Victimized culture of grievance must end

He is a victim; she is a victim. All those people over there are victims, too. History will use the term “victimology” to describe the per vasive cultural doctrine of the early 21st centur y.

By “victimology,” they won’t mean the traditional study of crime victims and the damages done by criminals. Modern victimology, after all, typically views the criminal as a victim of unfairness that motivates crime.

Victimhood has become such a modern form of faux empowerment that we aren’t supposed to address this topic. By doing so, we might re-victimize a victim. We address it, against the tide of woke sensibilities, because all people matter. No one should fall for the false premise that victim status amounts to success.

Until the late 20th centur y, victimhood was discouraged in the United States. Parents, schools, universities, the media and entertainment believed success, defiance of hardship improved the lives of individuals, communities.

The old unspoken mantra was “overcome and be great.” Helen Keller, Stephen Hawking, Ray Charles and others with serious disabilities were not victims. They were our heroes and sources of inspiration because they achieved against great odds.

Victors, not victims, ended slavery by smuggling slaves to freedom and winning a war, ended school segregation by fighting and winning in court, reduced hunger, worldwide and nationally, by improving society’s ability to grow more crops per acre at diminishing costs.

Previous generations valued success and viewed victim status as something to overcome, learn from and avoid.

Not anymore. To become the victim is to achieve a pretense of triumph. We glorify victim status and view it as a twisted form of stature.

We tell minority children they cannot succeed because society favors their nonminority peers. We revere Black Lives Matter protests, which highlight grievances and of fer no solutions.

In pre-victim culture, college students scraped to make the honor roll. In victim culture, they tr y to find “safe spaces” to protect themselves from “microaggressions,” “dog-whistle” bigotr y and racism -- whether real or perceived. The message is loud and clear. Do not achieve and conquer and improve the world. Instead, complain about social injustice nonstop. Demonize success.

In their 2018 book “The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture

Wars,” sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning document the

West’s transition from “honor and dignity culture” to “victimhood culture.”

The authors explain how the old “honor and dignity” system advocated behavioral norms that encouraged achievement. Adults taught children that

“sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” That empowering advice reduced the power of the verbal insult.

In victimhood culture, mere words can be taken as grenades.

Though great art and music often bemoan life’s hardships, only victors and sur vivors -- not persistent victims -create great music and art. Only victors invent vaccines. Only victors conquer slavery, discrimination and other forms of cruelty. Only victors make life better for themselves and others.

The culture of victimhood and grievance creates nothing but long-term hardship. The culture of honor and dignity made this countr y the world’s envy.

Let’s stop cherishing victimization and return to overcoming it and valuing success.

Then we can help each other achieve for the indiscriminate benefit of all.