The ugly truth about the new South Africa - "It is remarkable that the return of a phenomenon we normally associate with 19th-century Eastern Europe – violent racist pogroms – warrants hardly a mention in the British media today. The media are quick to condemn so-called hate speech or anything that smacks of ‘Islamophobia’. But real xenophobia – in this case, the degraded and brutal violence meted out to immigrants in South Africa – hardly gets a mention... Most people will not know that over the past few weeks, in two of the three metropolitan areas of Gauteng (Tshwane and Johannesburg), Africans from countries outside of South Africa have been violently assaulted. Their businesses and possessions have been looted. Many have been displaced from their homes. Foreign truck drivers have been attacked and their trucks set alight. This is part of a campaign by the All Truck Drivers Foundation to ‘get rid of foreign truck drivers’ and ensure that only South Africans are employed.This follows similar major violent incidents in Durban in April... So why are the British media ignoring these pogroms? Well, because this is South Africa. This is Nelson Mandela’s revered land of reconciliation, moderation and peace. It is uncomfortable for the Western media and political elites to accept that the new South Africa has some very deep problems of division and violence. What is truly awkward for outside observers is that xenophobia is now a fundamental part of life in South Africa. In fact, it is part of the DNA of this rainbow nation that Western governments have given unequivocal support to for the past 25 years... xenophobia does not arise in a vacuum. In South Africa it has been stoked by the government and political class who have been quick to scapegoat outsiders to deflect from their abject failure to deliver the basics of a decent life for their citizens... But there is another critical dimension that helps to explain why Nelson Mandela’s rainbow nation has become the global capital of xenophobic pogroms. That is, the South African identity that the ANC itself has forged since the overthrow of Apartheid. This is an identity based in an ugly, backward, victim-based nationalism, which often pits ‘South Africans’ against ‘Africans’. It is a perverse differentiation between insiders – those who suffered under Apartheid – and alien ‘outsiders’: foreigners who cannot possibly comprehend the exceptionalism of Apartheid. The pitiful paradox of this modern South African identity is its dependence on – rather than its transcendence of – Apartheid. It is a victim-based identity that builds on the claim that South Africans are exceptional. They are so singular in their experience of Apartheid that it differentiates them from everyone else in the world, especially from other Africans, who tend to be lumped together as if Africa outside of South Africa was one undifferentiated country. Central to this identity is an exaggerated sense of entitlement, one that has fuelled the systemic corruption by ANC officials."
Victim culture strikes again
Can political apologies fuel ‘culture of complaint?’ - "Premier Christy Clark’s then-deputy chief of staff Kim Haakstad, who has since resigned, distributed by email a strategy cynically advising the party to apologize to ethnic Chinese or South Asian people as an election ploy – to get a “quick win.”... the B.C. Liberals have been ridiculed by Chinese people for failing to recognize the century-old head tax that had to be paid by Chinese immigrants was a federal issue, which the Conservatives had already apologized for in 2006.The B.C. government has also been dumped on for trying to leverage the 1914 Komagata Maru incident, in which a boatload of would-be Indian immigrants in Vancouver harbour were sent back to their homeland. B.C. Liberals were bluntly reminded that Prime Minister Stephen Harper also apologized for that. In 2008... It should perhaps come as no surprise that one key academic research paper on public apologies is titled Just Pretending.The paper explores the hypocrisy inherent in governments apologizing to minority groups, especially aboriginals, without introducing the reforms that could actually bring them long-term justice... Another important study of political apologies, led by Craig Blatz at the University of Waterloo, suggested yet more downsides to official displays of regret.When the Waterloo psychology researchers first asked Canadians about the Chinese head tax that began in 1885, they found most ethnic Chinese people didn’t know there had been one. They weren’t upset.So, when the Conservatives’ apology came, the study found most Chinese-Canadians in the study were not impressed. Indeed, white Canadians were more pleased than anyone with the apology. Go figure.But there was a more disturbing finding by the intrepid Waterloo team. They noted the Conservatives’ head-tax apology in 2006 “was not associated with an increase in Canadian identity” among the surveyed ethnic Chinese residents.In other words, the researchers found this political apology and others may not have even accomplished the stated goal – which is to encourage members of a supposedly aggrieved minority to feel a more integral part of the wider community.Indeed, it’s possible that Canadian politicians’ rush to apologize for all matter of wrongs in the distant past could be making members of ethnic groups feel more isolated, more aggrieved, more self-focused and less committed to the national common good."
