Victimhood as Badge of Honor on Campus
RUSH: This is a story from the College Fix, which is a great bunch of young people, conservatives, campus types who have a website now chronicling life on campus from the conservative standpoint.
This piece is from the weekend, I believe, late last week. "Being a 'Victim' Has Become a Badge of Honor on Campus, Sociologists Argue -- Victimhood has become a virtue in America’s shifting culture, scholars argue. A journal article by two sociologists suggests the rise of microaggressions stems from a culture of victimhood that celebrates the aggrieved and perceives them as virtuous martyrs -- most notably on college campuses."
And there is power in this. There are goodies. There is welfare. There is special notice. There's special notification. There's special treatment for being a victim. And you also get a lot of attention, which a lot of people want. And making matters worse, according to these sociologists, "this perception is fostered by administrations that coddle and support such grandiose notions for self-serving purposes, including to exert control of students, the scholars argue. 'In the settings such as those that generate microaggression catalogs … where offenders are oppressors and victims are the oppressed, it also raises the moral status of the victims,' the scholars state in their article. 'This only increases the incentive to publicize grievances, and it means aggrieved parties are especially likely to highlight their identity as victims, emphasizing their own suffering and innocence. Their adversaries are privileged and blameworthy, but they themselves are pitiable and blameless.'"
They themselves are virtuous. They themselves are noncontroversial. They're offended or they are victimized or they are put upon or they're laughed at or mocked or made fun of. It just isn't fair, and of course it's a dual whammy because it means the people who've made them feel that way are really, really rotten-to-the-core reprobates. So not only are we raising a bunch of little -- I've got a story here. I was gonna say eco-commies.
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/24187/
RUSH: This is a story from the College Fix, which is a great bunch of young people, conservatives, campus types who have a website now chronicling life on campus from the conservative standpoint.
This piece is from the weekend, I believe, late last week. "Being a 'Victim' Has Become a Badge of Honor on Campus, Sociologists Argue -- Victimhood has become a virtue in America’s shifting culture, scholars argue. A journal article by two sociologists suggests the rise of microaggressions stems from a culture of victimhood that celebrates the aggrieved and perceives them as virtuous martyrs -- most notably on college campuses."
And there is power in this. There are goodies. There is welfare. There is special notice. There's special notification. There's special treatment for being a victim. And you also get a lot of attention, which a lot of people want. And making matters worse, according to these sociologists, "this perception is fostered by administrations that coddle and support such grandiose notions for self-serving purposes, including to exert control of students, the scholars argue. 'In the settings such as those that generate microaggression catalogs … where offenders are oppressors and victims are the oppressed, it also raises the moral status of the victims,' the scholars state in their article. 'This only increases the incentive to publicize grievances, and it means aggrieved parties are especially likely to highlight their identity as victims, emphasizing their own suffering and innocence. Their adversaries are privileged and blameworthy, but they themselves are pitiable and blameless.'"
They themselves are virtuous. They themselves are noncontroversial. They're offended or they are victimized or they are put upon or they're laughed at or mocked or made fun of. It just isn't fair, and of course it's a dual whammy because it means the people who've made them feel that way are really, really rotten-to-the-core reprobates. So not only are we raising a bunch of little -- I've got a story here. I was gonna say eco-commies.
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/24187/