatment, half will feel good half bad, etc. Interesting that humans seem to statistically select their baseline as that just better than their current state.
    - refurb 6y ago
      Exactly and it goes beyond victimhood as well. You'll have a group of people go through the same negative experience (e.g. almost dying from a natural disaster, being held as a POW and tortured) and what's interesting is you'll see a huge variation of the impact of those events. Some people will come out of it relatively unscathed, while others will be haunted by it for the rest of their lives. No doubt their past experiences shaped their mindset and how they made sense of the negative experience.
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    It's just about the perception of injustice. A privileged person facing minor injustices could completely have this mindset. In fact I've met many many people like this. Privileged people facing no injustice howl the loudest that they are the most oppressed. In fact, facing no justice either, getting away with every crime under the sun.
    - 6y ago
- giantg2 6y ago
  I agree that how one frames the questions can lead to drastically different scores. If I'm thinking about this in terms of my workplace, I would probably score fairly high due to the typical corporate injustices that many workers endure. But if I think about this on a personal life basis or overall basis, then I would score pretty low.
- Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
  Case in point. Victim ideology writ large (group level - ingroups and outgroups) is still victim ideology. It doesn't become more right at the group level, it stems from the same biases and thought patterns.
motohagiography 6y ago
It's vindicating to read that Scientific American has finally used science to describe the out-group. Read it and weep, out-group! Kidding aside, I have been guilty of at least one of these more than once in life, and it's really a question of whether it's a defining characteristic, and to whom. Treat it like any other cognitive bias, and recognize that noticing it in others doesn't protect us from it.
seigando 6y ago
So the article maybe does an ok job with the expectations set by the main title, but then there's this subtitle: "social science points to a better way" and the article totally flops on that end with nothing more than an end paragraph blurb of less-than-insightful opinions from the article's author. edit: Also FTA: "the researchers found that an anxious attachment style was a particularly strong antecedent of the tendency for interpersonal victimhood." And from another comment I posted below: "When a child feels safe, seen, and soothed by their parent in a consistent way, they are able to form a secure attachment to that parent. However, when a parent is available and attuned at times and insensitive or intrusive at others, the child is more likely to experience an anxious ambivalent attachment pattern"[1] This is a valid and important area of inquiry and I wish the article did a better job on this front. [1]https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compassion-matters/201904/how-anxious-attachment-style-affects-relationships https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compassion-matters/2...
- john_moscow 6y ago
  I think it gives as much hint as you can without causing a massive wave of outrage: >But there’s the thing: If socialization processes can instill in individuals a victimhood mindset, then surely the very same processes can instill in people a personal growth mindset. What if we all learned at a young age that our traumas don’t have to define us? That it’s possible to have experienced a trauma and for victimhood to not form the core of our identity? That it’s even possible to grow from trauma, to become a better person, to use the experiences we’ve had in our lives toward working to instill hope and possibility to others who were in a similar situation? What if we all learned that it’s possible to have healthy pride for an in-group without having out-group hate? Basically, focus on your strong sides rather than weaknesses. Find people that make you happy and spend time with them doing things that make all of you happy, instead of focusing your attention on those who offend you. Pretty sound advice, IMO.
Hokusai 6y ago
> While splitting the world into those who are “saints” versus those who are “pure evil” may protect oneself from pain and damage to their self-image, it ultimately stunts growth and development and ignores the ability to see the self and the world in all of its complexities. I have seen this so many times in technical discussions that is not even funny. "I am right and everybody else are idiots" is a disease in many software companies. Many technical solutions are trade offs. But creating absolute categories "solution A is perfect" and "solution B is bad" many engineers protect their egos and their own technical preferences. And that stalls growth, their own and the growth of the team. > Those with a greater tendency for interpersonal victimhood also had a greater negative memory bias, recalling more words representing offensive behaviors and feelings of hurt In technical environments, I have seen it related to bugs. The victimhood mindset tends to blame others for any production problems. And any try to bring an open and candid discussion is seen as an aggression. No technical review is possible as criticism of code or design is seen as just personal criticism and violently disregarded. In the best companies I have worked for, teams are doers open to discuss designs without taking offense. All proposed solutions are understood as a trade-off between different options and that personal preferences may create bias on looking into problems. There is a growth mindset and are great companies were to learn and grow yourself. There is no evils or saints, but colleagues trying their best to solve a problem.
