We live in a society of victimization, where people are much more comfortable being victimized than actually standing up for themselves.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There is a fetishization of victimization in our culture. And I just am not interested in victimhood.
It's very attractive to people to be a victim. Instead of having to think out the whole situation, about history and your group and what you are doing... if you begin from the point of view of being a victim, you've got it half-made. I mean intellectually.
What's good about talking about being victimized is that it is the beginning of being able to stop it.
When people don't like themselves very much, they have to make up for it. The classic bully was actually a victim first.
As I said, if you don't stand up for yourself, people aren't going to think that you can stand up for them.
The idea of victimage is a dreadful thing, a product of a safe middle-class perspective. What people who are not safe develop is a tragic wisdom, a wisdom that embraces contradiction and seeks a sense of balance rather than going to extremes.
Everybody is not a victim.
I'm not a victim, and I don't need to behave like one.
It is very difficult for people to believe the simple fact that every persecutor was once a victim. Yet it should be very obvious that someone who was allowed to feel free and strong from childhood does not have the need to humiliate another person.
Standing up to bullies is the hallmark of a civilized society.