On how apologising and victim culture more broadly makes things even worse
When persecution complexes run amok - "Hoekstra’s revealing story tells the tale of an Indo-Canadian businessman accused by government bodies of repeatedly exposing his workers to cancer-causing asbestos.But Mike Singh claimed to Hoegstra, straight-faced, there is absolutely nothing to the repeated charges. He is just being harrassed because he is “brown.”Meanwhile, Singh forges ahead, ignoring government warnings he is putting the lives and health of his crew at risk.Singh’s attitude reflects the dark side of so-called “identity politics,” which often encourages people (of different ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations or what have you) to see themselves first as a persecuted minority. Unfortunately, those people who feel persecuted sometimes go onto persecute others — such as when “persecuted” Christians discriminate against gays and lesbians... an over-emphasis on it can lead to personality complexes psychologists call “hyper-vigilant narcissism.” That creates people who think they are victims, who use that to mistreat others
Andrew Sullivan: The Next Step for Gay Pride - "There has never been a better time or place in the history of the world to be gay than in 2019 and in the West.I think it’s worth repeating that — especially in front of the younger generation — because it gives us critical perspective on where we are now and where we are headed. If you glance at media aimed at gays, lesbians, and transgender people, you might imagine we are living in a state of siege... Compared with the 1880s, or 1780s, when gay people were assumed to be merely deviant straights and were subject to execution under the law, it is an entirely different universe. Because gay men and women are almost always brought up by straight parents, this history is hard to pass on. And so perspectives can be warped. Those whose livelihoods are built on defending victims have an interest in sustaining a victim paradigm for gay America, in which they are the saviors. And victim narratives are comfortable. They allow us to avoid responsibility for our own problems, while transferring it to others. They evoke cheap but satisfying empathy. They seem to cast us as somehow noble for being “oppressed.” They actually provide status among today’s elites — and can help you advance your own career solely on the basis of your orientation if you want to go to college or get a job at a major corporation. I think it’s time to shuck off this narrative, because it is a crude simplification of the gay experience, because it is profoundly out of date, and because it focuses us on other people we cannot always change while ignoring things closer to home that we can. What we need now, I think, is a narrative more productive and constructive, less about the harm the world can do to us, and more about the good we can give back to the world... Gay people, of all people, should know the danger of suppressing and stigmatizing unpopular views. In previous iterations of the “call-out” culture, gays were so often the ones called out."
On gay victim culture
Life is unfair to me and it's your fault - "Back in 1993, the misanthropic art critic Robert Hughes published a grumpy, entertaining book - Culture Of Complaint - in which he predicted that America was doomed to become increasingly an "infantilised culture" of victimhood.It was a rant against what he saw as a grievance industry appearing all across the political spectrum... "Victimhood culture" has now been identified as a widening phenomenon by mainstream sociologists. And it is impossible to miss the obvious examples all around us.We can laugh off some of them: For example, the argument that the design of a Starbucks cup is evidence of a secularist war on Christmas.Others, however, are more ominous. On campuses, activists interpret ordinary interactions as "microaggressions" and set up "safe spaces" to protect students from certain forms of speech. And presidential candidates on both the left and the right routinely motivate supporters by declaring that they are under attack by immigrants or wealthy people. Who cares if we are becoming a culture of victimhood? We should.To begin with, victimhood makes it more and more difficult for us to resolve political and social conflicts. The culture feeds a mentality that crowds out a necessary give and take - the very concept of good-faith disagreement - turning every policy difference into a pitched battle between good (us) and evil (them)... both sides attributed their own group's aggressive behaviour to love, but the opposite side's to hatred. Today, millions of Americans believe their side is basically benevolent, while the other side is evil and out to get them... victimhood culture makes for worse citizens - people who are less helpful, more entitled and more selfish... "victims" were also more likely than the "non-victims" to leave trash behind on the desks and to steal the experimenters' pens... the line is fuzzy between fighting for victimised people and promoting a victimhood culture. Where does the former stop and the latter start? I offer two signposts for your consideration.First, look at the role of free speech in the debate. Victims and their advocates always rely on free speech and open dialogue to articulate unpopular truths. They rely on free speech to assert their right to speak. Victimhood culture, by contrast, generally seeks to restrict expression in order to protect the sensibilities of its advocates. Victimhood claims the right to say who is and is not allowed to speak... look at a movement's leadership. The fight for victims is led by aspirational leaders who challenge us to cultivate higher values. They insist that everyone is capable of - and has a right to - earned success. They articulate visions of human dignity. But the organisations and people who ascend in a victimhood culture are very different. Some set themselves up as saviours; others focus on a common enemy. In all cases, they treat people less as individuals and more as aggrieved masses."
