Competitive Victimization

Has anyone noticed that everyone these days, regardless of group or ideology, competes to be the most victimized? i'm not even sure this is wrong - clearly some groups have been victimized. Even more clearly, some groups have been more victimized than others (more gays than straights, more blacks than whites, etc.).

In some cases I think this sense of victimization is quite neccessary. I am concerned, though, that in certain instances, it may lead to a lack of empowerment. For instance, in my own life I had OCD, and for a long time I dwelled too much on how it victimized me and not enough on how to get myself out of that victimization. Of course, that is a minor instance - obviously a woman who has been raped, or a black person who has been persecuted by whites, should feel victimized and even when they try to empower themselves, will still feel a sense of victimization. Nor should the mentally ill have to feel that their disease is because of a "lack of empowerment". I'm just saying that while we acknowledge victimization, we should be careful to give people an out, or otherwise their vicitmization may become their identity.

I'm particularly concerned with how competitive victimization works in politics. I hear so many groups claiming to be persecuted - evangelicals, college professors, atheists, Republicans, Democrats, etc. I think at a certain level, they are all right, since I've seen every one of these groups being persecuted by certain segments of society. But it seems like these groups are deliberately competing for the privelege of being the most injured, the most ostracized, the most affronted . . . and frankly, to a large extent they are quite priveleged, when compared to truly marganilized groups, like blacks and Hispanics.

Just my thoughts. Hope I don't offend.

FSTDT said:

I'm reminded of something I read yesterday, it was an article titled The War on Christianity:

And the above demonstrates a good point: the people who most vocal about their victimization are the ones least likely to be the victims of anything. Its nothing but but an ideological war.

And just look at the quote above, DeLay actually thinks that Christians are being victimized by gays getting married. How convoluted is that? (If I was a Christian, I'd be extremely offended that Tom DeLay is exploiting my religion to advance his own narrow political agenda.)

The competitive victimization in politics works like this: convince everyone that you're the most despised group, then maybe legislators will take pity on you and pass laws that favor your politics.

There are only a few groups who I see are really disenfranchised, or the ones most at risk for having their rights stripped away. After the 2000 elections, 11 states voted away the rights of gays to get married and adopt children, and some want to criminalize homosexuality altogether (because after all, war, fastfood, and guns don't hurt children, its Sally inviting her partner Jane to brunch that hurts children).

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Yea, I agree by and large. I think it depends where a person is too. An evangelical in the university system may indeed experience prejudice. They will certainly experience class prejudice, since many studies I've read trace evangelical\fundamentalist positions to unpriveleged class positions. But clearly, in society at large, gays aren't oppressing them, but vice versa.

I do think the left, though, is also guilty of competitive victimization.

Spinrad said:

Humans are competitive animals. Whatever the circumstance we will compete. In a feral setting the comeptition will almost always be toward power, but in this socialised setting we find ourselves in we find power in pity. You are simply noy allowed to kick someone's behind and take their stuff anymore, so we have adjusted our tactics and rhettoric accordingly. You get other people's stuff by being weaker than they are and playing to the greater public's sense of sympathy and fairness. The trick is to decieve said public into believing you are actually being treated unfairly.

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I agree, though I think the problem in America is that almost every group can claim to at some level be being treated unfairly. I've seen proof of discrimination against atheists, gays, lesbians, mainline protestants, blacks, Jews, evangelicals, etc.

Spinrad said:

There is not a group in the history of our species which has not been treated unfairly since the idea of fair cam einto being. It's not just America. But I think America was the first country founded by people with a persecution complex, deserved or not. I may be wrong. It is, in my oppinion, simply part of the weeding out of feral behaviors.

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I agree with everything you say, though I think the determination of what constitutes feral behavior is to a certain extent in the eye of the beholder. But maybe that's what you are arguing too.