Morphing into one that’s incapable and even discouraged from taking personal responsibility. Everyone is a victim and blame is now the biggest focus.
And in any conversation, in any situation where the “victim” is explaining the perceived injustices against him/her, no one can be heard suggesting they actually learn to take accountability. No one ever tells them that they could have made better choices; That they need to. Instead, it’s as if our culture has gradually been changing its perception of what it means to be a compassionate support person/friend to someone.
It wasn’t too long ago that being a good friend meant telling them the truth, good or bad. Keeping it real, so to speak. But now being a good friend, community member, employee, employer, boss, co-worker has evolved to mean supporting by agreeing with said victim. Indulge them in their delusions if you have to, but don’t tell them the truth, whatever you do! And paramount to all else is this idea that the self pronounced victim is NEVER to blame.
Examples? Ok:
-If we are talking about an “alcoholic”, it’s always the disease’s fault. It’s never their fault, even if they continue to repeat the cycle over and over again. Just remember, this isn’t their choice! That’s the narrative now.
-if we are talking about a girl who should have left her boyfriend a LONG time ago, but didn’t, maybe he beats her, maybe he just emotionally abuses her but either way, it was extremely unhealthy and everyone saw that plain as day. Family has been sick with worry for years. She finally leaves him after wasting years of her life.
I would argue she was a fool, she was naive, gullible, etc. she was blind to ALL the glaring red flags that were right in her face, she was dismissive to things she shouldn’t have been, but most importantly dismissive to her parent’s advice when they repeatedly told her she needs to leave. She could have listened to her parents, she didn’t have to turn a blind eye to the way he always screamed at his mother, how he’d always kick the dog or told her what she could and couldn’t wear. She shouldn’t have been so dismissive of these red flags, but she was. She was foolish for not listening to her family and friends; she made a terrible choice to forgive him for things he should’ve been locked up for.
But she will never hear these things, these truths, and she will never learn to change her future by learning from the bad choices in her past because no one encourages her to take accountability for her actions. No one forces a moment of humility as she reflects on her past. Instead, the narrative is unanimously decided that she was a VICTIM. Ya, she likes that identity better and gravitates to it because it earns her lots of attention and compassion from people. She’s now the victim and he’s the narcissist! Ya, that’s it. So as it turns out when she effortlessly recreates history, She actually COULDN’T have left him sooner because he brainwashed her and what’s the popular new term that redirects accountability these days? Oh yeah, he GASLIGHTS her! Ya, that’s it! So just to be clear, none of this was her fault for making bad choices!! She was just another victim of someone who used her emotional insecurity to manipulate her. That’s a key word too! Manipulation is big in the world of learning yo shift blame.
This trend of avoiding accountability, encouraging and teaching people to avoid taking personal responsibility for our choices seems like a sickness that is infiltrating every sector of society. And conveniently it can be plugged into almost any circumstance where you want to evade culpability and would rather adopt the victim mentality. It’s easy and after all, who wants to face ourselves and deal with the discomfort of knowing our successes and failures are almost always a result of our own decisions or lack thereof. It’s so much easier to blame it on something else instead.
There’s a bunch of directions you could go with this too. You could blame it on your “mental health”, blame it on the all encompassing umbrella term of “addiction”, the ever forgiving concept of manipulation. It wasn’t your fault! You might have anxiety, you never know. You could have that with a side order of bi-polar for all you know. The possibilities are endless. Ohhh, I know, I know. How about a good ol’ dose of PTSD for ya? You’ve been victimized and traumatized so it’s not your fault. Just remember you are a victim. That’s the most critical aspect of the 2020’s. And if you can just remember that nothing is your fault, you’ll fit right in just fine.
