I don’t know if it’s the prevalence of therapy in our society now, or the effect of “social justice ‘warrior-ing'” for the better part of a decade, but we have a proliferation of perpetual victimhood in this country–and its damaging effects can be seen in a lot of places.
You probably heard that it was a very “interesting” week here at work. I’m not going to get into all the details here–we have a story posted on WHBY.com with all of the legal filings–but suffice it to say it’s not a good look. When I got to the YMCA today, two guys that know who I am and what I do for a living asked me “What the hell is going on over there?” And I answered them the same way: “Perpetual victimhood.”
Needless to say, that caught them quite off guard. If I had responded “I don’t know, man, it’s crazy” or “How stupid was that?” I likely play to their pre-conceived notions of what they believe would be motivating factors. But “perpetual victimhood” made them really have to think about why someone would do that.
At its core, this controversy centers on a person that feels he has been aggrieved by another organization. It should be noted, the action took place several years ago, and since that time, the subject was able to find an even better opportunity. But that new opportunity was not enough. Revenge was apparently needed, even if that required action that bordered on criminal activity.
How do I know that the feeling of victimhood never went away? Let’s just say there was plenty of opportunity to hear about it, day after day, featuring intricate details, backbiting criticism, gossip, and lurid accusations. I wouldn’t describe it as “borderline” obsessive, it was full-on obsessive–and it was irritating and off-putting.
Like being an NBA head coach, in media, you are “hired to be fired”. As I’ve mentioned previously in this forum, I can count the number of retirement parties that I have attended for long-time media people on fewer than two hands–and I’ve been around for almost 30-years. I myself got “The Ziggy” (as Dick Vitale calls getting canned) in 2018. Do you know how long I harbored resentment toward my former employer? Until about five second after walking into the office to start my new job here, because I realized that my situation here was going to be a hell of a lot better than my situation there.
But that’s not the way so many of us (especially the younger generations) see things anymore. The person, company, organization, political party, or “system” that they think “wronged” them must be made to pay, to be vilified, to be dismantled, and to be publicly shamed. And even then, the “impact” is never to be considered “fully accounted for”.
It’s no surprise that my former co-worker found a willing accomplice in the world of social media. Every post about “why did this bad thing happen to me?” is met with endless responses about how “it’s not your fault”, or “they screw everybody”, or “somebody needs to do something about that so it never happens again”, or “the system is rigged against people like you”–even if it was the original posters own fault and they are merely having to live with the consequences of their own actions. Add to that the anonymity afforded by the internet, and making another person’s life a living hell–even if they had nothing to do with what made you “a victim” in the first place–becomes relatively easy.
Of course, someone on Facebook had to send me a link to two other former co-workers who put together a videocast with their “thoughts” on the matter. Just imagine 50-minutes of additional perpetual victimhood interspersed with celebration of making their former employer look bad. To further prove my point, they took time to read the comment thread–again, full of “You guys got screwed!!” and “Eff those clowns” from sycophants willing to actually pay for the feed.
I have to stress, the situation this “local celebrity” enjoyed now was, by his own admission, so much better than the situation that he left–but he just couldn’t give up that victimhood status, holding on to those feelings to the point of self-destruction. And causing damage to those who tried to provide a path to success for him.
But he is certainly not alone. Today, everyone has a “condition” (usually self-diagnosed), a “gender”, a “cultural heritage”, or a “socio-economic status” that they are 100% positive is holding them back from whatever they consider to be success in life or from finding happiness. Even when accommodations are made for them, systems are altered for them, special doors are opened for them, they refuse to surrender their belief that they are somehow “less than”–because if you do that, then all of those accommodations might go away.
The English poet George Herbert is credited with coining the phrase “Living well is the best revenge”. It meant absorbing the blows from others and striving to be better than the person who delivered them. Today, the only revenge being sought is to stay down in the mud, and trying to drag that other person down lower than you.
