
The Joys of Victimhood (1989) - imartin2k
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/02/magazine/the-joys-of-victimhood.html?pagewanted=2&pagewanted=all
======
mazelife
When I hear someone (having, by their own description, a front-row seat for
these events) reduce the civil-rights movement to this:

“What I saw was a number of bad laws called into question and ultimately
removed by acts of courage and wise restraint on the part of the victims of
those laws.”

…as though the white-supremacist, apartheid state that existed in the south at
the time was nothing more than a few pesky laws that had all gotten cleared up
by 1968, I have to seriously question that person’s powers of observation.
It’s such an almost perverse misunderstanding of history that it has be
deliberate, right? Any time someone starts out with a premise like, “the civil
rights movement, like a spiritual oil spill, left a vast residue of guilt in
its wake,” and then proceeds from there, you know it’s going to be a long
read.

Sure, there’s an attempt to graft some sort of philosophical backbone to the
piece through this (nonsensical) distinction he makes between “appeal[s] to
conscience” and ”appeal[s] to guilt,” but it’s confusingly handled and doesn’t
go anywhere. Mainly what stands out for me is the relentless lack of empathy
that runs throughout this article, which is really more in the way of a rant
the a serious argument, anyway.

I think there’s a philosophical and moral argument to be had about victimhood,
and the problematic nature of it, but you need to argue honestly. One sentence
after he glibly absolves the government of responsibility for the AIDS crisis,
he says, “whereas once the idea was to shake off victimhood through courage
and organization, nowadays the idea seems to be to enjoy it for its emotional
effects,” as though ACT UP never existed. In other words, you can make an
argument, but you don’t get to rewrite or erase history that’s inconvenient to
your thesis, which he does consistently. It’s disappointing this made it to
the front page of HN, it’s a pretty unpleasant, dishonest piece of writing.

~~~
classicsnoot
Did you have a "front row seat" to the civil rights movement, or were you
exposed to it by a university professor? I ask because from your use of words
and barely restrained anger it appears that you deem that era as some sort of
holy crusade against evil. It may be that (i wasn't there) but as i study it
more it feels as if the the disenfranchisement of black folks was used as a
political motivation to exert state control over lifestyle choices. I know
that that sentence is blasphemy at my university, but the truth has a
delicious way of ignoring sentiment.

~~~
mercer
Could you elaborate on that? I'm very interested in that thought and I've
heard similar statements before.

------
alexandercrohde
> Such a situation could never have come about without certain fundamental
> confusions having been firmly established, and these begin with language
> itself. Victims have traditionally been minority groups, but in fact women,
> who in the United States are a slight majority, have been deemed victims,
> whereas the Jews and the Chinese in America, though clearly minorities (and
> vastly less numerous than blacks or Hispanic people), are not usually
> counted as victims and thus rarely get included in affirmative action or
> other quota favoritism programs. A victim, then, is someone who insistently
> declares himself a victim.

I was just wondering about this last year. I still haven't had anybody explain
it to me in a logically-consistent way. I think it's a fair ask.

~~~
nl
Minority status does not define victims, and instead it is about power.

There were a lot less British in India during the Raj than there were Indians.
It is pretty clear who the victim was then.

~~~
alexandercrohde
I'm not sure that explains why Chinese immigrants would be portrayed as
victims less than hispanic immigrants, as just one example off the top of my
head.

~~~
fenomas
> I'm not sure that explains why Chinese immigrants would be portrayed as
> victims less than hispanic immigrants

The question makes no sense - why expect all minority groups to be portrayed
equally as victims in the first place?

Just because many victims are minorities doesn't mean that the latter implies
the former. You might as well ask why Swedish immigrants aren't seen as
victims - the obvious answer is, because being a minority isn't what makes
someone be seen as a victim.

~~~
nl
_Just because many victims are minorities doesn 't mean that the latter
implies the former._

Exactly. It's clearly not correct at all.

It's almost like he knew that bit was a weak part of his argument, so
surrounded it with examples which would put people into ideological mode
instead of thinking for a moment about it.

------
moneytide1
Here in the South, there is this air of hospitality. But there is an irony
because everyone always rejects each others volunteer assistance out of pride
for their ability to take care of themselves. I see charity directed towards
me almost as an insult, or subtle attempted ownership, and there is this
competitive air about needing less than others.

