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I always considered the current culture of cultivated-victimhood to be rooted in the manner Western people fundamentally define themselves by their triumphs aga

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.

frankiesardo 5y ago
This is a clever comment and I'm surprised to see no further discussion. In the West, everyone needs to be the hero of their own story. Everyone needs to be an Achilles or a King Arthur, therefore everyone needs a dragon to fight. The bigger the enemy, the more morally entitled your actions feel.
- majani 5y ago
  In discussion forums, the best answers are usually those with many upvotes and no replies
Klinky 5y ago
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.
- 4gotunameagain 5y ago
  That's the history of humanity, not only of the west.
  - Klinky 5y ago
    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.
    - 4gotunameagain 5y ago
      Of course there will be localized differences, and scale differences in civilizations that scaled more. Also, realizing that it is a universal human problem helps with pointing the finger inwards rather than outwards.
      - Klinky 5y ago
        Inward to whom? Every human? Isn't that just as "vague" and unfair to blame even the slaves for their slavery?
        reaLg_move_in_3 5y ago
        Blame the slaves themselves? no. But stating the reality that as a human there are other human beings who have things in common with them(skin color, national origin, culture, ethnicity) who also enslave and mistreat other people; helps people see the bigger picture of predatory behavior that were all potentially capable of.
        Klinky 5y ago
        It's of little help for a victim to know that someone with something in common with them is a victimizer elsewhere in the world.
        reaLg_move_in_3 5y ago
        A better understanding a human nature and what we're all capable of is certainly useful. Much of philosophy and psychology is devoted to this very idea.
        reaLg_move_in_3 5y ago
        "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
  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.
  - Klinky 5y ago
    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.
    - listless 5y ago
      In that case, I certainly hope you don’t own an iPhone, don’t buy things on Amazon and only shop local where you check all the labels for “Made in MY country”. I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that there isn’t any moral high ground here.
      - Klinky 5y ago
        I am not perfect, no one is, but it is worse to blindly accept or ignore these problems. It's not about trying to take a moral high ground, it's the acknowledgement of reality. Does an iPhone need/absolutely require slavery or child labor? Does anything?
        listless 5y ago
        100% agree. And I apologize for insinuating that you were trying to grab the high ground. That was probably a cheap shot. The larger point is that it's easy to judge the past and make sweeping condemnations. I see that in wanting to condemn the West due to it's past. But surely people will condemn us as well for things we know are wrong, but we do anyway. At least I keep doing them. I like my iPhone. I like cheap electronics. I like affordable clothing. And behind all of that is some pretty egregious stuff. Where does that leave me in history?
- strangeattractr 5y ago
  Doesn't it feel somewhat hypocritical to accuse others of having their head in the sand whilst claiming slavery, genocide, racism and misogyny are uniquely western phenomenon? I think the irony of the self-loathing westerner, is that in believing their history is uniquely evil, are practising a sort of white supremacy. Not only in being completely oblivious to the history of other parts of the world. But by believing that only white people are/were so powerful that the evil they wrought could never be replicated by the much less powerful other races.
  - Klinky 5y ago
