The Curse of Victimhood

The week before last I visited the Guggenheim museum in New York. That is always a wonderful experience. The main exhibition this time was about futurist Italian art of the first half of the twentieth century. This was excellent, but the show that has lingered in my mind is a smaller piece of contemporary art from Latin America.

Much of this exhibition was too modern for me, and few individual pieces resonated. What did come through was a theme. Almost all the pieces were inspired as a protest against the legacy in Latin America of the USA.

It was almost as if these artists could not release themselves from a feeling of victimhood. Rather than expressing anything at all about their own cultures, they chose instead to rebel against another one.

It is possible, of course, that the location for the exhibition had led the curators to choose works of a particular theme. But I doubt it. I have seen earlier examples of the same thing, for example in a documentary I saw a couple of years ago. And it clear from the politics of the region that only recently have a few countries started to escape from the politics of protest to those of development.

To their credit, all people from the USA that I have spoken to about the exhibition expressed the same sentiment. None are surprised, and all are ashamed of the legacy of their own country. We should not forget that this negative legacy still persists, for example in the outdated embargo of Cuba, the perverse effects of US drug policy, and failed coups as recently as the last decade in Venezuela. But for me it offers some hope that US citizens, at least in my biased sample, can see their bullying for what it is. For that is an important precursor to change. It will be a while before similar sentiments occur as widely in regard to other places, such as Iraq or China.

Why might it be that such a victim mentality becomes so pervasive? Thinking about it, it might be because the mentality is so seductive.

What can be easier than assuming a victim role? In almost everything we do, there is some justification, for life is never fair. Once we position ourselves as victim, nothing can ever be our fault, as there is always someone else to blame for any outcome. We don’t even need to solve much, as we can dwell in the past and mentally expect our bully to solve our problems for us.

Further, as a politician, stirring up victim status is a sure-fire vote winner. We all have grudges. Emphasising them creates empathy, as well as absolving the politician from any need to promote any positive policies.

Examples are everywhere. In the political world, start with any ex-colony, which of course covers pretty well everyone. Then look at any minority – riots in Ferguson are rooted in a sense of victimhood dated back to slavery and the civil rights movement.

This week, an excellent essay in the Economist tried to establish a winning foreign policy towards China based on trying to get inside the Chinese mind. It will be no surprise to learn that a sense of victimhood may the biggest driver. Chinese feel victims of perceived injustice from Japan and others from the nineteenth century. They also struggle to see why they should act responsibly themselves in global affairs, while the US chooses to have airbases in neighbouring countries, to defend (in Taiwan) what they see as a historical anachronism, and to invade anywhere it likes on the flimsiest of pretexts. It is so much easier to focus on the perceived guilt of others rather than on our own responsibilities. Russia and Ukraine is not so different a story.

Then there is the Middle East. Hamas will cut off its own nose to spite its face over the injustices of Israel. It is very hard for Iran to reach any nuclear deal appearing to let the perceived root cause of its victimhood off the hook. Now we have IS. If ever there is a group grounded on victimhood, this is it, and it is a mistake to assume that few will follow such an extreme ideology.

Sadly, commentary in the West shows that there is little intelligent thinking about such matters. People consider only military or economic options to weaken them – options which of course will only strengthen the victimhood and widen the appeal. You would have thought we would have learned this lesson by now. Instead, we have to understand root causes and work painstakingly to remove justifiable grievances.

So we can conclude that most of us can feel victims about our national or religious history. But that is just the start. At work, we all have bosses or former bosses who have turned us into victims. We can resent the lot of our gender, race or sexual orientation. We can curse former lovers or even current ones. And, perhaps most of all, come our parents. Nearly all of us have slipped into blame mode about our parents at some stage.

Individual victimhood is just as damaging as collective victimhood. Take depression or addiction. We know that guilt and shame are usually root causes. Denial stops us addressing these. And behind the denial lies victimhood – why we can moan that the world isn’t fair, we can avoid facing up to our problems. It is not a coincidence that twelve step programmes start with denial and its causes, or that religions emphasise the benefits of counting our blessings.

So victimhood is everywhere, it is seductive and it is completely debilitating. The other issue is that it sticks around for generations, finding ways to feed itself. Any slight can feed the victim’s grievance. I lived in Northern Ireland so witnessed at first hand how entrenched victimhood can become.

So I started thinking about possible lessons and discovered two.

The first lesson is obvious. It is about what to do if we find ourselves slipping into a victim mentality. It is not difficult to see the signs, and it is clear that we have to fight them. Counting our blessings is a great start. Getting honest feedback is good too. Distrusting politicians and others who lure us into victimhood can only do good. Seductive it may be, but victimhood only does us damage.

But the more interesting lesson is to look at the issue from the other side. What if I am the bully in this relationship, the one that induces victimhood in others?

There is a wonderful current example of this, in the form of the upcoming Scottish referendum. The hypocrisy of most of us English is stunning. At the same time that we cast ourselves as victims of the EU, we fail to note the parallel to our own role vis a vis Scotland. When considering the EU, we only think with our hearts. But for Scotland, we only think with our heads. In one case emotion trumps logic, in the other logic trumps emotion.

One lesson is to be aware of this. Logic can help us from failing into a victim mentality. But logic is pretty useless when trying to persuade a victim to change, especially when we are seen as the bully. Our logic only makes things worse.

Hence Cameron or Osborne or the “English” press lecturing or threatening Scots about such matters as sharing the pound is totally counter-productive. The reaction is to dig in further. The whole No campaign has been hopelessly misguided.

Luckily, we have Alaistair Darling. It is conceivable that this rather modest and geeky man could go down as the leading British hero of the last ten years. His performance as chancellor during the financial crash was superb, despite utter chaos going on around him in the form of a deranged boss. Now he may have kept the union together with his classy defeat of Alex Salmond in the TV referendum debate.

So the lessons are clear. If you might be bully, lay off, don’t try to coax the victim with logic, you will only make things worse. Leave it to others, preferably wise voices from the victim camp itself, to make your arguments. Further, be aware that anything you do or say will probably be misinterpreted and used to feed the victimhood. So say and do little. If you have to do something, use third parties, inordinate care, and complete transparency. Ferguson police department take note. Finally, always try to understand and acknowledge the justifiable grievances, with humility and context. Only that way can we painstakingly work at reducing those grievances.

So as usual a museum trip paid a great dividend, in a surprising way. Thank you Guggenheim creators and suffering Latin American artists, though I hope you are not reading this since my logic will probably only deepen your anger. By the same token, Scots, I’d dearly love you to vote No, but I doubt whether asking you to will do any good.