American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks penned a column recently on the culture of victimization. Brooks notes that “‘victimhood culture’ has now been identified as a widening phenomenon by mainstream sociologists.” This culture disempowers the people it victimizes and prevents them from actualizing their potential, argues Brooks.
Brooks cites a 2010 psychological study that found that reminding people of a time they felt victimized can change their behavior. People who wrote a short essay about a time when they were wronged or treated unfairly were more likely to act selfishly than a separate group prompted to write about a time they were bored.
Another study cited by Brooks, Microaggression and Moral Cultures, finds that victimhood culture focuses on people’s weaknesses, not their strengths.
When people focus on a time when they were treated unfairly, they act differently. Accordingly, victimhood culture, which focuses on people as weak victims, is likely to change people’s behavior for the worse. Just take a look at Yale, where some students can’t bear to live anymore because a professor dared to suggest they open their minds.
If victimization has a corrosive impact on people, what happens when one does the opposite and works to empower people?
During a TED Talk in 2014, the father of the remarkably brave Malala Yousafzai said,
Malala did not stop going to school because of death threats, nor was she silenced by the gunman who shot her. Instead, she shared her story and worked to help girls access education worldwide. It’s remarkable that even under these circumstances she didn’t allow herself to be victimized, but empowered. The world is better off because her father did not clip her wings.