But I suppose in more densely populated areas, there is more victimhood at
play. This is an education problem, because these people were never raised to
take care of themselves. Instead, they want to be owed something. This
"something" usually comes in the form of tax handouts, and when it is
distributed, I'm certain it is quite mismanaged. Think of all the impulse-buy
items near checkouts that are purchased with food stamps, when these people
could be combining this resource to buy in bulk and get much more out of it.

My mantra is to be a provider, not a consumer. It's not about how much you
make, it's about what you choose to spend it on.

It seems like these types of problems can only exist when there are too many
people living in close-proximity.

~~~
matt4077
"The South" is neither morally superior, nor more independent/self-reliant,
etc..

Guess which states get more than twice the taxes they pay to the federal
government back? Alabama, Mississippi, New Mexico, and other rural southern
states are taken the handouts from California and New York:
[https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vby1dJlsXmM/VtkJnusdGXI/AAAAAAAAJ...](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vby1dJlsXmM/VtkJnusdGXI/AAAAAAAAJqk/EQXnfNLOqT0/s1600/fed_spending_dollar.JPG)

Guess which teenagers are incapable of not getting pregnant at 14? The
southern, rural christians. Guess which states' citizen are dropping from
Opiod addiction like flies? Again, the south (plus similarly rural
Appalachia). Guess where food stamps are most used, where people are unable to
control their eating and are morbidly obese, which people smoke more, where
drunk driving is socially accepted, etc etc: the US South, and some rural
northern states, are worse than the large cities in almost any measure you can
think of.

~~~
nugi
So someone said something about the south, that does not make it okay to go on
a bigoted diatribe. Wtf.

~~~
moneytide1
Notice it's been 4 days and he/she has yet to reply to us. There is no debate
or conversation if there is no back&forth. We are not seeking interaction or
exchanges - only to be heard.

The Internet enables quantity, not quality. Belittle some strangers, sit at
the keyboard with a smug look, and possibly tell someone about it (with
tongue, not fingers).

Routines like this for decades on end are what cause opioid, food, alcohol
addiction, "etc etc".

It's more engaging to list problems instead of performing solutions?

------
Taniwha
Bear in mind this was written in the very same year that the same guy traded
on his own "victimhood" after being fired from his 20yr job for writing a
homophobic rant.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
When these people complain about others being special snowflakes and expecting
special treatment, what they really mean is that _they_ deserve special
treatment.

~~~
arionhardison
I have always thought this to be true. I find it ironic when whites complain
about programs like affirmative action when through laws such as Jim Crow, Red
Lineing, etc... they have been receiving affirmative action for hundreds of
years. What whites are really saying when they speak out against programs like
that is: "We deserve to be the only protected class of people".

~~~
Viliam1234
> I find it ironic when whites complain ... they have been receiving
> affirmative action for hundreds of years.

There is a part in the article explaining how "they" who benefited from Jim
Crow are not necessarily the same people as "they" who complain about being
discriminated against. Not necessarily even descendants thereof.

Instead, you often get ironic situations like Jewish people who barely escaped
Nazism while the rest of their families died in concentration camps, only to
get yelled at for being white and allegedly benefiting from Jim Crow.

------
dfsegoat
The number of parallels between now and 1989 are striking: victimhood == top
social currency, etc... It really is almost like we have these 20-30 year
social cycles... Perhaps this is known to the sociological literature - but
that's not my area. Just the same I find it fascinating.

~~~
GarvielLoken
Doesn't cycle imply that it went down in between?

------
krrrh
The same author on similar themes in 2015:

[http://www.weeklystandard.com/unassailable-virtue-
victims/ar...](http://www.weeklystandard.com/unassailable-virtue-
victims/article/941011)

------
stcredzero
_The pleasures of victim-hood include imbuing one 's life with a sense of
drama. The drama of daily life is greatly heightened if one feels that society
is organized against one._

This sounds very, very familiar!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcP0WmGB78A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcP0WmGB78A)

------
matt4077
This is a hateful diatribe that only serves to show that today's mocking of
calls for justice as "joyful victimhood" is not as new and creative as many
seem to believe.

the "victim"-narrative is lazy yet insidious: because anyone mentioning a
perceived wrong can be painted with the same non-argument, mocked, and
ignored.