Let's resolve not to play defeatist role of victim - "Dr Arthur C. Brooks' thoughtful commentary ("Life is unfair to me and it's your fault"; Monday) is timely, especially when some people may be in the midst of drawing up a list of New Year's resolutions.Dr Brooks rightly cautioned against a culture of "victimhood" taking root in society, for it gives rise to a sense of misplaced entitlement and recriminations against others, which stem from unvalidated observations or prejudice.It has a polarising and enfeebling effect on society... If we persist in behaving like aggrieved victims and submit to determinism, one's life will forever be held in thrall by a succession of self-fulfilling prophecies... let us resolve not to play the defeatist role of victim, but to be in the driver's seat instead, actively steering and charting our own paths."
This ties in with an external locus of control
Microaggressions and the Rise of Victimhood Culture - "When conflicts occur, sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning observe in an insightful new scholarly paper, aggrieved parties can respond in any number of ways. In honor cultures like the Old West or the street gangs of West Side Story, they might engage in a duel or physical fight. In dignity cultures, like the ones that prevailed in Western countries during the 19th and 20th Centuries, “insults might provoke offense, but they no longer have the same importance as a way of establishing or destroying a reputation for bravery,” they write. “When intolerable conflicts do arise, dignity cultures prescribe direct but non-violent actions... People might even be expected to tolerate serious but accidental personal injuries”... The culture on display on many college and university campuses, by way of contrast, is “characterized by concern with status and sensitivity to slight combined with a heavy reliance on third parties. People are intolerant of insults, even if unintentional, and react by bringing them to the attention of authorities or to the public at large. Domination is the main form of deviance, and victimization a way of attracting sympathy, so rather than emphasize either their strength or inner worth, the aggrieved emphasize their oppression and social marginalization.”It is, they say, “a victimhood culture.”... "complaint to third parties has supplanted both toleration and negotiation. People increasingly demand help from others, and advertise their oppression as evidence that they deserve respect and assistance. Thus we might call this moral culture a culture of victimhood ... the moral status of the victim, at its nadir in honor cultures, has risen to new heights.”... There is no end to conflict in a victimhood culture... victimhood culture is likeliest to arise in settings where there is some diversity and inequality, but whose members are almost equal, since “a morality that privileges equality and condemns oppression is most likely to arise precisely in settings that already have relatively high degrees of equality.”"
Georgetown takes 'A.C.T.I.O.N.' against 'microaggressions in medicine' - "“Microaggressions can have a macro [e]ffect, particularly when considering the cumulative burden for individuals and organizations over time,” the webpage states. “Microaggressions show up everywhere in society including in our classrooms, clinics, hallways, on social media, in our neighborhood watch app, and at the grocery store!”The poster campaign gives examples of possible microaggressions that someone in the medicinal field could encounter, such as “aren’t you a little old to be in medical school?” “They yelled HIV as a diagnosis after learning he was a gay male,” and “I’m assuming English wasn’t the first language for some of you.”"