- austincheney 6y ago
  In a vacuum I suspect many developers would agree with this, but in practice clearly not as evidenced here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24120311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24120311
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    See: https://www.gwern.net/Holy-wars https://www.gwern.net/Holy-wars
    - austincheney 6y ago
      A holy war suggests a deliberate preference. Often though the preference looks like a convenient face-saving qualifier to excuse an inability to perform.
WrongThinkerNo5 6y ago
This is a fitting topic considering that essentially only a single subgroup does not see themselves as victims anymore and that is also likely going to change out of necessity.
- erichocean 6y ago
  > only a single subgroup Is it supposed to be obvious who this subgroup is? I can't engage with your assertion that it's going to change "out of necessity" without knowing who we're talking about…
alexpetralia 6y ago
I have meditated quite a bit on victimhood. In many cases I think it is justified. But fundamentally it is a historiographic view of the world, not an operative one. It is dominated by stasis - the way things were - and not the way things ought to be. This is not to malign those who are victims. But I suspect that most therapists dealing with such victims seek to impart an operative view of the world: one with plans, growth, change - not stasis.
- dwaltrip 6y ago
  Individuals benefit greatly from developing personal agency and responsibility, whatever their circumstance. Society at large must do systemic and holistic analysis (on multiple scales, e.g. neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries), which is where various forms of oppression can be most clearly identified and addressed. Of course, grassroots efforts can and often do lead the way.
loopz 6y ago
The need for redress and criminalization is indeed a problematic and distressing mindset for all involved, usually just ending in an evolutionary dead-end and non-constructive waste of time and effort. However, that doesn't mean operation from unbiased justice and fairness, or that we should focus on solutions rather than chart the problems to be solved first!
tus88 6y ago
This sounds very politically incorrect.
- nomel 6y ago
  Something can be both politically incorrect and correct at the same time.
devmunchies 6y ago
For people interested in philosophy, I'd say the concepts of "Ressentiment" and "Slave Morality" from Nietzsche (from the late 1800's no less!) are super relevant today and can be applied to the left or right political camps. > The revolt of the slaves in morals begins in the very principle of resentment becoming creative and giving birth to values—a resentment experienced by creatures who, deprived as they are of the proper outlet of action, are forced to find their compensation in an imaginary revenge. While every aristocratic morality springs from a triumphant affirmation of its own demands, the slave morality says "no" from the very outset to what is "outside itself," "different from itself," and "not itself": and this "no" is its creative deed. This volte-face of the valuing standpoint—this inevitable gravitation to the objective instead of back to the subjective—is typical of "resentment": the slave-morality requires as the condition of its existence an external and objective world, to employ physiological terminology, it requires objective stimuli to be capable of action at all—its action is fundamentally a reaction. —Nietzsche in The Genealogy of Morals (source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52319/52319-h/52319-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52319/52319-h/52319-h.htm) Here is a video comparing Nietzsche's "Ressentiment" and Dostoevsky "Underground Man": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgmgI08iIAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgmgI08iIAg
- jariel 6y ago
