Interesting article "Why do we victim-blame?"

[deleted] · 2015-03-23T09:13:29+00:00

People confuse responsibility with blame all the time. Pretty much all that "victim blaming" is people pointing out the responsibility aspect. It happens to be that a big part of the modern feminism is about making sure that women are never held responsible for their actions, so of course then it's easy to put together responsibility and blame. However, society as a whole is a lot about avoiding responsibility, so this is just not exclusive to women and responsibility. You can even see some endorsed TRPers at the TRP sub avoiding responsibility and absolving other men from responsibility. That goes against the "red pill message", in my opinion.

In the Western world, we probably live in the safest time/space of our entire history, but that's still not completely safe. Once you are an adult it's your, and yours only, responsibility to take care of your well-being. That includes taking care of your needs and wants, your health, your safety, everything. No one else should be responsible for you unless there are some handicaps or something. It seems that, today, in 2015, this is still alien to some people. You have to do your best for yourself, that's how it goes. Keeping yourself safe is your responsibility.

When you perform any action, say something, whatever, you must own the consequences, the good or the bad, that's a responsibility. Being responsible for something is not a negative thing. I think that this is how we presented it, especially from media. "He's responsible for it" means something with a somehow negative connotation, like if taking care of something is something we'd prefer to avoid (it's easier, certainly).

Always, in any incident, every side involved has responsibility. Sometimes that's minor to the point of almost non-existent, but in other cases, the responsibility aspect is much bigger. I go the shop, there's an armed robbery, I confront the robber, I get shot. I'm the victim, 100%, but the moment I decided to go and stand up to this person, I took an action with a consequence and I'm responsible of that action. Not the robber, not the shop owner, not the police, me, I am the sole responsible of my action. I didn't pull the trigger, it's not my fault, but again, my responsibility on getting shot and killed was that I went to face that robber. What's the robber responsibility? This person is committing a crime and shot me, that's their responsibility. What's the shop owner's responsibility? This or that. What was the police's? That thing or that other thing. Everyone has a share of responsibility.

When I forget to lock my house or my car and someone robs it, it's not my fault, I'm not to blame, but I failed to take care of my belongings, that was my aspect of responsibility. I failed to be responsible for my belongings. The thief has their own responsibility.

I didn't read the original discussion, but I bet it was about drunk sex and rape. So let's look at it :

You're the only person responsible for your own well-being. That's your responsibility. Other people have theirs.
The world, while safer than ever before, is still filled with predators and nasty people. Some will scam you, some will rape you, some will exploit you, that's how it is. Life's not fair and bad things happen.

Said this :

You're a young girl who goes to a party with lots of strangers. You get totally smashed to the point that you are barely sentient. A predator, someone who ignored the "teach men not to rape", someone who doesn't give a fuck about your feelings or your well-being, will "help" you up to some room and rape you.

Who's to blame? The rapist. What's the rapist's responsibility? They committed a crime, attacked your well-being, seized the opportunity to prey on someone who couldn't defend herself. If caught and proven, this person will go to jail.

What is your responsibility? You failed to take care for your well-being by taking some big risks. Is it your fault? Nope. Did you deserve to be raped because you were drunk? Nope. Were you asking for it? Nope. Yet this doesn't absolve you from your responsibility, nor absolves the rapist.

Let's take another example :

I go to a party filled with strangers. I got a lot of cash in my wallet because I got to pay some stuff tomorrow in the morning. I'm a tee totaler, but decide to drink a bit. I get drunk quickly to the point that I have no idea where I am. Someone realizes this, "helps" me outside and steals my wallet with all that money.

Same as above. The thief is to blame 100%, but what is my responsibility? I went out with a lot of cash in the wallet. Did I deserve to have it stolen? Nope, but I could have been smarter. I got very drunk. Did I deserve to have my money stolen? Nope, but I decided to drink too much when I know I don't have much resistance to it. Was it my fault? Am I to blame? Not really, the criminal is, but I failed to take responsibility over me and my belongings. That's how it is.