    No, because "other people did horrible things too" isn't a valid excuse.
    - reaLg_move_in_3 5y ago
      Failing to acknowledge the failures of others and focusing on scapegoating problems onto a specific group(when others are guilty as well) is also not a valid position.
      - Klinky 5y ago
        You're not scapegoating a problem onto a specific group if that specific group actually perpetrated or benefited from the problematic behavior. Again, "other people did bad things" isn't a valid excuse for doing bad things.
- reaLg_move_in_3 5y ago
  > west being founded on slavery The "west" was not founded on slavery, this is incorrect. This is the kind of "woke revisionism" that things like the 1619 tried to push through and were inaccurate. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/24/editorial-1619-project-bad-history-fueled-bad-moti/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/24/editorial-1... https://reason.com/2020/03/06/1619-project-fact-checker-nikole-hannah-jones-leslie-harris/ https://reason.com/2020/03/06/1619-project-fact-checker-niko...
  - Klinky 5y ago
    I don't know if I would consider the early colonies as "the founding" of the modern western powers. If you look at the founding of the USA it absolutely is accurate, many founding fathers were slave owners. Slavery also had influence within Canadian territories until it was outlawed. Both waged genocidal war on First Nations and Native Americans from the beginning. The USA continued to perpetuate slavery and compromise with slavers for decades/centuries to come, after Canada and Britain had long since moved on.
mockingbirdy 5y ago
I don't think that people experiencing racism have "surrogate adversity", but I can certainly relate to the general notion. I've "struggled" with this because I too had no "real" adversity in life and people like some greek philosophers and Nietzsche put adversity into their centre of attention. I'm convinced that sometimes, people just get hurt by adversity without any advantages later on. It’s also perverse to think that the pain serves a kind of purpose, it justifies an extremely toxic and abusive mindset. If it happens and you can grow from it - that's wonderful. But it should never be used as an excuse to do harm or to endure abusive situations, especially if the abusers are using this kind of narrative.
listless 5y ago
This might be the most insightful comment I’ve seen on this issue.
welcome_dragon 5y ago
This is similar to my belief as to why modern American politics is the way it is. It's so much left vs right, red vs blue, etc. During the cold war, we had a common enemy in communism. Sure there were disagreements, arguments, fights, but at the end of the day, most everyone could agree that we had to stand up for America. Now those common enemies aren't such a threat, so we look across the aisle for our enemy. It used to be "we just have different visions for America but we all want to succeed" and now it's "OMG you are trampling my right to ___________ you Nazi!". Your comment says all this much better than I ever could, though.
- 10000truths 5y ago
  > we had a common enemy in communism Communism wasn’t a “common enemy”, it was a boogeyman used as a cudgel by the government to strike down inconvenient dissent and ruin innocent peoples’ lives. There were plenty of Americans with Communist ideals, and plenty more who were branded as “communists” for suggesting such outrageous things as poverty reform or labor rights, including Martin Luther King Jr. See COINTELPRO and the Red Scare for examples of the government’s abhorrent treatment of suspected communists.
  - alentist 5y ago
    There were also real Communist agents. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Fuchs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Fuchs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg There were also real, devastating consequences to Communist ideology. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide for three examples.