How are people like this author, bemoaning the loss of white male supremacy,
never accused of playing the victim card? They are, after all, claim to
somehow be personally harmed from the mere exposure to other people just
mentioning poverty, discrimination, violence, etc.

------
mherdeg
Epstein's powerful prose captures well the New York intellectual views of a
certain culture and a certain generation. It's a fascinating perspective on
what people were thinking then. I was equally fascinated by the deep view of
the popular psyche shown in his September 1970 essay for Harper's Magazine,
featured on its cover (
[https://harpers.org/archive/1970/09/homohetero/](https://harpers.org/archive/1970/09/homohetero/)
):

> Yet if heterosexual life has come to seem impossibly difficult, homosexual
> life still seems more nearly impossible. For to be a homosexual is to be
> hostage to a passion that automatically brings terrible pressures to bear on
> any man who lives with it: and these pressures, which only a few rare
> homosexuals are able to rise above with any success, can distort a man, can
> twist him, and always leave him defined by his sexual condition. The same, I
> think, cannot be said about heterosexuals. With the possible exception of
> prostitutes and heterosexuals driven by abnormal appetites, the general run
> of heterosexuals are not defined by their sexuality at all. Although the
> power of sex is never to be underrated, in the main for most heterosexuals
> sex beyond adolescence becomes a secondary matter, a pleasure most of the
> time, a problem only in its absence. Homosexuality, on the other hand, is a
> full-time matter, a human status—and that is the tyranny of it.

> …

> I am not about to go into a liberal homily here about the need for private
> acceptance of homosexuality, because, truth to tell, I have not privately
> accepted it myself—nor, I suspect am I soon likely to. In my liberal (or
> Liberal's) conscience, I prefer to believe that I have never done anything
> to harm any single homosexual, or in any way added to his pain; and it would
> be nice if I could get to my grave with this record intact. Yet I do not
> mistake my tolerance as complete. Although I have had pleasant dealings with
> homosexuals professionally, also unpleasant ones, I do not have any
> homosexuals among my close friends. If a close friend were to reveal himself
> to me as being a homosexual, I am very uncertain what my reaction would
> be—except to say that it would not be simple. I clearly do not consider a
> man's homosexuality, as certain ihomosexuals would argue, merely a matter of
> sexual preference on his part, something vestigial to him, but instead I
> think it goes deep within him, that it cannot but have affected him
> strenuously, making him either a stronger man or a weaker, a better man or a
> worse—whichever, at all events, an essentially different man than he would
> be if he were not a For this reason, and from an absolutely personal point
> of view, I consider it important o know whether a man I am dealing with is a
> homosexual or nut. Not long ago the BBC did a retrospective on the art of
> Sergei Diaghilev. Every aspect of Diaghilev's illustrious career was covered
> from every possible angle, when the last man to be interviewed for the show,
> an aged Russian homosexual who was a friend of Diaghilev's from the 1920s,
> said: "Ze ting you must remember about Servei vas dat he vas a very
> aggressive homosexual." I think anyone who would ignore a fact of this kind
> in intellectual criticism or in life, is a fool.

> If I had the power to do so, I would wish homosexuality off the face of this
> earth. I would do so because I think that it brings infinitely more pain
> than pleasure to those who are forced to live with it; because I think there
> is no resolution for this pain in our lifetime, only, for the overwhelming
> majority of homosexuals, more pain and various degrees of exacerbating
> adjustment; and because, wholly selfishly, I find myself completely
> incapable of coming to turns with it.

> …

> They are different front the rest of us. Homosexuals are different,
> moreover, in a way that cuts deeper than other kinds of human
> differences—religious, class, racial—in a way that is, somehow, more
> fundamental. Cursed without clear cause, afflicted without apparent cure,
> they are an affront to our rationality, living evidence of our despair of
> ever finding a sensible, an explainable, design to the world. One can
> tolerate homosexuality, a small enough price to be asked to pay for someone
> else's pain, but accepting it, really accepting it, is another thing
> altogether. I find I can accept it least of all when I look at my children.
> There is much my four sons can do in their lives that might cause me
> anguish, that might outrage me, that might make me ashamed of them and of
> myself as their father. But nothing they could ever do would make me sadder
> than if any of them were to become homosexual. For then I should know them
> condemned to a state of permanent niggerdom among men, their lives, whatever
> adjustment they might make to their condition, to be lived out as part of
> the pain of the earth.

~~~
poster123
It is normal to want grandchildren, and therefore it also normal to be
distressed if your children are homosexual.