  This is really quite interesting and I think speaks to the character of a lot of supposedly political views. In the war of ideas, I think it helps to classify them simply as 'antagonist' and 'normative' instead of anything else. When people are young and they don't have power, they may feel aggrieved (possibly legitimately so, or internalise the grievances of other groups), or even simply want to 'rage against the machine' (i.e. what they perceive to be 'a machine'). This aggression may be creative, but I think often it's a visceral intellectualism. It's a 'challenge to power' through a vector of ideas and ideals. But the vector is actually not as important as the motivating impetus ... which is the 'challenge' not the 'ideal'. But this mentality does not at all lend well to the ugly, grinding, material reality of power and real management of systems. Castro had some legit things to say about Cuba pre-revolution. But what happened when he actually took charge? A few nice things, but then it went pretty quickly into despotism. If your identity is caught up in antagonism and you live and breathe lofty, impractical slogans that never actually have to be tested because they're never going to be actually tested, what happens when you do get power, and then have to deal with the bureaucracy, unions, police, very legitimate violent threats (internal and external), geopolitical shenanigans, poverty, yada yada? Any ideologue who actually tried to do a good, responsible job, would be considered a total sellout by his own vanguard. It's odd because often real change does come from some of the more legitimately aggrieved voices ... at the same time, I'm not sure if waves of revolutionary leaders are able to handle 'the 99% of the rest of the job'.
hristov 6y ago
This is mostly crap. It is a thin scientific redressing of the old right wing slogan of "stop whining". "Stop whining about being oppressed, look at me I am not whining about doing the oppressing". There is a lot of injustice in our society and there is nothing wrong in standing up and demanding justice. And don't let anyone tell you that demanding justice or seeking fairness is some kind of a personality disorder. But while most of the article is pure bs, there is a kernel of truth in one of the details. And that is that often when you are wronged and you are angry you tend to ignore other people's feelings. Generally when you are angry you tend to stop thinking. And often you tend to lash out at everyone and think everyone is against you when you may have many potential allies. When I try to remember when I was bullied when I was younger, this is my regret. I would get angry and think everyone is against me and lash out at people, even when they leaned on my side. The bullies of course being psychopaths would never get angry, they would be calm and always kept their psycho charming personalities up, and would eventually gain allies and become socially acceptable even after the bad things they did. So it is ok to be angry. But you have to always keep thinking and consider the feelings of others.
agronomov 6y ago
Looks like half of the US is suffering from this
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Just like the half of advertising spend which is wasted...
john_moscow 6y ago
One important point that the article totally misses is the economic part. Someone with a personal growth mindset very likely spend most of their time minding their own business, whatever that would be. A person with a victim mentality could be an order of magnitude more socially active. They feel that they are fighting for justice and changing the world to the better, so they would spend countless hours trying to argue their point. And in the world where the views and clicks translate into advertisement dollars, this creates a very unhealthy incentive. Literally, a permanently unhappy person obsessed with pouring their unhappiness on others generates more advertising revenue than a happier person spending their evening cooking or playing video games with their friends.
droidno9 6y ago
I wonder if a part of this mindset can be explained by the inability, i.e., lack of skills, to deal with confrontation. We all have to confront people and life circumstances at various points in our lives in order to grow, and if we don't have the skills to deal with them, fight or flight kicks in. The latter, overtime, result in a gradual buildup of low self-esteem, resentment, and anger. Dealing with confrontations is a skill that can be learned, like most of the life skills out there.
galaxyLogic 6y ago
I think what the article could have talked more about is that claimed victimhood is often used as an excuse to (continue to) victimize others.
eska 6y ago
I found the article very enlightening. It is useful to have proper names for the phenomena that I have witnessed in others and partially myself. The conclusion gives some good ideas how to fix interpersonal victimhood > What if we all learned at a young age that our traumas don’t have to define us? That it’s possible to have experienced a trauma and for victimhood to not form the core of our identity? That it’s even possible to grow from trauma, to become a better person, to use the experiences we’ve had in our lives toward working to instill hope and possibility to others who were in a similar situation? What if we all learned that it’s possible to have healthy pride for an in-group without having out-group hate? That if you expect kindness from others, it pays to be kind yourself? That no one is entitled to anything, but we all are worthy of being treated as human?
EricE 6y ago
I dunno - if you eliminate shades of gray and stick to black and white you don't need critical thinking. Critical thinking takes effort - it's far easier to toss a label on someone and then dismiss them.

