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Victim mentality

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

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Verbal Mike

Quote from: Hoopla on May 01, 2008, 01:50:27 PM
The Jews really HAVE been a scapegoat for the world for a long time, though... to some degree their paranoia is justified, I think.
Of course. But the situation there has become absurd. Every time I hear Israelis talking about the votes in the Eurovision song competition, every country's vote regarding Israel is interpreted as a measure of their antisemitism and Holocaust-guilt. It's not paranoia, it's plain stupid.
I wouldn't dignify it by calling it a conspiracy theory. It's just stupidity mixed with crazy juice, and some healthy paranoia.
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

Lord Levy suffers from that too.

He's convinced the reason he has been fingered out in the Cash-for-Honours proble over here is because he's Jewish.  It has nothing to do with his nickname of Lord Cashpoint or his role as Tony Blair's chief fundraiser at all, and anyone who says so is just enabling his anti-Semetic haters.

:facepalm:

Cainad (dec.)

Quote from: NeophyteNihilist on May 01, 2008, 04:14:34 PM
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on May 01, 2008, 12:39:36 AM
I think a good example of this would be some elements of the Christian fundamentalists.  Y'know, the ones the government is oppressing by not allowing them to organize prayer in schools and academia is oppressing by alternately suppressing and ignoring creation science, and the media is oppressing by essentially declaring a war on values and trying to flood their homes with sex and depravity, and Wal-Mart is oppressing by saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, and the gays are oppressing by indoctrinating their schoolchildren with the Day of Silence.


:lulz:

hooplala

Quote from: Verbatim on May 01, 2008, 06:07:34 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on May 01, 2008, 01:50:27 PM
The Jews really HAVE been a scapegoat for the world for a long time, though... to some degree their paranoia is justified, I think.
Of course. But the situation there has become absurd. Every time I hear Israelis talking about the votes in the Eurovision song competition, every country's vote regarding Israel is interpreted as a measure of their antisemitism and Holocaust-guilt. It's not paranoia, it's plain stupid.
I wouldn't dignify it by calling it a conspiracy theory. It's just stupidity mixed with crazy juice, and some healthy paranoia.

When was the last time you were in mainland Europe?  When I was there last, it wasn't that far off the mark.
"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

Verbal Mike

I live in Germany. :D
It's not that there's no truth in the suspicion that some people hate Jews and some people feel guilty for the Holocaust... Of course it's true. But in Israel I always get the feeling people are unduly obsessed with it and let their opinion swing far too easily according to diplomacy... Israelis tend to think Americans love Jews, because the US is a strategic ally. In that article I translated, the guy mentions how France and England used to be Israel's big allies, before the US took their place... If you ask Israelis today what they think about France, the first thing that comes to mind is anti-Semitism. Sure, anti-Semitism exists in France...especially amongst the Muslim minority, which is just angry enough to go vandalize Jewish sites...of which there are a ton in France because of the huge Jewish community there... Which actually lives quite well.
So yeah, this paranoia isn't completely unfounded, but it sure as hell isn't realistic or reasonable.
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.

hooplala

Gotcha.  I understand now.
"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

Dido

Quote from: Verbatim on April 30, 2008, 12:49:40 PM
Comparing scars is ancient, primitive human behavior and is probably based on basic second-circuit male pecking-order politics more than anything else.
But trying to convince everyone you had it worse than they did, has imho more to do with Christian ethics than with wanting a hug. Christianity seems (in my very limited understanding thereof) to claim that suffering=virtue, and that if you've had a good life you're probably a sinner. I get the feeling this silly dichotomy is the kind of thing that saturates Western culture so deeply that it no longer even depends on religion for its continued existence.
A similar but distinct undercurrent exists in Jewish culture, where it has less to do with religion and more to do with history. There's a classic Jewish Mother joke that goes, four Jewish mothers are sitting in a restaurant, having a gourmet meal. A waiter comes by and asks, "is anything okay?". It's practically a tradition to whine and complain about things, to the point that it's become ironic. I think this is related to European Yiddish culture. The Jews of Europe suffered a lot in the dark and middle ages, when this culture emerged. The Yiddish language is so full of humor it might burst. When I think of a typical conversation between two Old World orthodox Jewish men, I see them complaining about everything and anything, in good humor. This cultural undercurrent is a natural host for the Christian suffering=virtue meme. Imagine, you make an art of complaining, and then come in contact with people who seem to believe the more you suffer, the better a person you are. Why wouldn't you play along? The combination can make you look good.
My guess is the personal victim mentality, of the holier-than-thou variety, is a distinctly Western element and would take on a very different form in Eurasian, Asian, and native cultures, if it is present in them at all.

~Verb,
starting to think Cultural Sciences is the BA he wants

If you have very little practical help to offer it is ingenious to convince everybody that their problems are just and adequate suffering and that endurance makes them eligible for metaphysical rewards. You do not have to do anything further, as problems are part of the package called human life. At first sight it seems strange that anybody would prefer that worldview to a "behave and the gods will do the same" but once a mode of thinking becomes part of a culture it takes a life of its own, even without the cognitive construct that served as the "embedding agent".


Dysfunctional Cunt

Let's be honest, other races and religions have fucked over the Jews for hundreds (eh thousands) of years.  How many cultures can take their religious training and cultural education back to BC and be truly accurate?  It is almost as if they are raised as victims.  IMO they have earned the right to bitch and moan.   Hitler gave them that right.

My issue is with those who "play" the victim role so well they actually believe they are a victim of something.  These pseudo-victims, in comparison to true victims, are ready, willing and always on the poor pitiful feel sorry for me tour.

