patrick.net

In case of "compassion" with other people money, the victim (silent tax payer for example) is not around to complain.

Blue says

the victim

How to Stop Playing the Victim Game - Challenging negative voices is the way to overcome a victimized orientation.

One of the principle ways that people mismanage their anger is by playing the role of victim. In a previous blog post, “Don’t Play the Victim Game,” I described the characteristics of individuals who, because they feel uncomfortable with their own anger, become trapped in a victimized orientation toward life. In response to readers’ questions, I’ve asked Joyce Catlett, my co-author of The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships, to delineate several “remedial measures” that people can take in order to avoid playing the victim game.

To reiterate the underlying dynamics of this problem, I explained that many people adopt the victim role, albeit unintentionally because they are afraid of their anger, deny its existence in themselves, project it onto other people, and anticipate aggression or harm from them. With this expectation and high sensitivity to anger in others, they may even distort other people’s facial expressions, imagining that they have malicious intentions. The anger that they would have experienced in response to frustration or stress is transformed into fear and distrust of others and into feelings of being hurt or wounded.

People who become mired down in feeling victimized tend to view events in their lives as happening to them and feel ineffective and overwhelmed. They also operate on the basic assumption that the world should be fair, which is a child’s way of thinking. They tend to project the circumstances of their early childhood, where they were indeed helpless, onto present-day situations and relationships, and fail to recognize that, as adults, they have far more power than they had as children.

There are ways to shift from the victimized stance, characterized by passivity and behaviors based on negative power, to a more adult stance characterized by active coping and personal power. People can become aware of and identify specific destructive thoughts — critical inner voices — that promote victimized feelings; and they can take steps to develop more constructive approaches to dealing with their anger.

More here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-experience/201304/how-stop-playing-the-victim-game?source=patrick.net

Patrick says

narcissism

Is this like Trump's style of narcissism or a different genre ? It seems that this "label" can be easily applied to people on both sides of the aisle, most any religious denomination and much more....

Research from 2003 suggests that people high in narcissism may see themselves as victims of interpersonal transgressions more often than people not living with the disorder.

In a 2020 qualitative studyTrusted Source, relatives of people with narcissistic personalities reported that their loved ones often showed a victim mentality.

Whether they really feel like a victim or just play the victim to tweak social interactions to their benefit isn’t always clear.

If you’ve ever been in a relationship with someone with narcissistic personality disorder, you may have noticed that they lack both self-awareness and self-reflection.

In general, people with this disorder have a difficult time being aware of their behaviors and how these affect others. They might not be able to “see it” even when you point it out to them.

This is why they might feel attacked when you contradict them or tell them they’ve done something wrong. This just doesn’t align with their inflated sense of self.

This is part of the complexity of narcissistic personality disorder.

The tendency to have low introspection combined with an exaggerated sense of superiority may leave them unable to see the situation in a way that doesn’t fit their worldview.

As a result, they may “play the victim” in some scenarios.

A few reasons to play this role may be directly connected to the symptoms of NPD:

sense of entitlement
denial
delusions of grandeur
grandiosity
projection
need for control
narcissistic rage
low empathy

Not everyone who plays the victim has narcissistic personality. Not everyone with narcissistic personality plays the victim.

More here: https://psychcentral.com/disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder/narcissist-plays-the-victim?msclkid=b2bae1fdce9c11ecb01299e15126452d&source=patrick.net#playing-the-victim

Right- and left-wing prejudice toward dissimilar groups in cultural and economic domains

According to recent studies, people on both the political right and left show prejudice toward groups whose beliefs are in conflict with their own. This prediction applies to both cultural and economic dimensions of political beliefs. In three studies (N = 499) we demonstrate that people on both the cultural and economic right and left show negative attitudes toward groups on the other side of the given spectrum and that underlying this effect is the perception of value violation. In two out of three studies, we manipulated the extremity of target worldviews to further explore the causal chain between political beliefs, the perception of value violation, and prejudice. Our results showed a high degree of symmetry between the political left and right in their attitudes toward groups with dissimilar beliefs. However, although people on both sides of the political spectrum show prejudice toward each other, people on the cultural and economic right seem to be more sensitive to value violations than people on the left.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.2548?af=R&source=patrick.net

https://www.psypost.org/2018/11/study-both-rightists-and-leftists-are-prejudiced-but-toward-different-groups-52451?source=patrick.net

Political yes, but on Race, something interesting happens with Leftists:

Selfie mentality.

AmericanKulak says

Political yes, but on Race, something interesting happens with Leftists

It's not just America either. Canada, Australia, Britain all have the same sort of mass mental illness going on among liberal white people.

What is the ultimate cause of it?

One explanation I've heard is that it's a replacement for the meaning formerly given to people's lives by Christianity. I'm not entirely sure that's true though.

Patrick says

mass mental illness going on among liberal white people.

I will be able to sleep so much better tonight knowing there is only one group of people in this country that have mental health issues.

Patrick says

One explanation I've heard is that it's a replacement for the meaning formerly given to people's lives by Christianity.

Must believe in Invisible Men in the sky.

Once you do that, the Invisible Man/Men (occasional Female depending on your religion) who is controlling everything, watching everything you do, knows your inner most thoughts etc. is able to inflict all kinds of terrible things on you or your country for not believing.

The best part of all of this is most every country in the world believes God is on their side - go figure.