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Victim mentality

Started by Cain, April 29, 2008, 01:36:26 PM

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AFK

1) I don't know if you've noticed while you've been here but I don't get involved with this 8-Circuit stuff.  So I'm afraid most of your above post means nothing to me.
2)  However the last two lines:  "Indeed... I would say that both the minority, intentionally trying to be 'different' (not all that unlike the Discordian who is absurd in order to be special) and the majority, intentionally trying to wipe out the competing tribe, are both behaving like human beings... the sad, damned creatures that we are."

Again, you keep talking about this minority, intentionally trying to be 'different'.  Is it your position or opinion that all minorities intentionally try to be different?  And further this seems to suggest that minorities are strictly, or mostly, basing their behavior upon what others are doing, and not simply what they wish to do for themselves. 

For example, I am not a Baptist anymore.  Is it because I want to be different then the majority of my family who are still Baptists?  No, it's because I don't fuckin want to be Baptist anymore.  It's not because I want to be different from them, it's because it's what I want for me. 
Cynicism is a blank check for failure.

Random Probability

Quote from: Verbatim on May 12, 2008, 08:36:41 PM
MP, why do you insist on believing "the Jews" are a singular entity in any kind of real sense?
It's a convenient label to identify all persons joined together under the banner of a readily defined moral and religious belief system.  I'm not sure I understand your question.  Are you saying there are no such things as Jews?  Or are you making the distinction that they are (collectively) just as fractured and balkanized as their Christian and Muslim offspring? (both of whom I also consider to be Jews, at least as far as reminding them of this fact pisses them off.  I do this just for the lulz, though).

I know "the Jews" aren't organized as a singular entity in any way, shape, or form, but they all identify with the same religion and moral beliefs.  If they can identify themselves as such, I can call them as such.  Can't I?  If not, how can they claim persecution (considering that you imply they don't exist)?

Quote
I "bitch and moan" about the Holocaust, amongst other things, because my grandmother's family was revoked of its German citizenship, forced out of its home, had its property and holding seized, and was subsequently sent, for the most part, to Poland to be butchered. The fact that Hitler thought he was doing it to "the Jews" means nothing to me. No ideology of mine identifies me or anyone in my family as "the Jews". So explain to me how the fuck me or my family has anything to do with Canaan, and why I don't have a right to feel kinda pissed about what happened not far away from where I live, only decades before I was born?

Oh, well, I stand corrected.  If one simply looks closely at all of the individuals involved in anything, one quickly sees that there is no collective group at all.  Organized religions do not exist.  Nations don't exist.  It's all people acting individually.  I get it, now.  So the Holocaust didn't really happen either, because none of those people were really Jews. It was just random mass murder.  My bad.  I didn't understand that part.  Thank you for educating me.


Look Bub, you can be as pissed off as you want, but the people who fucked over your family are dead. All of them. That chapter is over.  Turn the page. On with the next chapter.  If you really want to talk about the last chapter, then don't get bent when somebody like me refers to chapters before that one.  The point being that the world owes holocaust survivors and their families exactly as much as they do the people of Canaan, Carthage, or the Cherokee Nation.  That is to say: nothing.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: Rev. Whats His Name? on May 12, 2008, 09:11:06 PM
1) I don't know if you've noticed while you've been here but I don't get involved with this 8-Circuit stuff.  So I'm afraid most of your above post means nothing to me.

That's too bad, this is one of the few times that the model would probably have been helpful.


Quote
2)  However the last two lines:  "Indeed... I would say that both the minority, intentionally trying to be 'different' (not all that unlike the Discordian who is absurd in order to be special) and the majority, intentionally trying to wipe out the competing tribe, are both behaving like human beings... the sad, damned creatures that we are."

Again, you keep talking about this minority, intentionally trying to be 'different'.  Is it your position or opinion that all minorities intentionally try to be different?  And further this seems to suggest that minorities are strictly, or mostly, basing their behavior upon what others are doing, and not simply what they wish to do for themselves. 

For example, I am not a Baptist anymore.  Is it because I want to be different then the majority of my family who are still Baptists?  No, it's because I don't fuckin want to be Baptist anymore.  It's not because I want to be different from them, it's because it's what I want for me. 

We as individual, may or may not act intentionally different. However, in at least some cases, the minority is acting differently, with the express purpose of being different.

When visiting Amish country once, we stopped by a yard sale and the Amish lady was getting rid of some dresses. My mom wanted to buy one, but she was politely told no. The Amish lady said that they dress and act differently, because they are "to be no part of the world". When asked what they would do if everyone began following their lifestyle, the lady said simply "We would change. We have no desire to be part of their world".

Jehovah's Witnesses, if you ask them, will provide a similar answer as to why their conduct is so different. No Part of this World. They want to be different, they want to be special, they WANT to stand out. The Jews have behaved in exactly the same manner since we have evidence of their existence. They are the Chosen People, everyone else are Gentiles.

So yes, the minority, in these cases are intentionally saying "US vs. THEM"... so, in response, the majority sees "US vs. THEM".  If political and social pressures are right, "Us vs. Them" becomes persecution.
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

AFK

Quote from: Ratatosk on May 12, 2008, 09:47:00 PM
Quote
2)  However the last two lines:  "Indeed... I would say that both the minority, intentionally trying to be 'different' (not all that unlike the Discordian who is absurd in order to be special) and the majority, intentionally trying to wipe out the competing tribe, are both behaving like human beings... the sad, damned creatures that we are."