True victims of things tend to be very quiet.  They live in fear and keep things low key.  You see this all the time in the women who have been victims of domestic violence.  The last thing they want to do is bring attention to themselves.  Keep quiet, behave, stay out of the way.  It's safe that way and you might live another day! 

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

That's true, and what's interesting is that I have known a couple of women who claimed loudly and repeatedly to have been victims of domestic abuse, yet when I saw them interacting with their (allegedly abusive) partners, they were extremely, aggressively verbally and emotionally abusive, and later when I got the story of the "abuse" incident from one of the men (who is physically about my size, although quite a bit stronger, and his wife is significantly taller, though probably not as strong) the truth was that she was being verbally abusive, he tried to go outside, she followed him, threw a jar at his head, grabbed him, and started hitting him in the face... at which point he snapped, and pushed her down and kicked her. The neighbor called the cops and they questioned each of them privately, and since Oregon law is that if there's a domestic violence call SOMEONE has to go to jail even if no charges are pressed, they were going to take her, but he was afraid it would be too "damaging to her spirit" if she went to jail so he asked the police to take him. They told him that by rights, they should take her, but gave in and took him.

That's the incident she refers to as "abuse". Poor, poor thing.

She STILL browbeats and abuses him, I can't stand the way she talks to him. I understand she still hits him whenever she feels like it, too. Meanwhile, he's the sweetest, quietest creature, will never tell her no to ANYTHING, and feels - get this - GUILTY when she gets upset with him. She leaves him every once in a while when she's "fed up with his bullshit", sleeps around, and tells him that if he divorces her she'll get the house because there's a "history of domestic violence".

It's seriously fucked up.

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Random Probability

Quote from: Khara on May 02, 2008, 03:06:35 PM
Let's be honest, other races and religions have fucked over the Jews for hundreds (eh thousands) of years.  How many cultures can take their religious training and cultural education back to BC and be truly accurate?  It is almost as if they are raised as victims.  IMO they have earned the right to bitch and moan.   Hitler gave them that right.

My issue is with those who "play" the victim role so well they actually believe they are a victim of something.  These pseudo-victims, in comparison to true victims, are ready, willing and always on the poor pitiful feel sorry for me tour.

True victims of things tend to be very quiet.  They live in fear and keep things low key.  You see this all the time in the women who have been victims of domestic violence.  The last thing they want to do is bring attention to themselves.  Keep quiet, behave, stay out of the way.  It's safe that way and you might live another day! 

Erm....  Am I the only one who noticed that your first point is invalidated by your second point?  I think you realized this, but were just afraid to come out and say it.

The only reason Jews still have a coherent religion and culture is because early in their history they adopted the belief that written words had magical properties and for the most part kept their book the same over the centuries.  They also benefited from the fact that their religious culture wasn't dependant upon an established state.  This allowed it to thrive during changes in real estate that other relgions couldn't match.

As for their right to bitch and moan, fuck them.  Yeah, they got butt hurt by the Nazis.  I bet that sucked, but it's no worse than what they've done to others.  In fact, reading up on what they did to the Canaanites, what Hitler's boys did was the equivalent of a schoolyard prank.  So, no, they have no right to bitch.  Not then, not now, not ever.

More to the point, if they truly were being victimized they would keep their filthy mouths shut.  Since they don't it is painfully obvious that they are no longer being oppressed, abused, persecuted, or bulldozed into mass graves.

LMNO

Hey now... what did the Jews ever do you you?

Random Probability

Quote from: LMNO on May 05, 2008, 07:10:47 PM
Hey now... what did the Jews ever do you you?

FUCK YOU!  MY MOM DIED FROM JEWS!

hooplala

Quote from: LMNO on May 05, 2008, 07:10:47 PM
Hey now... what did the Jews ever do you you?

Jackie Mason.
"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

Adios

I was a battered husband for 20 years. Victim mentality my ass, I WAS FUCKING STUPID.


Dido

Quote from: Cain on April 29, 2008, 01:36:26 PM

That's the most obvious example, but I believe this is just trickle down from another source – the body politic.  For quite a while now, the adoption of victimhood status has been a tool, one used by unscrupulous political organizations in order to promote and further their causes, as well as give their members a sense of grievance and anger any anyone not in their 'in-group'.  Hell, it even works on atheists, who you think would be more open to reasoning and trying to understand what makes people operate than most others.  The ethnocentric nature of it is useful for any aspiring leader.

Victimhood is a powerful tool, because it draws a group together and creates for them a collective experience which they interpret reality through. (...)

What is especially dangerous and worrying, however, is when a victim discourse becomes intertwined with a sense of humiliation.  Three prime examples of this are the three most powerful countries in the world right now, and their nationalist rhetoric. (...)

Victim mentality seems to become a part of a nation's collective rhetoric when a nation cannot convince
itself that it is being liked by the others. Both Russia and China are veterans in receiving extremely one-sided coverage. Obviously there is justified criticism in both cases but most people have long since been conditioned to react negatively when these two countries are mentioned. And there must have been a time when the USA had a predominantly positive image in the world but I cannot recall a period without simpering anti-Americanism (Again leaving aside the question of whether it was reasonable or not.)

In politics the victim card makes it possible to "milk" such a situation. You turn the "They seem to dislike us" into "they all hate us" ad the all-important "they have always hated us" and cite a suitable national tragedy as proof (if you do not have a recent one there is always history). If you succeed every further criticism from outside is another attack by people who never liked you anyway.