156 points by Udik 6y ago

The 5 questions seem to ignore peoples backgrounds and circumstances. If you typically aren't facing injustice often then you aren't going to think you are a victim. It is a privileged position to assume everyone should "score" the same if they aren't marginalized.

Godel_unicode 6y ago
"""It’s important to point out that the researchers do not equate experiencing trauma and victimization with possessing the victimhood mindset. They point out that a victimhood mindset can develop without experiencing severe trauma or victimization. Vice versa, experiencing severe trauma or victimization doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is going to develop a victimhood mindset. """
pmoriarty 6y ago
"If you typically aren't facing injustice often then you aren't going to think you are a victim." That's not necessarily true. Many people are really good at deceiving themselves and making themselves out to be the victim when they're not. Hypocrisy also plays a role. Not naming any names here, but there's a certain well-known person in a tremendous position of power, who is constantly victimizing others, yet endlessly whining about being a victim. The so-called Dolchstoßlegende (ie. "stab-in-the-back myth") was a critically important piece of propaganda in Nazi Germany, where the Nazis made up scapegoats to blame for Germany's loss of WW1.[1] They also, of course, famously scapegoated Jews, and made themselves and Germany to be the victims of Jews, all the while actually victimizing and exterminating Jews in Germany and the rest of Europe. Nazis were in all these cases the aggressors, not the victims, yet it was important for them to see themselves as the victims and for others to see them as such, so they could feel more justified in using violence against their enemies, and so they could acquire more power to "protect" themselves. Much of this is paralleled in contemporary politics, and the powerful continue to create myths that they are the victims of the powerless, while in fact themselves committing violence against the latter. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth
- seigando 6y ago
  I think you raise some interesting points. FTA: "However, the researchers found that an anxious attachment style was a particularly strong antecedent of the tendency for interpersonal victimhood." So what precedes an 'anxious attachment style'? "When a child feels safe, seen, and soothed by their parent in a consistent way, they are able to form a secure attachment to that parent. However, when a parent is available and attuned at times and insensitive or intrusive at others, the child is more likely to experience an anxious ambivalent attachment pattern"[1] I think it's a reasonable assessment that the-unnamed did experience a form of trauma growing up...and now we as a society are dealing with the consequences of putting someone like that into power. I wonder if maybe those who elect these kinds of people relate to them on that fundamental level. Food for thought. [1]https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compassion-matters/201904/how-anxious-attachment-style-affects-relationships https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compassion-matters/2...
- watwut 6y ago
  Nazi also complained that Jews are making themselves victims while they supposedly are not. And they also liked to frame themselves as strong manly man whose will and power will win over all obstacles. The primary identification was not victim, it was strongman. We can play the nazi game both ways.
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    "Nazi also complained that Jews are making themselves victims while they supposedly are not." Sure, they can say that, but they would be lying. How were Jews not victims when millions of them were being murdered by Nazis? I don't remember Nazis being locked up in ghettoes, concentration camps, or death camps by Jews in WW2. The Nazis were clearly the aggressors, and their attempts to paint themselves as the victims were transparent lies. It's truly sad that this still needs to be pointed out to some people. "The primary identification [of the Nazis] was not victim, it was strongman." It was both. They wanted to have it both ways, so they can pretend to be defending themselves and Germany when they attacked. And they wanted all of Germany to run to them for protection against the Jewish and Communist boogeyman. Tragically, their strategy worked. And it was they, not the Jews, who were doing the attacking. "We can play the nazi game both ways." To you it may seem like a game, but the sorts of lies you're repeating have resulted in the deaths of millions of people, and may do so again. This is no game.
bityard 6y ago
It seems like you didn't read the full article. The research that the article talks about was careful to separate the _mindset_ of victimhood from the actual experience of being a victim of someone else's antisocial or even violent behavior. The two are not the same. One can experience prejudice, social bias, and outright physical violence without developing a permanent self-image as a victim. But we all know that one crazy friend or family member who thinks (and says) the world is against them yet never had a truly traumatic experience in their whole life.
- watwut 6y ago
  But like, I also know people who talked about being wronged and then it eventually turned out they really have been wronged. And it took them quite a lot of effort to get made sorta kinda equal - had they been accepting and silent, none of that would happen.
  - lopmotr 6y ago
    If it can be made right, then yea but if not, then it's probably better to imagine you weren't wronged. I have a personal experience with this. I suffered an injury that caused a permanent disability, but because I was also knocked out, I don't know what caused it. Maybe I was assaulted or maybe I had an accident. Should I feel wronged just in case it turns out to be an assault? No! I'm kind of lucky not knowing whether to blame someone else or myself! Maybe if I knew, that emotion of being wronged would motivate me to fight for justice and the perpetrator could get convicted but I'm comfortable assuming it was an accident. That's a lot better than fighting and losing.
    - watwut 6y ago
      In cases I have in mind, it looked futile until it did not. In the situation you described, you don't know what happened. So a good guess of your feelings would be confusion, I see no reason to force "feeling lucky" or "blaming yourself" or "feeling wronged" or any other emotion you don't actually feel. I don't understand this prescribing what people should feel and I think it does more harm then good. People do feel, they also think and the two interacts. It is much more important to understand what your feelings actually are and how they are influencing you, rather then analyse what theoretical person should feel or try to force yourself to feel the things you dont.
hour_glass 6y ago
It's just about the perception of injustice. A privileged person facing minor injustices could completely have this mindset. In fact I've met many many people like this. A journalist came up with this concept at the World Economic Forum, I think it was fractal poverty??, and it was this observation that from the poorest people in the world to the absolute richest there was this sense that they were excluded from and oppressed by someone more powerful. Absolutely anyone can feel this way.
- efavdb 6y ago
  Interesting observation. I feel it's all about baselines: To decide if you have a lot of something, you need to compare your allotment to some baseline. You'll feel like a victim if you're more mistreated than your baseline of choice. If zero -- that in the ideal world with no mistreatment -- you'll always feel put out. If it's the median amount of mistreatment, half will feel good half bad, etc. Interesting that humans seem to statistically select their baseline as that just better than their current state.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Exactly and it goes beyond victimhood as well. You'll have a group of people go through the same negative experience (e.g. almost dying from a natural disaster, being held as a POW and tortured) and what's interesting is you'll see a huge variation of the impact of those events. Some people will come out of it relatively unscathed, while others will be haunted by it for the rest of their lives. No doubt their past experiences shaped their mindset and how they made sense of the negative experience.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  It's just about the perception of injustice. A privileged person facing minor injustices could completely have this mindset. In fact I've met many many people like this. Privileged people facing no injustice howl the loudest that they are the most oppressed. In fact, facing no justice either, getting away with every crime under the sun.
  - 6y ago
giantg2 6y ago
I agree that how one frames the questions can lead to drastically different scores. If I'm thinking about this in terms of my workplace, I would probably score fairly high due to the typical corporate injustices that many workers endure. But if I think about this on a personal life basis or overall basis, then I would score pretty low.
Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
Case in point. Victim ideology writ large (group level - ingroups and outgroups) is still victim ideology. It doesn't become more right at the group level, it stems from the same biases and thought patterns.