Again, you keep talking about this minority, intentionally trying to be 'different'.  Is it your position or opinion that all minorities intentionally try to be different?  And further this seems to suggest that minorities are strictly, or mostly, basing their behavior upon what others are doing, and not simply what they wish to do for themselves. 

For example, I am not a Baptist anymore.  Is it because I want to be different then the majority of my family who are still Baptists?  No, it's because I don't fuckin want to be Baptist anymore.  It's not because I want to be different from them, it's because it's what I want for me. 

We as individual, may or may not act intentionally different. However, in at least some cases, the minority is acting differently, with the express purpose of being different.

Some cases, yes.  But without them stating outright that this is the reason they are the way they are, in my opinion, it is a perilous leap of logic to assume the reason for the way they behave is based upon others and not themselves.  It would seem to me that it makes more sense that people would generally want to act and behave in a way that fulfills them and satisfisfies their wills and desires.  Again, that's just how I would tend to see it, short of an outright declaration that the intent is to be different than someone else. 

Cynicism is a blank check for failure.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

So... hrmmm, this is tricky without sounding racist or like an asshole.

But, if we remove the human aspect of this topic:

Here is a petri dish:
We stick in a bunch of organism A, which tends to create colonies and protect the colonies by wiping out foreign organisms.
We stick in a small bit of organism B, which appears and behaves in a radically different manner than organism A.
We stick in a small bit of organism C, which is very closely related to organism B, but behaves and appears more like organism A.

Organism A will likely wipe out organism B, but it might not wipe out organism C... depending on how well Organism C hides.

Organism A may be very much like most, but not all, majority societies.
Organism B may be very much like some subcultures, or minority cultures in a given society.
Organism C may be very much like some subcultures, or minority cultures in a given society.

Voluntarily or involuntarily organism B is notably different and thus a target of organism A.

My personal take on religious minorities (based on my personal experiences) is that, in at least some sense, they are intentionally trying to be different.

If one believes the Pentateuch; The Law, from the 10 Commandments, to circumcision, to the fringe on the bottom of the robe... were all specifically and intentionally to set the Jewish nation apart and separate from the entire world around them. The same seems true of many, but not all other religious minorities as well...

and goths
and emo
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

Cain


Verbal Mike

Here's the point, MP. You said:
Quote from: Muffled Phosphor on May 12, 2008, 09:46:29 PM
I know "the Jews" aren't organized as a singular entity in any way, shape, or form, but they all identify with the same religion and moral beliefs.  If they can identify themselves as such, I can call them as such.  Can't I?  If not, how can they claim persecution (considering that you imply they don't exist)?
And yet, I do not identify with Jewish religion or morality. But Hitler would say I'm a Jew because my parents were Jews (by his definition) as were their parents etc. There is no "they". The group-entities "Nazis" and "Jews" both only exist in some senses, not in others. Both happen to have, or to have had, institutions that are/were very real and concrete. And yet both groups are sometimes applied to people on no concrete basis.
If all Jews were, as you seem to indicate, of the belief that The Jewish People are one everlasting entity, both responsible for Canaan and victim of the Holocaust, your argument might hold a tiny bit of water. But the fact is, a great many people who were killed for being Jews during the Holocaust did not believe themselves to be such. They were not killed for their beliefs, but for Hitler's beliefs.

And one last note: there are still a great many people who were members of the Nazi Party and are alive and well today. Germans seem to last incredibly long. I see people old enough to have done something every day, living in Germany. They are not all dead, nor are all the survivors. Most, indeed, but not all. Just so you know.
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

Cain

German Nazis in particular seem to lead exceptionally long lives.  Compare the great German thinker Hans Morgenthau with the Nazi Jurist Carl Schmitt, for example.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: Cain on May 12, 2008, 11:19:18 PM
German Nazis in particular seem to lead exceptionally long lives.  Compare the great German thinker Hans Morgenthau with the Nazi Jurist Carl Schmitt, for example.

and von Münchhausen...
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

hooplala

"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Muffled Phosphor on May 12, 2008, 06:54:16 PM

Welcome to entirely missing the point.

Thanks.  Where's the bathroom?

Quote from: Muffled Phosphor on May 12, 2008, 06:54:16 PM
All I'm saying is that they can't bitch about genocide without painting themselves with the same brush.  The secondary point was that genocide was acceptable to them when they were the ones doing it and that the practice still hasn't gone out of style.

There are still some Nazis left alive.

I'm pretty sure Moses' forces are all dead.

Meh.  How many living Jews were doing it?
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

hooplala

... that Wandering Joo has been around for a while...
"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Muffled Phosphor on May 12, 2008, 09:46:29 PM


Look Bub, you can be as pissed off as you want, but the people who fucked over your family are dead. All of them.

Actually, no, they aren't all dead.

When the last one swings by the neck, I will agree with you.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Hoopla on May 13, 2008, 04:22:46 AM
... that Wandering Joo has been around for a while...

HAR HAR!

Yeah, and I keep waiting for The Protocols to be mentioned ITT.

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Random Probability

Quote from: Verbatim on May 12, 2008, 10:11:13 PM
And one last note: there are still a great many people who were members of the Nazi Party and are alive and well today.

Point taken.  I was thinking of just the idiots with the gas chambers and ovens and neglected to consider the rest of them.  Like the Pope in Rome for instance.

As for the rest of it (vis a vis: Nazi death camp party van), that's largely a matter of how they selected their targets.  Obviously they're going to have their own criteria and their own reasons.  I believe the Jews saved the little virgin girls while they slaughtered all the other innocents, and I'm just as sure their criteria for "virgin" had more to do with physical attractiveness rather than an intact hymen.