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Zizek has talked a lot about victimhood and makes, imo, some great points. One point he makes is that people today assign virtue to victimhood, which doesn't re

Zizek has talked a lot about victimhood and makes, imo, some great points. One point he makes is that people today assign virtue to victimhood, which doesn't really correlate because victims can turn out to be assholes themselves. I agree with this point and think it's a major reason why it's trendy to be a victim. If victims get all the attention and support these days just for being a victim of something, why not join the crowd?

munificent 5y ago
> which doesn't really correlate because victims can turn out to be assholes themselves. And, in particular, victimhood is often contextual and temporal. The oppressed person today may turn around and oppress someone else tomorrow. (And, in fact, fewer things predict likelihood of abusing more than a history of being abused.) If our culture's moral system is based on partitioning the graph of interactions into "victim" and "victimizer", then the system is completely unable to handle the reality that there are cycles in that graph. There are homophobic Black people and racist queers. Anti-trans women and trans mysogynists. It's impossible to reliably take sides in an environment like that if your moral code just says "side with the victim". Which victim? When? Do we side with J.K. Rowling because she was a victim or domestic assault, or vilify her because she's anti-trans? As our moral culture gets increasingly polarized, it gets increasingly unable to accurately model the world as it is.
- TrispusAttucks 5y ago
  It is an ironic paradox that: Attempts at destroying binary labels in one dimension create new binaries in adjacent dimensions. Basically maximizing labels (identities) creates an inherent conflict amongst identities because it further removes them from a unified label or identity group. As people more tightly identify with the group that highlights their _differences_ from other groups instead of their _similarities_ then society wide fracturing will occur. This fracture will further drive unrest in the parent society. To make matters worse, if discussion of this potentially negative outcome of progress is seen as taboo then the cultural "brakes" that can be used to positively integrate the changes into the future society will be cut.
  - silicon2401 5y ago
    > To make matters worse, if discussion of this potentially negative outcome of progress is seen as taboo then the cultural "brakes" that can be used to positively integrate the changes into the future society will be cut. This is already happening. Talk of diversity is a duplicitous facade, as people are pushing more and more for segregation and uniformity, and issues are becoming matters of dogma rather than opinion. Hence why, as you said, it's taboo to have any questions or doubts about a group's narrative.

munificent 5y ago

> which doesn't really correlate because victims can turn out to be assholes themselves. And, in particular, victimhood is often contextual and temporal. The oppressed person today may turn around and oppress someone else tomorrow. (And, in fact, fewer things predict likelihood of abusing more than a history of being abused.) If our culture's moral system is based on partitioning the graph of interactions into "victim" and "victimizer", then the system is completely unable to handle the reality that there are cycles in that graph. There are homophobic Black people and racist queers. Anti-trans women and trans mysogynists. It's impossible to reliably take sides in an environment like that if your moral code just says "side with the victim". Which victim? When? Do we side with J.K. Rowling because she was a victim or domestic assault, or vilify her because she's anti-trans? As our moral culture gets increasingly polarized, it gets increasingly unable to accurately model the world as it is.

TrispusAttucks 5y ago
It is an ironic paradox that: Attempts at destroying binary labels in one dimension create new binaries in adjacent dimensions. Basically maximizing labels (identities) creates an inherent conflict amongst identities because it further removes them from a unified label or identity group. As people more tightly identify with the group that highlights their _differences_ from other groups instead of their _similarities_ then society wide fracturing will occur. This fracture will further drive unrest in the parent society. To make matters worse, if discussion of this potentially negative outcome of progress is seen as taboo then the cultural "brakes" that can be used to positively integrate the changes into the future society will be cut.
- silicon2401 5y ago
  > To make matters worse, if discussion of this potentially negative outcome of progress is seen as taboo then the cultural "brakes" that can be used to positively integrate the changes into the future society will be cut. This is already happening. Talk of diversity is a duplicitous facade, as people are pushing more and more for segregation and uniformity, and issues are becoming matters of dogma rather than opinion. Hence why, as you said, it's taboo to have any questions or doubts about a group's narrative.