Alison Croggon wrote:
>
> At 7:31 PM -0400 9/21/02, Frederick Pollack wrote:
> >Yes, it's terrible, terrible ... makes one ashamed to be straight or
> >male or whatever's wrong ... I'm glad it's no one on this list ... But
> >y'know: arrogance may be in the eye of the beholder, and self-confidence
> >and knowledge are not the worst vices to have. (Even if the latter is
> >"showy.") And sometimes the howl of the wolf is more interesting than
> >the bleat of the sheep.
>
> Couple of misapprehensions here, certainly from my point of view. To
> point out an endemic discrimination of which people have been victims
> is not necessarily the same as creating a cult of victimhood. I get
> very sick of this conflation: they are actually two different
> processes. What you're saying here is the same as those who think
> that acknowledging the crimes done to Aboriginal people in the
> settlement of Australia means feeling "guilty" to be white. It
> doesn't, it just means looking honestly at one's history and soberly
> considering what it might mean. Such a process seems to me a crucial
> step towards self understanding, and Australia's general reluctance
> to do so explains, for me, an awful lot of the dishonesty and
> nihilism in our public life.
>
> I know this victimhood cult exists: I think it pernicious, in all its
> forms. You can see it everywhere; among other things, it's a handy
> motivation for a consumerist society. It's deeply patronising, and
> at its worst it makes of the victim a martyr and conveys an implicit
> virtue which inoculates the victim against all responsibility for
> his/her actions. Ultimately, it utterly destroys a sense of self
> agency. However, being, for example, a woman doesn't absolve one from
> responsibility for one's own racism. Or whatever. Very few of us
> inhabit neat subsets of humanity, except in the fantasies of
> eugenicists and biological determinists.
>
> What Liz is speaking of, undoing the interior tangles, is rather more
> complex and difficult than mere "blame". And it's not as if it's a
> process that is ever easy, or over.
>
> Best
>
> A
>
> --
Your remark that the cult of victimhood is itself an aspect of
consumerism is dead on, and opens (for me) previously unseen
perspectives. In the US there are so many of these cults - many more
than there are minorities, since one can be Disabled Gay Female Black
etc. etc. What I opposed in them is, first, that they substitute a
moral for a political language and preclude real politics; they urge
organization, even coalition, and make them impossible. Second, that
the language and the whole way of reasoning and feeling are perfectly
available to oppressors - to fundamentalists, anti-abortionists, even
white supremacists. But you're right; it's also an aspect of niche
marketing.
In a literary context, however, I stand by my remark about sheep and
wolves.
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