How Scotland erased Guyana from its past - "“Despite huge sections devoted to Scotland and the world, there was not a mention of the slave trade or the slave-based plantation economies, which supported the rise of Scotland’s industrialisation. The story sits very uncomfortably with the narrative that people want to tell about Scotland and Highlanders.” Alston explains that Scotland’s own historical grievances, specifically the Highland clearances (when tens of thousands of Highlanders were forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for large-scale sheep farming), make it unable to confront the past. He says: “If you want to portray yourself as a victim, the last thing you want to do is be the victimiser, and it is difficult for that to change because it is so embedded in the Scottish view of itself and the Highlands view of itself."
Another downside of victim culture - it blinds you as to how you yourself oppress others
Star Trek Showed a More Constructive Way to Address Microaggressions - "“But why should I object to that term sir,” she says. “See, in our century, we’ve learned not to fear words.”Now, of course words can hurt. But consider the context. Uhura is saying it would be silly for her to feel injury because of someone else’s lack of etiquette. A person’s ignorance of a particular custom says precisely nothing about the offended party.Uhura's response looks not just more mature, but more constructive. It would seem to foster mutual understanding, whereas reporting systems and punitive actions seem more likely to fuel resentment.In response to Uhura’s reply, Lincoln bows his head slightly and offers his hand in appreciation of her grace.“The foolishness of my century had me apologizing where no offense is given,” Lincoln replies.It’s amazing how many things Star Trek got right in predicting our future. Alas, it seems they got this one terribly wrong. I wonder if that’s our loss."
Scent-free policies generally unjustified - "The list of symptoms people with scent sensitivities attribute to chemical fragrances is a lengthy one that includes everything from coughing, sneezing, gagging, shortness of breath, rhinitis and asthma attacks, to debilitating headaches, anxiety and dizziness.As a result, many workplaces and institutions — schools, hospitals and other government buildings — have some sort of scent-free or scent-reduction policy in place, which asks people entering the building not to wear perfumed products.But the science supporting such policies is fuzzy and inconclusive. While scents can trigger both physiological and psychological symptoms in some individuals, there is no reliable diagnostic test for fragrance allergies... “When someone is smelling something, what they’re smelling is usually not the protein, it’s the volatile hydrocarbon, or whatever is giving off that scent”... Much of North American research into scent sensitivities comes from the Monell Chemical Senses Center, an independent, nonprofit scientific institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where researchers study taste and smell. Pamela Dalton, a psychologist at the center, says that simply telling people that an odourous material is going to cause an adverse reaction is enough to make the test subjects feel poorly, even if the odour is entirely innocuous... When it comes to treating scent-sensitive patients, Dalton advises that health care professionals take a measured approach and avoid alarmist messages that may increase anxiety. “Health care professionals themselves can over-sensitize some of their patients into believing they will have a reaction to fragrance material when, most likely, they won’t.”"
When you have no real problems so you need to make up imaginary ones (like gluten sensitivity)
How pandering to victim culture is a self-fulfilling prophecy
The Unofficial Captain - Posts - "My sociology professor had a really good metaphor for privilege today. She didn’t talk about race or gender or orientation or class, she talked about being left-handed. A left-handed person walks into most classrooms and immediately is made aware of their left-handedness - they have to sit in a left-handed seat, which restricts their choices of where to sit. If there are not enough left-handed seats, they will have to sit in a right-handed seat and be continuously aware of their left-handedness. (There are other examples like left-handed scissors or baseball mitts as well.) Meanwhile, right-handed people have much more choice about where to sit, and almost never have to think about their right-handedness. Does this mean right-handed people are bad? No. Does it mean that we should replace all right-handed desks with left-handed desks? No. But could we maybe use different desk styles that can accommodate everyone and makes it so nobody has limited options or constant awareness that they are different? Yes. Now think of this as a metaphor. For social class. For race. For ethnicity. For gender. For orientation. For anything else that sets us apart."
