There is much to be said for the view that persons with self-respect do not tolerate being treated wrongly. Indeed, this is a view to which I mightily subscribe. Unfortunately, there is a very distorted and perverted way of understanding this view; and it is that very distorted and perverted rendering that has become increasingly popular in recent years. Why, to hear some people tell it having self-respect consists in wallowing in the fact that one has been a victim; and on this view, doing nothing to help oneself is deemed justified because doing something to help oneself is somehow interpreted as a negation of one’s victim’s status.
On the warped view of not tolerating wrongdoing, blaming others for having been wronged is seen as an irrefutable sign of having self-respect—an undeniable affirmation of one’s moral personhood. So people almost rush nowadays to obtain victim status. Indeed, we have come dangerously close to making being a victim a sort of performative utterance, whereby all it takes to be a victim is simply that one declares that one is.
Here is an example cut from the cloth of reality. Several years ago I announced to my 400-student class that two students have been caught cheating. Well, guess what? They claimed to be victims. In what way were they victims? Well, so the story goes, I had “outed” them as cheaters. You will quite naturally wonder whether I had unwittingly mentioned their names or described them in sufficient detail that one could infer who they were. In two words, the answer is: Absolutely not.
Anyone who could have inferred from what I actually wrote who the two cheaters were would have exhibited a measure of serendipity that one would have thought was reserved only for the gods.
Nowadays, it would seem that people are more creative in finding ways to be a victim than they are in doing anything remotely excellent.
But it is the wallowing in victimhood that intrigues me. Why is victim status preferable to the status that is exemplified by having enormous moral resolve and courage?
The answer, I think, is a simple one, namely that victim status is a quick emotional fix—a palliative that quickly allows one to claim some sort of victory. Victim status allows for outbursts of rage and anger. It allows for searing criticisms of one’s wrongdoers. And, above all, it allows one to drench oneself in the well of self-pity, thereby excusing one of all responsibility. What a relief ! ! !
There is no doubt something to be said for flights of irresponsibility, provided that they come in very infrequent nanoseconds. As a way of living, however, irresponsibility is absolutely and unequivocally self-defeating.
This brings me back to the beginning of this blog-entry. If anything is true, it is true that self-respect is not in any way about being irresponsible for one’s life. Indeed, it is not possible to have self-respect without being deeply, deeply committed to excellence in one’s life—to doing the very best that one can under the circumstances. This tells me something very poignant, namely that a whole lot of people who claim to have self-respect do not at all have it.
It is one thing to hold others to blame for the wrong that they did; it is quite another to become obsessed with accusing those individuals of having committed the wrong. The first is compatible with having self-respect. Indeed, self-respect may even require it. However, having self-respect is incompatible with the second. The victim mentality that is prevalent nowadays slides from the first to the second; and this second alternative is none other than a path to self-destruction.
The second approach makes blaming others more important than self-advancement. It does so by embracing the principle of “Never forgetting” and then wrongly supposing that this is best accomplished by always blaming.
Self-respect is about not tolerating wrongdoing rather than about incessantly blaming others for the wrong that they have done. And, ironically, the best way not to tolerate the wrong that others have done is to put oneself in a position that makes it exceedingly difficult for them commit that wrong again. This is one part of what it means to command the respect of another. There is absolutely nothing like success when it comes to tearing asunder the view that one is inadequate; and a pre-occupation with blaming others is unequivocally not a catalyst for success.
Constantly blaming others, by contrast, is none other than a form of moral servitude masking as self-respect—a way of underwriting and continually reminding oneself of one’s inadequacy. Constantly blaming others is not and cannot be a way of commanding the respect of others, though it might very well be a way of motivating others to appease one.
Affirming self-respect is necessarily a form moral progress, whereas being obsessed with blaming others is necessarily an impediment to moral progress.
We can call the obsession with blaming others anything we please. But nothing is more telling in this regard than the fruits of our actions. If over the years, we have nothing much to show for our actions others than a steadfast commitment to blaming others for having wronged us, then that is a good sign that we need to change course. Prudence alone suggests that.
What a marvelous confluence: self-respect and prudence. Affirming our self-respect is a most prudent thing to do and if we are prudent that is what we will do. An obsession with blaming others is not in keeping with either. And this tells us something that is, at once, both profound and disturbing, namely that dysfunctionality has a most incredible grip upon the lives of so many in our society. For only dysfunctionality could explain how so many could fail to do what is both prudent and affirming of their self-respect.
