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[LoSboccacc]

a victimhood culture doesn't seem self sustaining. it relies on authority to provide order. it seems more a byproduct of a honor culture, them being the group of people that alpha pushed around and now look to win their favors.

[Reelya]

I don't think it came out of honor cultures actually, it evolved on college campuses and has it's root in dignity cultures and victimhood activism. If we view things as fundamentally economic, then victimhood culture would flourish in an environment in which that behavior would see more resources allocated to both the victim group and anyone who publicly supports the victim group. College administrations provide the necessary resources to maintain the behavior. College administrations operate in the environment of dignity cultures, in which if there is a dispute, you mediate so that there's a fair outcome. Victimhood culture is feeding off that aspect of dignity culture.

[LoSboccacc]

but still you need them bullies

[Reelya]

No you really don't need any bullies.

There was the furore around a white guy messaged about "futbol" to a hispanic student when inviting them to play soccer. The hispanic student made a big deal out of having their culture "appropriated" by the white man.

There was the outrage about facebook mourning a white transgender suicide, with activists slamming the mourners because they weren't mourning a specific black transgender person instead.

Then there's stuff like manspreading. For example one woman went around sitting on men in the subway. She presented herself as a victim and them as the bullies, when to any reasonable person, I'd call her behavior the bullying. But she's the defined victim class, so doing what is legally a crime of physical assault is justified to her and her supporters.

There was another one where a woman basically shoulder-charged men in the street to prove that men are bullies who won't get out of women's way.

[smjjames]

I don't get the first one, isn't 'futbol' a rather common way of spelling it?

[Reelya]

Apparently not if you're a white American, because the (female) hispanic student was like "we own that spelling". I didn't mention her gender before because it's not relevant to the story, but if she'd had any inkling that could be construed as sexism I'm sure that would have been all over the story too.

EDIT: Another example is Emory university, where students protested to the administration about someone merely chalking "Trump 2016" around the campus:

One Emory senior bemoaned that the pro-Trump graffiti artists failed to “[t]hink about how your language can be oppressive toward other people.”...


Roughly 40 students gathered shortly after 4:30 p.m. in the outdoors space between the Administration Building and Goodrich C. White Hall; many students carried signs featuring slogans such as “Stop Trump” or “Stop Hate” and an antiphonal chant addressed to University administration, led by College sophomore Jonathan Peraza, resounded “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!” throughout the Quad. Peraza opened the door to the Administration Building and students moved forward towards the door, shouting “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Yeah, so it's oppressive to even mention the word "Trump" at all, and students were demanding that punishment be handed down to people who chalked "Trump 2016" on the footpath. Eventually however the President of Emory put his foot down and himself chalked “Emory stands for free expression!” which pissed off the protesting students no end.

[origamiscienceguy]

On the internet, victim culture doesn't really work as well 

[Neonivek]

On the internet, victim culture doesn't really work as well 

Dang Tumblr

[TempAcc]

Thats because a working victim culture requires a structure with power to support and provide tangible benefits from being victimized, and to punish the agressor. In the internet people are protected by anonymity and lack of actual presence, so presenting yourself as a victim is much more likely to make you into a target than actualy netting you any other benefit than pretend texthugs from other people seeking to cash in the sympathy e-points.

Which is good.

Plus, ye, they're not sustainable. Eventualy everyone wants to be a victim of someone else and the whole trashpile collapses, specially when met with another group that can reap benefits from being the agressor.

[LoSboccacc]

Plus, ye, they're not sustainable. Eventualy everyone wants to be a victim of someone else and the whole trashpile collapses, specially when met with another group that can reap benefits from being the agressor.

that describes pretty well the alt-right resurgence

[Reelya]

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/opinion/sunday/the-real-victims-of-victimhood.html
Both sides have the victimhood thing going though, to be fair. It's definitely harmful:.

Second, victimhood culture makes for worse citizens — people who are less helpful, more entitled, and more selfish. In 2010, four social psychologists from Stanford University published an article titled “Victim Entitlement to Behave Selfishly” in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The researchers randomly assigned 104 human subjects to two groups.

Members of one group were prompted to write a short essay about a time when they felt bored; the other to write about “a time when your life seemed unfair. Perhaps you felt wronged or slighted by someone.” After writing the essay, the participants were interviewed and asked if they wanted to help the scholars in a simple, easy task.

The results were stark. Those who wrote the essays about being wronged were 26 percent less likely to help the researchers, and were rated by the researchers as feeling 13 percent more entitled.

In a separate experiment, the researchers found that members of the unfairness group were 11 percent more likely to express selfish attitudes. In a comical and telling aside, the researchers noted that the victims were more likely than the nonvictims to leave trash behind on the desks and to steal the experimenters’ pens.

Being indoctrinated into thinking that you're a victim turns people into selfish jerks basically. Which shouldn't be totally surprising, really.

[Neonivek]

were rated by the researchers as feeling 13 percent more entitled

O_O... Uhhh... what?

[Reelya]

Probably "Entitled" as in "acting entitled" or "demanding".

And when it says "13 percent more" they probably mean that 13% more subjects were considered to be acting "entitled" on a true/false question asked of the researchers.

We know that the brain has specific circuitry related to fairness, such has also been demonstrated in primates. What this research has done is to trigger that circuitry, which puts the mind into a mode where it's looking for fairness redress in general. And paradoxically, that makes the subject act unfairly by victimizing other people (leaving trash, stealing pens) who had nothing to do with the situation they felt was unfair in the first place.

[Neonivek]

In all fairness if I just wrote an essay talking about how much of a victim I am... I probably wouldn't be in the mood to do it even further... read my freeken essay!

[Reelya]

That's kind of the point, writing the other type of essay didn't trigger anything like stealing or refusal to be helpful.