Of course, how SJWs use the concept in reality is very different. But the top comment is incisive:
"Wait! This may be beside the point: I’m left-handed and didn’t know until now that those desks are right handed - it’s so you can rest your arm while writing?? Woe! Also, spiral notebooks, butter knives, scissors and the knowledge that we are unclean and evil get in our way! 🤷🏻♀️"
In other words, obsession about how you're a victim is a self-fulfilling prophecy
Turning childhood into a mental illness - "For centuries, theologians, philosophers and healers have discussed the debilitating effects of anxiety. At times, what we now know as anxiety was referred to as melancholia, or even a kind of hysteria. From the late 19th century onwards, extreme forms of anxiety started to be diagnosed as psychological conditions.Until the latter part of the 20th century, this medicalisation of anxiety remained relatively restrained. Doctors focused their attention on pronounced, debilitating instances of neurosis. Then, in 1980, the American Psychiatric Association invented the term ‘anxiety disorder’, and from that point onwards the distress and pain associated with anxiety came to be thoroughly medicalised. We have witnessed a serious example of diagnosis creep, which has led to a widening definition of anxiety, and to more and more people being diagnosed with a kind of illness.The growing trend for redefining the problems of life as issues of mental health has had a particularly pernicious effect on children and child development. Since the late 1970s, there has been a creeping tendency to portray children as uniquely vulnerable to emotional damage. Before then, it was commonly believed that children could recover their strength and resilience in the aftermath of an emotionally difficult experience. But in the late 20th century, in line with the expanding medicalisation of everyday life, society became preoccupied with the apparent fragility of childhood. It was at this point that the idea that mental illness is a common feature of childhood started to gain resonance. In the decades that followed, more and more children came to be diagnosed with a psychiatric illness. This trend was particularly striking in the US... Back in 1999, Dr Jennifer Cunningham, a community paediatrician from Glasgow, informed me that ‘mental health is defined so widely that any child who has a normal reaction to adverse circumstances [in their life] is now assumed to have mental-health problems’... Children who are socialised to see their experiences through the prism of mental health will internalise this narrative. Unlike children who went to school 30 or 40 years ago, today’s schoolchildren readily communicate their problems in a psychological vocabulary, using words like stress, trauma and depression to describe their feelings... when normal anxiety or emotional difficulty is viewed as a psychological condition, young people will find themselves less able to cope with the disappointment and pain that are actually a fairly common feature of young life... The medicalisation of childhood doesn’t only disorient young people in general – it also diverts precious resources away from children with serious psychological conditions by counting everyone as being in need of such assistance."
'Sadfishing' social media warning from school heads - "A social-media "trend" is leaving young people with genuine mental health problems "facing unfair and distressing criticism", private-school leaders say."Sadfishing" is a growing "behavioural trend", where people make "exaggerated claims about their emotional problems to generate sympathy", the heads say.And it means those with real problems are often overlooked or even bullied... The report quotes a pupil who shared on social media they had been "feeling really down"."I got a lot of people commenting on and 'liking' my post but then some people said I was sadfishing, the next day at school, for attention""
So much for there being no harm to victim culture and exaggerating one's problems (or making them up).