~~~
doomsauce
Sure, but replace each instance of "homosexual" in the above with "person who
does not want children" or "barren person" and see if you think that's why the
author is distressed.

------
PhasmaFelis
I love how he thinks that Israel bulldozing Palestinian neighborhoods and
killing civilians doesn't count as oppression because there's more Arabs than
Israelis in the general area.

~~~
nl
This was written in 1989. Settlements were much less of an issue then, and the
demographics were dramatically different.

~~~
Avshalom
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_Heights#De_facto_annexat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_Heights#De_facto_annexation_by_Israel_and_civil_rule)

~~~
nl
Indeed.

You'd be aware the the Palestinian state doesn't claim the Golan Heights?

I think that Israel has lost a lot of moral authority in the years since the
1980s.

But I think in 1981 annexing the Golan was a defensible choice: the Syrians
had constantly used them as place to launch artillery barrages against Israeli
towns like Tiberius.

The 1980s (especially the early 80s) really were different: there were Arab
states around Israel who would use their own armed forces to attack, and the
PLO hadn't disavowed terrorism.

Now of course times have changes, and Israel no longer can claim that those
threats, and settlements have made their problems worse. But Hamas and
Hezbollah have capitalized on that, so.. there is plenty of blame to go
around.

------
owenversteeg
Look, I see that it's a relevant article today. But I don't think it's saying
much, and it has a weird homophobic/racist current running through it. For
example, Epstein mocks the idea that the US government exacerbated the AIDS
crisis (which it clearly did.) He says slavery ended "more than a century" ago
- slavery effectively continued several decades after the Thirteenth Amendment
was passed.

Now, I don't like the idea of tearing down a good article just because the
author is an asshole. But in this case, I think the article isn't very good,
and the author also happens to be an asshole: this is the same guy that was
"revolted" by the idea of "fags" (both his words, though he later switched to
using "homosexuals".) The same guy that criticized people writing candidly
about death, the same guy who constantly thought he was being hunted by "men
with strange appetites, men whose minds were twisted". And the same guy who,
upon learning an acquaintance was gay, was "angry at being victimized by his
duplicity."

Oh, and the same guy who thought it was better for a gay man to commit suicide
than act upon his unrealized gay desires. It'd be very interesting to read a
good article on victimization from someone who isn't so horrible, though: it
is an important topic, and there are many interesting things, which are
frequently left unsaid, to be said about it.

~~~
averagewall
It was more acceptable to be homophobic back then so you have to cut him a
little slack. They wouldn't publish a new article like that today. There isn't
some fundamental truth about good and bad things to write - it depends on how
people judge you, which depends on the arbitrary changes in culture.

~~~
krrrh
The same author in a 2015 article I linked to elsewhere in this discussion:

“In 1970, some 45 years ago, I wrote an essay in -Harper’s on the subject of
homosexuality. The chief points of my essay were that no one had a true
understanding of the origins of human homosexuality, that there was much false
tolerance on the part of some people toward homosexuals; that for many reasons
homosexuality could be a tough card to have drawn in life; and that given a
choice, owing to the complications of homosexual life, most people would
prefer their children to be heterosexual. Quotations from that essay today
occupy the center of my Wikipedia entry. In every history of gay life in
America the essay has a prominent place. When I write something controversial,
this essay is brought up, usually by the same professional gay liberationists,
to be used against me. That I am pleased the tolerance for homosexuality has
widened in America and elsewhere, that in some respects my own aesthetic
sensibility favors much homosexual artistic production (Cavafy, Proust,
Auden), cuts neither ice nor slack. My only hope now is that, on my
gravestone, the words Noted Homophobe aren’t carved.”

------
shawndumas
one page view

[http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/02/magazine/the-joys-of-
victi...](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/02/magazine/the-joys-of-
victimhood.html?pagewanted=2&pagewanted=all)

~~~
dang
We've changed to that from [http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/02/magazine/the-
joys-of-victi...](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/02/magazine/the-joys-of-
victimhood.html?pagewanted=1). Thanks!