motohagiography 6y ago

It's vindicating to read that Scientific American has finally used science to describe the out-group. Read it and weep, out-group! Kidding aside, I have been guilty of at least one of these more than once in life, and it's really a question of whether it's a defining characteristic, and to whom. Treat it like any other cognitive bias, and recognize that noticing it in others doesn't protect us from it.

seigando 6y ago

So the article maybe does an ok job with the expectations set by the main title, but then there's this subtitle: "social science points to a better way" and the article totally flops on that end with nothing more than an end paragraph blurb of less-than-insightful opinions from the article's author. edit: Also FTA: "the researchers found that an anxious attachment style was a particularly strong antecedent of the tendency for interpersonal victimhood." And from another comment I posted below: "When a child feels safe, seen, and soothed by their parent in a consistent way, they are able to form a secure attachment to that parent. However, when a parent is available and attuned at times and insensitive or intrusive at others, the child is more likely to experience an anxious ambivalent attachment pattern"[1] This is a valid and important area of inquiry and I wish the article did a better job on this front. [1]https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compassion-matters/201904/how-anxious-attachment-style-affects-relationships https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compassion-matters/2...

john_moscow 6y ago
I think it gives as much hint as you can without causing a massive wave of outrage: >But there’s the thing: If socialization processes can instill in individuals a victimhood mindset, then surely the very same processes can instill in people a personal growth mindset. What if we all learned at a young age that our traumas don’t have to define us? That it’s possible to have experienced a trauma and for victimhood to not form the core of our identity? That it’s even possible to grow from trauma, to become a better person, to use the experiences we’ve had in our lives toward working to instill hope and possibility to others who were in a similar situation? What if we all learned that it’s possible to have healthy pride for an in-group without having out-group hate? Basically, focus on your strong sides rather than weaknesses. Find people that make you happy and spend time with them doing things that make all of you happy, instead of focusing your attention on those who offend you. Pretty sound advice, IMO.