I Built My Identity Around My Bipolar Diagnosis. But Then I Wasn't Bipolar - "For 10 years, I wrote a column and blog called The Trouble With Spikol that was predicated on its authorship by a bipolar person. I won an award for Best Bipolar Blog. I was featured in the New York Times as a bipolar spokesperson, based on my YouTube videos about — you guessed it — living with bipolar disorder. I was an unpaid shill for AstraZeneca and spoke numerous times about how one medication had tamed my bipolar disorder. I became a certified peer specialist and provided mental health services to other people with severe mental illness based on my bipolar diagnosis. I was on radio shows and TV specials. I was one of four people profiled in a feature-length film about people with bipolar disorder. The list goes on.Once, I remember, a woman said something disparaging at a party about people with bipolar disorder. “I have that,” I said. “That’s me.” She looked shocked, which pleased me. It was like a delicious hors d’oeuvre, which that party was short on. I was constantly trying to upend stigma and stereotypes. Not just about bipolar disorder — I wanted to change perceptions of people with mental illness in general. But the bipolar disorder was the foundation of my activism and identity.And then, a few months ago, my psychiatrist said he wasn’t sure it actually fit, that bipolar diagnosis. After almost 20 years of our doing psychiatry and psychotherapy together, my doctor sat back in the wing chair in his office and gazed at me across the river of his carpet, saw the sweep of my life, my calamities, and posited that they didn’t add up to bipolar or schizophrenia or any other biological brain disease, as he put it.I hadn’t had a recurrence in many years, even after going off the antipsychotic medications I’d been on since 1991.The truth was that I had become a person who, though neurotic and anxious (which is my Jewish birthright), was pretty much fine... In the 19th century, we had the diagnoses of “drapetomania,” the supposed mental disorder that caused slaves to run away, and female hysteria, frequently ascribed to women who weren’t obeying their husbands. Being gay used to be in the DSM as a mental disorder; now, it’s not. That 1973 change had nothing to do with a Nobel-worthy discovery of wiggling bacteria under a microscope. It had to do with a brave group of doctors and patients who spoke out and fought discrimination, which is what that classification was about.The definition of schizophrenia, the psychiatric illness that perhaps has the most credibility, as it were, as a biological disease of the brain, has morphed over the years with changes clearly inflected by social turmoil... After my parents and I participated in a Johns Hopkins study on heredity and bipolar disorder, I felt even more convinced of the biological underpinnings of my troubles — and thus quite apprehensive about having children of my own.I also memorized and internalized all the stats about people who had bipolar disorder: My lifespan would be shorter; I was much more likely to die by suicide; the illness was chronic. Just the other day, I unearthed an old episode of Radio Times, the WHYY show hosted by Marty Moss-Coane, on which I was a guest many years ago, speaking about living with bipolar disorder. I cringed when I heard myself say, “If I went off my medications, I guess I’d have to live in a residential treatment facility.” I’d doomed myself to such a tragic fate, with such minimal potential. Now that it’s too late, I wonder: Could I have had children after all, and not passed along hereditary mental illness? Quite a sacrifice if the diagnosis was wrong."
When you fetishise mental illness, people are incentivised to think they have it
Ditto with victim culture...
I wonder how many of the SJWs on tumblr really have the mental illnesses they claim they do (and which they take such pride in having)
1.5 Mandate – The Presidential Years - "Days before the official count of votes was complete, the outcome was clear and the ANC celebrated victory. Mandela’s brief speech spelt out his mission and mandate as the president in the country’s first democratically elected government...
'We might have our differences, but we are one people with a common destiny in our rich variety of culture and traditions... Let us stretch out our hands to those who have beaten us, and to say to them: we are all South Africans, we have had a good fight. But now this is the time to heal the old wounds and to build a new South Africa...
Nothing I can say can fully describe the misery of our people as a result of that repression, and the day we have been fighting for and waiting for has come. [We are saying, let us forget the past, let us hold hands, it is time now to begin anew.] The time has come for men and women, African, Coloured, Indian and White (Afrikaans and English speaking), to say we are one country, we are one people'"
I wonder what he would've said about victim culture, identity politics and the politics of grievance, i.e. never forget the past and constantly talk about it and play it up. Presumably he'd have been mistaken for white and told to check his privilege
Ryan Honick ♿️🦺🏻🦽 on Twitter - "I don’t know who needs to hear this but the “I never let my disability/pain/illness stop me” is an ableist and harmful narrative. Sometimes chronic issues are debilitating and they do stop you. And you shouldn’t be made to feel guilty about it. Period."
Victim culture in a nutshell - you're not allowed to be strong
Disturbing TikTok trend sees teen girls pretending to be domestic abuse victims - "Teen girls slathering their faces with makeup to look like they've been beaten have been warned they're "romanticising abuse" and triggering real victims' PTSD... users have even been filming phoney attacks.As recently as March 29, @taylore.rae showed herself as bruised, with smudged makeup, while bizarrely pretending to order a pizza."
When you fetishise victimhood