An epidemic of victims
'Internet suicide cult' rips apart town as SEVEN young people hang themselves
Read this story.
Pretty rough stuff. Now read the comments section at the bottom:
* Anon from Hampshire blames it on celebrity magazines and the 40 hour work week.
* Mike blames it on the theory of evolution.
* Graeme from Newcastle blames it on the social networking site "Bebo".
* Gary from Bridgend somewhat humorously blames it on Bridgend.
Lindsay40k informs me that DailyMail is biased, but I doubt the comments would be much different no matter where it was posted.
What's up with the victimization complex? My 85 year old grandmother (one of the most principled libertarians I know, though she'd never call herself one) calls me almost every time one of these stories pops up in the local newspaper. Inevitably, the next week's Opinion section is laden with comments looking for someone or something to blame. She's recalled to me several times about a boy who was killed by a car in New Jersey about 50 years ago. He ran out into the street after a ball, and someone hit him. The smallish community was pretty devastated, but the mood was marked by grief rather than outrage. If it happened today, could you imagine the uproar? "Should there be a civil suit? Were the parents to blame? What about stop signs, why weren't there any stop signs in foot traffic areas? Was the driver following the speed limit? If so, should it have been lowered? SOMEONE MUST BE AT FAULT!"
The truth is, often no one is at fault. The boy couldn't have known, the driver was doing everything right, and the community can't be expected to line every sharp corner with padding and bumpers. The West has lost the concept of tragedies. I'm not going to go into detail about the causes because it would be pretty ironic to start blaming in a piece about the naivety of blame, but let's just say it's my opinion that entitlement breeds victimization. With a sense of entitlement, a lack of satisfaction is equivalent to deprivation, resulting in a victim. Subsequently, tragedies cease to exist, replaced instead by failures to prevent harm.
Read this story.
Pretty rough stuff. Now read the comments section at the bottom:
* Anon from Hampshire blames it on celebrity magazines and the 40 hour work week.
* Mike blames it on the theory of evolution.
* Graeme from Newcastle blames it on the social networking site "Bebo".
* Gary from Bridgend somewhat humorously blames it on Bridgend.
Lindsay40k informs me that DailyMail is biased, but I doubt the comments would be much different no matter where it was posted.
What's up with the victimization complex? My 85 year old grandmother (one of the most principled libertarians I know, though she'd never call herself one) calls me almost every time one of these stories pops up in the local newspaper. Inevitably, the next week's Opinion section is laden with comments looking for someone or something to blame. She's recalled to me several times about a boy who was killed by a car in New Jersey about 50 years ago. He ran out into the street after a ball, and someone hit him. The smallish community was pretty devastated, but the mood was marked by grief rather than outrage. If it happened today, could you imagine the uproar? "Should there be a civil suit? Were the parents to blame? What about stop signs, why weren't there any stop signs in foot traffic areas? Was the driver following the speed limit? If so, should it have been lowered? SOMEONE MUST BE AT FAULT!"
The truth is, often no one is at fault. The boy couldn't have known, the driver was doing everything right, and the community can't be expected to line every sharp corner with padding and bumpers. The West has lost the concept of tragedies. I'm not going to go into detail about the causes because it would be pretty ironic to start blaming in a piece about the naivety of blame, but let's just say it's my opinion that entitlement breeds victimization. With a sense of entitlement, a lack of satisfaction is equivalent to deprivation, resulting in a victim. Subsequently, tragedies cease to exist, replaced instead by failures to prevent harm.