One day responsibility and blame/fault will stop being confused and people will learn to take responsibility for their actions. Life's not safe, life's unfair, you better realize this. It's not about living in fear, but caution is important.

The idea that misfortune can be random, striking anyone at any time, is a terrifying thought, and yet we are faced every day with evidence that it may be true.

So better close our eyes to it and put up some fantasy to live in.

And people wonder why I'm red pilled...

DaThrowaway808 · 2015-03-23T13:14:10+00:00

Why on earth do we need psychology today to explain this. We blame victims because victims quite often bring what happens to them on themselves or put themselves in situations where victimization need not have occurred. When someone is lighting firecrackers in their hands and blows off a finger, we blame him, not the firecrackers.

Why does it need analyzed from any other perspective.

Blaming the victim is our impulse to take a lesson from the experiences of others and use them to avoid danger. "Ooooooo, she got drunk and went alone to a dorm room with a guy she just met at a party and got raped?? She shouldn't have done that. That could happen to me to!! I shouldn't do that" was the normal human response to that situation throughout all of space and time until leftism and feminism began their War on Reality (from now on to be know at the WoR)

adrixshadow · 2015-03-23T08:49:26+00:00

In our current society women are like lemmings falling of a cliff.

What women want is society to take special care to steer them so that they don't get themselves in trouble.

The truth of the matter is if you do not take responsibility over your own life, no one will. Society can only do so much.

lbspredh · 2015-03-24T01:16:16+00:00

I think some of it stems from a desire to see these crimes happen less, one of the ways is to make it harder for the criminal to commit the crime in the first place, I don't think it's victim blaming to say you shouldn't go out alone at night, sure ideally it should be fine to go out alone at night, but in the real world it's just dangerous to be out alone at night.

I assumed you mean this sort of thing rather than the "she was asking for it dressed like that" BS that is a lot rarer.

[deleted] · 2015-03-23T10:10:57+00:00

I think a lot of it is down to anxiety. Let's say you hear someone recently got mugged in your area. You don't want to think that when you step out of your house tomorrow it could happen to you. What you want is to think that you are doing something he is not in order to prevent this from happening, that you are safe from this threat because you're taking the right precautions, so if it happened to that other guy it's his own fault for not being smart like you.

To a level this is true of course. If it's the middle of the night and you pull out an iPhone 6 Plus in a dodgy area you are running a higher risk of being mugged than someone who is keeping their phone in their pocket and just walking through the area inconspicuously.

But you don't know if that other guy had his phone out or not really, you just want that to be true because then you can console yourself with the idea you'd never do something like that. And someone could come up to you even if you aren't showing any luxury items because they know everyone has smartphones worth half a grand on them these days anyway.

Whether or not this applies to something like sexual assault is a trickier matter though. Mugging is an opportunistic crime but most rapes are not committed by strangers but by people you know and trust. So the way I see it there isn't too much logic in saying "don't wear short skirts" to women when the fact is opportunistic rapists are pretty rare. Really they need to be wary around the people they know and trust. As we all should, because you're most likely to be murdered by those people too.

That said, it's still a smart idea to learn self-defence, because that can help you if the attacker is a stranger or someone you know, so that can't exactly hurt. And the bottom line is that giving advice on how to protect yourself in general is not necessarily placing blame on anyone. I lock the door when I go out but that doesn't mean it's my fault if the house is broken into, it just means I'm taking precautions to make it more difficult because I know the threat exists.

Ajaxeler · 2015-03-23T11:40:48+00:00

In our local indigenous culture this was how traditionally rape was handled. The perpetrator was circled and shamed and then their Achilles heel was cut with a blade. They either became lame for life or died of blood loss.

Funny enough, before western civilisation entered rape was very rare. because the consequences were too high. Now of course that kind of stuff is considered assault and there is a jury and prison which doesn't seem to do much.

Basically society is kinda fucked up i don't have the answers but victim blaming is not the right answer. And if you think that then please stay the fuck away from me and don't procreate.

