Victimhood
Just some quick shower thoughts that came while I was engaging in fictional arguements with people of my past:
It’s a reoccuring talking point that we’re “raising a generation of victims”, most often in response to people expecting better treatment of some kind, and the solution of the speaker is typcally along the lines that people need to be less compationate and more competitive. I connect this to a past popular talking point of “omg, everyone gets a participation trophy these days, what’s the point?”
These statements typically carry a tone which instantly makes me want to argue, but honestly there is some truth in them… just not the way the speaker thinks. The speaker usually just wants to be agreed with in comisery that the world is going downhill and then in true conservative fashion have that be the end of it. But recently I’ve read of scientific reasearch (if I’m uncharacteristicly ambititious I’ll even come back and cite it here… right? Futrue me? Hello?…) has actually managed to find controls for traits of victimhood. You simply make people feel bad and they’ll stop trying to succeed. Likewise, if you want to increase a success mentality, you celebrate small victories of a person and they’ll learn to seek out that feeling leading to greater successes.
So if someone is complaining about victims learning to be victims, they are off the mark. That generation has already been made and we need to move onto the next step to combat it… which involves better casual conduct and… participation trophies.
Okay, not exactly trophies. I’ve never found any trophy particulately validating, but as far as institutions trying to engage positive change, it’s a reasonable attempt. However, situations that involve trophies already have an inherent winning and loosing balance regardless of the assigned token. Success needs to be built into the competition wih multifacited validation. Well done on choosing to compete, well done on being a team player, well done on this aspect of your skill, well done on your ambition, well done at this particular obstacle, well done on being a good sport, well done everyone for making an interesting event. Many people naturally celebrate these things informally. Formalizing them helps cement and pass on these nurturing habits.
There are many ways to grow success. Complaining about people being treated better or obtaining small victories isn’t one of them.
Post by: saturdayxiii