quote:
Originally posted by langster:
I'm actually laughing at her now.
How can someone who is being "victimised" actually play the victim?
Hypocritical, manipulative, nasty, evil, vindictive, calculating, horrible, pathetic, moronic, .
Interesting you should say that Langster - the writer Margaret Atwood wrote in her book entitled
Survival that there are four basic victim positions; while she wrote of these with regard to Canada's status she believes these stages can also be applied to people:
One: To deny the fact that you are a victim.
Two: To acknowledge the fact that you are a victim, but to explain this as an act of Fate, the Will of God, the dictates of Biology (in the case of women, for instance), the necessity decreed by History, or Economics, or the Unconscious, or any other large general powerful idea.
Three: To acknowledge the fact that you are a victim but to refuse to accept the assumption that the role is inevitable.
Four: To be a creative non-victim.
Position 1 uses up a lot of energy, as you explain away the obvious, suppresses anger, pretends certain visible fact do not exiist. This position is usually adopted by by those in a victim group. They are afraid to admit they are being victimised as they fear losing privileges they possess, they are forced to account somehow, for the disadvantages suffered by the rest of the group by disparaging them - as in 'I' made it, therefore it should be obvious we aren't victims. The rest are either lazy, neurotic or stupid - therefore it's their own fault if they aren't happy and look for any opportunities available for them.
If anger is felt by victims in this position it is therefore directed against one's fellow victims, particularly those talking about their victimisation. The basic game is therefore 'Deny your victim experience'.
2 Acknowledge you're a victim by explaining it to be an act of fate, God's will, biology, history, economy or any large powerful idea.
In any case it will be the fault of this larger thing not your own - thus you cannot be blamed or do anything about it, thus you will be resigned and long suffering, or you can hit back and make a fuss - if you choose the latter you will be considered foolish or evil even by yourself - so you expect to lose and be punished as who can fight fate, God, biology etc? Everyone in this position is inferior according to oneself and others.
the basic game is: Victor/Victim
3 Acknowledges the fact that you are a victim but refuse to accept the assumption that the role is inevitable as in 'look at what's being done to me, it isn't fate or the will of God therefore I'm not a 'fated' victim'.Thus you can distinguish between the role of a victim which might lead you to seek victimisation even when there's no call for it. A dynamic position rather than static as you can quickly move to position 4. If you fail to move on from this you will fall back to position 2.
In this position the real cause of oppression is, for the first time identified. Anger can be directed to the real source and channelled into constructive action. Here you can make real decision about how much you want to change your position - eg; you may not be able to stop it snowing but you can stop blaming the snow for everything.
Basic game here is: repuidiating the victim role.
4 - To be a creative non-victim.
This is not a position for victims but for those who have never been a victim, or for ex-victims such as those who have moved from position 3 - here the internal/external causes of victimisation have been removed. In an oppressed society the whole of the society has to change.
This position allows for creative activity of all kinds - energy is no longer supressed (as in position 1) or used for displacement of the cause as in passing your victimisation along to others as in 'man kicks child, child kicks dog' as in position 2; nor is it being used for the dynamic anger as in position 3.
therefore, here you are able to accept your experience for what it is, rather thandistort it to make it correspond with others' versions of it (particularly those of your oppressors).
Position 4 the Victor/Victim games are obsolete as you do not have to concentrate on rejecting the role of victim - it is no longer a temptation.
I hope you find this interesting, I used this analogy while writing my thesis on
The Handmaid's Tale.
I can't wait 