[deleted] · 2015-03-23T11:53:17+00:00

I can say certifiably that I do not identify in any way with the Red Pill-- and yet, accusations of "victim blaming" really do often come across as a refusal to accept something that really is rooted in common sense.

I think that this can be across the board, but it's especially notorious when it comes to the gender wars issues more then anything else-- I think the problem here is that the self-styled "defenders of women everywhere" have made this knee-jerk accusation of "victim blaming!" the go-to or the default response to anything that's construed as "critical", no matter how much the criticism actually makes sense or is appropriate.

YOU_ARE_A_TOY · 2015-03-24T10:11:37+00:00

"Blaming the victim", or rather "Don't blame the victim" is a legal thing. It means that the criminal's fault is not lessened by the the fact the the victim made circumstances of the crime easier. It even has a special legal name that, as you can no doubt already tell, I completely forgot.

If I'm a complete dumbfuck and leave a $2000 Nikon on the back seat of my car, that I also forget to lock, and it gets stolen, "Don't blame the victim" simply means that the thief is still fully charged for the crime. The fact that I completely failed all common sense anti-thievery measures like a complete dumbfuck is not considered a circumstance that would lead to him getting a lighter sentence. But I am, of course, still a complete dumbfuck for doing it, and if I ever tell anyone that happened to me they will just look at me and say "holy shit, you complete dumbfuck".

And that's all I have to say on the topic. If a woman dresses like a slut(which, in case you still believe in the fairy tale that we should never judge books by the cover, is a clear invitation for relationship/sex), then gets drunk, and then is raped by some random dude she flirted with while getting drunk, she is not at fault. Law clearly says so. But she still acted like a complete dumbfuck and should be called a complete dumbfuck.

[deleted] · 2015-03-24T15:18:21+00:00

This is known long ago. It is the cognitive dissonance thing. Same way how asking people favors makes them like you: they rationalize doing you favors by convincing themselves they like you.

wombatinaburrow · 2015-03-23T10:06:32+00:00

It's easy, and makes us feel superior; "look at that dumb slut, what did she expect, walking home alone". It absolves us of having to take collective responsibility for the safety and cohesion within our society.

TheRealMewt · 2015-03-23T08:47:47+00:00

Victim blaming is not just about avoiding culpability—it's also about avoiding vulnerability. The more innocent a victim, the more threatening they are. Victims threaten our sense that the world is a safe and moral place, where good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. When bad things happen to good people, it implies that no one is safe, that no matter how good we are, we too could be vulnerable. The idea that misfortune can be random, striking anyone at any time, is a terrifying thought, and yet we are faced every day with evidence that it may be true.

We don't live in a safe and moral world, though. By and large, the average person can be morally sound, but we don't put a sizeable chunk of media exposure on morally sound individuals, do we? I haven't watched American TV in years, but I'm almost positive that it still runs commercials for ADT or that commercials advertise using the slogan "you're in good hands". People want to feel safe where they go and what they do in and out of their homes, but they don't feel this safety when they think about the rest of society and what they're capable of.

We're a society of circumstance mitigation. We do what we can to avoid being targets of other people's ill will. We lock our doors, we dress and talk conservatively to not draw people's attention, and we avoid others when there's that feeling in the pit of our stomach that "something isn't quite right about this". I think this is why people victim blame for sketchy rape stories. When you hear of a person getting raped, there's a lot of outcry wondering exactly what could've been done to stop this and people respond with calling for more self agency on the victim's part. It's already believed that rapists are the scum of the earth so it's a waste of time to say "This rape would've never happened if he never raped in the first place" like it's a profound analysis of the big picture.

[deleted] · 2015-03-23T19:23:02+00:00

Hindsight is always 20/20. People look for ways and reasons to avoid it from happening next time...instead of tackling it head on.

Looking at you BP Oil spill.

Title	Interesting article "Why do we victim-blame?"
Author	ILU2
Upvotes	12
Comments	150
Date	March 23, 2015 7:45 AM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/2zzoxl/interesting_article_why_do_we_victimblame/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/interesting-article-why-do-we-victim-blame.283029 https://theredarchive.com/post/283029

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