frankiesardo 5y ago

This is a clever comment and I'm surprised to see no further discussion. In the West, everyone needs to be the hero of their own story. Everyone needs to be an Achilles or a King Arthur, therefore everyone needs a dragon to fight. The bigger the enemy, the more morally entitled your actions feel.

majani 5y ago
In discussion forums, the best answers are usually those with many upvotes and no replies

Klinky 5y ago

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.

4gotunameagain 5y ago
That's the history of humanity, not only of the west.
- Klinky 5y ago
  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.
  - 4gotunameagain 5y ago
    Of course there will be localized differences, and scale differences in civilizations that scaled more. Also, realizing that it is a universal human problem helps with pointing the finger inwards rather than outwards.
    - Klinky 5y ago
      Inward to whom? Every human? Isn't that just as "vague" and unfair to blame even the slaves for their slavery?
      - reaLg_move_in_3 5y ago
        Blame the slaves themselves? no. But stating the reality that as a human there are other human beings who have things in common with them(skin color, national origin, culture, ethnicity) who also enslave and mistreat other people; helps people see the bigger picture of predatory behavior that were all potentially capable of.
        Klinky 5y ago
        It's of little help for a victim to know that someone with something in common with them is a victimizer elsewhere in the world.
        reaLg_move_in_3 5y ago
        A better understanding a human nature and what we're all capable of is certainly useful. Much of philosophy and psychology is devoted to this very idea.
        reaLg_move_in_3 5y ago
        "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
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.
- Klinky 5y ago
  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.
  - listless 5y ago
    In that case, I certainly hope you don’t own an iPhone, don’t buy things on Amazon and only shop local where you check all the labels for “Made in MY country”. I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that there isn’t any moral high ground here.
    - Klinky 5y ago
      I am not perfect, no one is, but it is worse to blindly accept or ignore these problems. It's not about trying to take a moral high ground, it's the acknowledgement of reality. Does an iPhone need/absolutely require slavery or child labor? Does anything?
      - listless 5y ago
        100% agree. And I apologize for insinuating that you were trying to grab the high ground. That was probably a cheap shot. The larger point is that it's easy to judge the past and make sweeping condemnations. I see that in wanting to condemn the West due to it's past. But surely people will condemn us as well for things we know are wrong, but we do anyway. At least I keep doing them. I like my iPhone. I like cheap electronics. I like affordable clothing. And behind all of that is some pretty egregious stuff. Where does that leave me in history?
strangeattractr 5y ago
Doesn't it feel somewhat hypocritical to accuse others of having their head in the sand whilst claiming slavery, genocide, racism and misogyny are uniquely western phenomenon? I think the irony of the self-loathing westerner, is that in believing their history is uniquely evil, are practising a sort of white supremacy. Not only in being completely oblivious to the history of other parts of the world. But by believing that only white people are/were so powerful that the evil they wrought could never be replicated by the much less powerful other races.
- Klinky 5y ago
  No, because "other people did horrible things too" isn't a valid excuse.
  - reaLg_move_in_3 5y ago
    Failing to acknowledge the failures of others and focusing on scapegoating problems onto a specific group(when others are guilty as well) is also not a valid position.
    - Klinky 5y ago
      You're not scapegoating a problem onto a specific group if that specific group actually perpetrated or benefited from the problematic behavior. Again, "other people did bad things" isn't a valid excuse for doing bad things.
reaLg_move_in_3 5y ago
> west being founded on slavery The "west" was not founded on slavery, this is incorrect. This is the kind of "woke revisionism" that things like the 1619 tried to push through and were inaccurate. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/24/editorial-1619-project-bad-history-fueled-bad-moti/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/24/editorial-1... https://reason.com/2020/03/06/1619-project-fact-checker-nikole-hannah-jones-leslie-harris/ https://reason.com/2020/03/06/1619-project-fact-checker-niko...
- Klinky 5y ago
  I don't know if I would consider the early colonies as "the founding" of the modern western powers. If you look at the founding of the USA it absolutely is accurate, many founding fathers were slave owners. Slavery also had influence within Canadian territories until it was outlawed. Both waged genocidal war on First Nations and Native Americans from the beginning. The USA continued to perpetuate slavery and compromise with slavers for decades/centuries to come, after Canada and Britain had long since moved on.

mockingbirdy 5y ago

I don't think that people experiencing racism have "surrogate adversity", but I can certainly relate to the general notion. I've "struggled" with this because I too had no "real" adversity in life and people like some greek philosophers and Nietzsche put adversity into their centre of attention. I'm convinced that sometimes, people just get hurt by adversity without any advantages later on. It’s also perverse to think that the pain serves a kind of purpose, it justifies an extremely toxic and abusive mindset. If it happens and you can grow from it - that's wonderful. But it should never be used as an excuse to do harm or to endure abusive situations, especially if the abusers are using this kind of narrative.

listless 5y ago

This might be the most insightful comment I’ve seen on this issue.

welcome_dragon 5y ago

This is similar to my belief as to why modern American politics is the way it is. It's so much left vs right, red vs blue, etc. During the cold war, we had a common enemy in communism. Sure there were disagreements, arguments, fights, but at the end of the day, most everyone could agree that we had to stand up for America. Now those common enemies aren't such a threat, so we look across the aisle for our enemy. It used to be "we just have different visions for America but we all want to succeed" and now it's "OMG you are trampling my right to ___________ you Nazi!". Your comment says all this much better than I ever could, though.

10000truths 5y ago
> we had a common enemy in communism Communism wasn’t a “common enemy”, it was a boogeyman used as a cudgel by the government to strike down inconvenient dissent and ruin innocent peoples’ lives. There were plenty of Americans with Communist ideals, and plenty more who were branded as “communists” for suggesting such outrageous things as poverty reform or labor rights, including Martin Luther King Jr. See COINTELPRO and the Red Scare for examples of the government’s abhorrent treatment of suspected communists.
- alentist 5y ago
  There were also real Communist agents. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Fuchs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Fuchs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg There were also real, devastating consequences to Communist ideology. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide for three examples.