You may think you're being a good socialist or whatever for being so pitying, but you're really perpetuating something dangerous. — frank

:lol: :snicker:

What do you purpose? Leave the victim alone in his/her suffering and trauma?

What do you purpose? Leave the victim alone in his/her suffering and trauma? — javi2541997

No. Beware labeling her as a victim though. That label is helpful for defending her and prosecuting her abuser, but if she keeps that label long term, it's crippling to her. Let her tell you what she is. Allow her to heal. Allow her to leave behind helplessness.

It's a subtle ethical point, but as long as you look at her as helpless, with you being the strong hero, you're helping yourself to honor you don't deserve and blocking her path to freedom.

The radical] is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed: but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side. — Paulo Freire

Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

The victim of oppression is not helpless, but in need of help. But indeed help cannot come from the oppressor, rather the oppressed must liberate the oppressor.

It doesn't help the victim to stand fast to the narrative of helplessness. — frank

Victimhood points to helplessness (or as @unenlightened said, needs help), someone subjected to oppression, hardship, or mistreatment or being duped or tricked.

I agree that the way being a victim is presented or portrayed can be quite annoying passive-aggresive behaviour, especially those declaring themselves to be a victim. And many times the target of violence isn't helpless or shouldn't be helpless.

Yet if we talk for example about someone being or ending up as a casualty, it doesn't have these connotations: if a soldier ends up as a casualty, being wounded or a fatality in war, there isn't this nuance. This can be seen from the way in the US a veteran having a Purple Heart is quite respected. Nobody (perhaps with the exception of the draft-dodger Donald Trump) will think a Purple Heart receiver is a loser. Or a helpless victim.

:clap:

This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them. — Paulo Freire

What an amazing idea. We can shut up and listen.

This can be seen from the way in the US a veteran having a Purple Heart is quite respected. Nobody (perhaps with the exception of the draft-dodger Donald Trump) will think a Purple Heart receiver is a loser. Or a helpless victim. — ssu

Trump was talking about John McCain, who was tortured for five years as a POW. It left him with a limp and unable to lift his arms above his head.

McCain was part of a force waging a proxy war in Vietnam. He's a good example of how we each have the potential for evil and good. He was an American soldier on the wrong side of history, so evil, he was white, so a beneficiary of evil, he was a POW, so powerless, he was a senator who helped outlaw torture by the US government, so a hero.

It's a subtle ethical point, but as long as you look at her as helpless, with you being the strong hero, you're helping yourself to honor you don't deserve and blocking her path to freedom. — frank

:up: :100:

He's a good example of how we each have the potential for evil and good. He was an American soldier on the wrong side of history, so evil, — frank

I assume that many here would be far more harsher on John McCain.

Being in uniform for your country doesn't make oneself evil in my view. If you perpetrate war crimes, that's evil. If those that served in the Vietnam are evil, then I guess all that served in the War on Terror, invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq are even more evil. At least there was a South Vietnam, which was attacked by North Vietnam, which you didn't have with Afghanistan and Iraq.

Our society has compartmentalized war and warfare to quite an extent.

Being in uniform for your country doesn't make oneself evil in my view. — ssu

There's evil in there somewhere, isn't there? What do Ukrainians think when they see Russian soldiers coming their way?

There's evil in there somewhere, isn't there? What do Ukrainians think when they see Russian soldiers coming their way? — frank

Yes there is. The worst is when you get people to think that you can make the World a better place by killing certain people and with that radical act create a better society. That you have to eradicate the subhumans. Or the rich. Or whoever and then you will have a new better society. That I think is really evil.

And I can understand just why people will fall for this kind of thinking. The injustices of the present can be so enormous and it can create hate.

Or then you kill the people and want to turn the landscape into a field where your horses can graize. Or you create an artificial desert to win an insurgency. No people, no insurgents.

I don't think the individual soldier is evil.

The injustices of the present can be so enormous and it can create hate. — ssu

And the cost of one act of violence is much bigger than the immediate victims. One man is murdered and his younger brother goes off the deep end and ends up with a failing heart from drug use. One bullet hits the whole family.

Where there is victimization, there's helplessness. — frank

There is a distinction to be made between victimization - systemic, or habitual or protracted persecution of a person or group
and being the victim of a single act or event - such as a crime, traffic accident or professional incompetence or negligence.
In the first situation the victimized person is usually helpless, due to dependent status and no avenue of redress, or being a minority with no civil rights.
In the second, the victim generally has legal recourse and can appeal to law enforcement, health care and social service or religious agencies, and so is not helpless.

The victim can't be held responsible for really, anything. — frank

With regard to systemic victimization, no, they can't. As to victims of crime, accident or malpractice, they very well may bear some degree of responsibility.

If progress is to be made, the villain will have to do it because or she is the only one in the story with any power. — frank

I don't see the link made between progress and villainy. Indeed it's possible for a villain to hold all the power in a given jurisdiction, but that wold make the whole population victims. In non-dictatorships, the law, the governing body, the community or the congregation holds the power to dispense blame, aid and justice.

At some point in a story of recovery from racism, sexual or physical abuse, national invasion, etc., the victim has to let go of powerlessness and start becoming strong and responsible (for both good and evil). — frank

How does one - or a group, or a nation "let go of" powerlessness? How do you figure becoming strong and responsible is an act of will, rather than logistics? Do you assume that victims don't want to defend themselves, that they never fight back? When they do, it tends to be messy, and it's how many victims turn into casualties.

It doesn't help the victim to stand fast to the narrative of helplessness. — frank

So if you beat on somebody weaker than yourself, it's their fault? They made up the "narrative of helplessness"? Sounds like the self-serving excuse I've heard from more than one abuser.

You may think you're being a good socialist or whatever for being so pitying, but you're really perpetuating something dangerous. — frank

That's three, maybe four separate unexplained assumptions, thrown into a pile to sound bad while its meaning is entirely unclear.

Beware labeling her as a victim though. That label is helpful for defending her and prosecuting her abuser, but if she keeps that label long term, it's crippling to her. — frank

Who assigned this label to which person?
This sounds like a specific case of abuse, not a question of ethics or policy.
It seems to me, the subject itself can only be productively considered case by case.

Where there is victimization, there's helplessness. The victim can't be held responsible for really, anything. The victim is, conceptually, a non-responsibility zone. — frank

A victim need not be helpless nor be excused from failing to mitigate their victimization. These are all different concepts. Some victims refuse to see themselves as victims which isn't heroic either because it can result in the continuation of their victimization.

A victim need not be helpless — Hanover

Maybe not utterly helpless, but the point is that victimization means one's will was thwarted. In whatever way you've been a victim, you were powerless in that area.