Hokusai 6y ago

> While splitting the world into those who are “saints” versus those who are “pure evil” may protect oneself from pain and damage to their self-image, it ultimately stunts growth and development and ignores the ability to see the self and the world in all of its complexities. I have seen this so many times in technical discussions that is not even funny. "I am right and everybody else are idiots" is a disease in many software companies. Many technical solutions are trade offs. But creating absolute categories "solution A is perfect" and "solution B is bad" many engineers protect their egos and their own technical preferences. And that stalls growth, their own and the growth of the team. > Those with a greater tendency for interpersonal victimhood also had a greater negative memory bias, recalling more words representing offensive behaviors and feelings of hurt In technical environments, I have seen it related to bugs. The victimhood mindset tends to blame others for any production problems. And any try to bring an open and candid discussion is seen as an aggression. No technical review is possible as criticism of code or design is seen as just personal criticism and violently disregarded. In the best companies I have worked for, teams are doers open to discuss designs without taking offense. All proposed solutions are understood as a trade-off between different options and that personal preferences may create bias on looking into problems. There is a growth mindset and are great companies were to learn and grow yourself. There is no evils or saints, but colleagues trying their best to solve a problem.

austincheney 6y ago
In a vacuum I suspect many developers would agree with this, but in practice clearly not as evidenced here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24120311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24120311
- searchableguy 6y ago
  See: https://www.gwern.net/Holy-wars https://www.gwern.net/Holy-wars
  - austincheney 6y ago
    A holy war suggests a deliberate preference. Often though the preference looks like a convenient face-saving qualifier to excuse an inability to perform.

WrongThinkerNo5 6y ago

This is a fitting topic considering that essentially only a single subgroup does not see themselves as victims anymore and that is also likely going to change out of necessity.

erichocean 6y ago
> only a single subgroup Is it supposed to be obvious who this subgroup is? I can't engage with your assertion that it's going to change "out of necessity" without knowing who we're talking about…

alexpetralia 6y ago

I have meditated quite a bit on victimhood. In many cases I think it is justified. But fundamentally it is a historiographic view of the world, not an operative one. It is dominated by stasis - the way things were - and not the way things ought to be. This is not to malign those who are victims. But I suspect that most therapists dealing with such victims seek to impart an operative view of the world: one with plans, growth, change - not stasis.

dwaltrip 6y ago
Individuals benefit greatly from developing personal agency and responsibility, whatever their circumstance. Society at large must do systemic and holistic analysis (on multiple scales, e.g. neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries), which is where various forms of oppression can be most clearly identified and addressed. Of course, grassroots efforts can and often do lead the way.

loopz 6y ago

The need for redress and criminalization is indeed a problematic and distressing mindset for all involved, usually just ending in an evolutionary dead-end and non-constructive waste of time and effort. However, that doesn't mean operation from unbiased justice and fairness, or that we should focus on solutions rather than chart the problems to be solved first!

tus88 6y ago

This sounds very politically incorrect.

nomel 6y ago
Something can be both politically incorrect and correct at the same time.

devmunchies 6y ago

For people interested in philosophy, I'd say the concepts of "Ressentiment" and "Slave Morality" from Nietzsche (from the late 1800's no less!) are super relevant today and can be applied to the left or right political camps. > The revolt of the slaves in morals begins in the very principle of resentment becoming creative and giving birth to values—a resentment experienced by creatures who, deprived as they are of the proper outlet of action, are forced to find their compensation in an imaginary revenge. While every aristocratic morality springs from a triumphant affirmation of its own demands, the slave morality says "no" from the very outset to what is "outside itself," "different from itself," and "not itself": and this "no" is its creative deed. This volte-face of the valuing standpoint—this inevitable gravitation to the objective instead of back to the subjective—is typical of "resentment": the slave-morality requires as the condition of its existence an external and objective world, to employ physiological terminology, it requires objective stimuli to be capable of action at all—its action is fundamentally a reaction. —Nietzsche in The Genealogy of Morals (source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52319/52319-h/52319-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52319/52319-h/52319-h.htm) Here is a video comparing Nietzsche's "Ressentiment" and Dostoevsky "Underground Man": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgmgI08iIAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgmgI08iIAg

jariel 6y ago
This is really quite interesting and I think speaks to the character of a lot of supposedly political views. In the war of ideas, I think it helps to classify them simply as 'antagonist' and 'normative' instead of anything else. When people are young and they don't have power, they may feel aggrieved (possibly legitimately so, or internalise the grievances of other groups), or even simply want to 'rage against the machine' (i.e. what they perceive to be 'a machine'). This aggression may be creative, but I think often it's a visceral intellectualism. It's a 'challenge to power' through a vector of ideas and ideals. But the vector is actually not as important as the motivating impetus ... which is the 'challenge' not the 'ideal'. But this mentality does not at all lend well to the ugly, grinding, material reality of power and real management of systems. Castro had some legit things to say about Cuba pre-revolution. But what happened when he actually took charge? A few nice things, but then it went pretty quickly into despotism. If your identity is caught up in antagonism and you live and breathe lofty, impractical slogans that never actually have to be tested because they're never going to be actually tested, what happens when you do get power, and then have to deal with the bureaucracy, unions, police, very legitimate violent threats (internal and external), geopolitical shenanigans, poverty, yada yada? Any ideologue who actually tried to do a good, responsible job, would be considered a total sellout by his own vanguard. It's odd because often real change does come from some of the more legitimately aggrieved voices ... at the same time, I'm not sure if waves of revolutionary leaders are able to handle 'the 99% of the rest of the job'.

hristov 6y ago

This is mostly crap. It is a thin scientific redressing of the old right wing slogan of "stop whining". "Stop whining about being oppressed, look at me I am not whining about doing the oppressing". There is a lot of injustice in our society and there is nothing wrong in standing up and demanding justice. And don't let anyone tell you that demanding justice or seeking fairness is some kind of a personality disorder. But while most of the article is pure bs, there is a kernel of truth in one of the details. And that is that often when you are wronged and you are angry you tend to ignore other people's feelings. Generally when you are angry you tend to stop thinking. And often you tend to lash out at everyone and think everyone is against you when you may have many potential allies. When I try to remember when I was bullied when I was younger, this is my regret. I would get angry and think everyone is against me and lash out at people, even when they leaned on my side. The bullies of course being psychopaths would never get angry, they would be calm and always kept their psycho charming personalities up, and would eventually gain allies and become socially acceptable even after the bad things they did. So it is ok to be angry. But you have to always keep thinking and consider the feelings of others.

agronomov 6y ago

Looks like half of the US is suffering from this

082349872349872 6y ago
Just like the half of advertising spend which is wasted...

john_moscow 6y ago

One important point that the article totally misses is the economic part. Someone with a personal growth mindset very likely spend most of their time minding their own business, whatever that would be. A person with a victim mentality could be an order of magnitude more socially active. They feel that they are fighting for justice and changing the world to the better, so they would spend countless hours trying to argue their point. And in the world where the views and clicks translate into advertisement dollars, this creates a very unhealthy incentive. Literally, a permanently unhappy person obsessed with pouring their unhappiness on others generates more advertising revenue than a happier person spending their evening cooking or playing video games with their friends.

droidno9 6y ago

I wonder if a part of this mindset can be explained by the inability, i.e., lack of skills, to deal with confrontation. We all have to confront people and life circumstances at various points in our lives in order to grow, and if we don't have the skills to deal with them, fight or flight kicks in. The latter, overtime, result in a gradual buildup of low self-esteem, resentment, and anger. Dealing with confrontations is a skill that can be learned, like most of the life skills out there.

galaxyLogic 6y ago

I think what the article could have talked more about is that claimed victimhood is often used as an excuse to (continue to) victimize others.

eska 6y ago

I found the article very enlightening. It is useful to have proper names for the phenomena that I have witnessed in others and partially myself. The conclusion gives some good ideas how to fix interpersonal victimhood > What if we all learned at a young age that our traumas don’t have to define us? That it’s possible to have experienced a trauma and for victimhood to not form the core of our identity? That it’s even possible to grow from trauma, to become a better person, to use the experiences we’ve had in our lives toward working to instill hope and possibility to others who were in a similar situation? What if we all learned that it’s possible to have healthy pride for an in-group without having out-group hate? That if you expect kindness from others, it pays to be kind yourself? That no one is entitled to anything, but we all are worthy of being treated as human?

EricE 6y ago

I dunno - if you eliminate shades of gray and stick to black and white you don't need critical thinking. Critical thinking takes effort - it's far easier to toss a label on someone and then dismiss them.