The most radical act in today's world isn't to document your victimhood – it's to transcend it. It isn't to understand your chains – it's to break them. It isn't to validate your limitations – it's to shatter them. - AMEN!!!
The chains are all in the mind. Great article. You are saying what the problem really is. Democrats can’t live without depressing people. The liberal elites can’t live without virtue signaling, so it is important to them to buy into the victimhood. Buy in and spread the despair that comes from a life that always says “You’re Screwed!”
The pathology can be traced back to the abortion controversy. On some level, in the case of most pro-'choicers', a subconscious one, a mind with any capacity for reason must consider that the premise of the position is that the unborn aren't persons; and ask, "What if that premise is wrong?"
A pretzel-like maze of psychological defense processes need to engage and maintain in order to avoid the reality of that question. One of those mechanisms, compensation, explains the virtue signaling. They try to advertise their virtue to compensate for their subconscious acknowledgement that they actually have none.
This also explains their fixation with labeling anyone with whom they disagree as Nazis. With the death toll from abortion exceeding even that of historic Nazis, they're projecting their guilt.
This is brilliant. Thank you. As a fellow therapist (a young one) I have watched as the field has devolved into a social justice machine. Many of my therapist peers buy into it hook, line, and sinker. I’ve felt alone as the propaganda has never quite sat with me. Thank you for articulating so well what I believe to be true about personal power and transcendence. I write this as I, myself, have recently crawled out of the pit of years of chronic illness… my adversity has been my greatest gift.
Good for you, and glad that you're getting physically better as well. I would recommend looking into ways to brand what you do as something else.
Fields of endeavor who do what you describe generally end up being discredited wholesale as a dirty word. And the clock is ticking on a wave of made-for-clickbait lawsuits around this kind of pervasive harmful conduct and its subsequent effects. When that wave hits, having patients who have already been calling you something else for a while now will help a lot.
Thank you thank you thank you what a beautiful post. You have nailed what is occurring on the head. I hope that many will listen to this and see just how trapped they are and how they can break free.
It is a Parody, OK? There are very few people who suffer from 'Marcus-complex' , and the odd thing is that most of them are perfectly adapted to survival in a rather complex, metro-sexual world that they embrace. The only way to escape this is to move to the country, grow cabbages, and raise chickens - (as I did 35 years ago) it helps focus the mind having to shovel a bit of manure ;-)
Man this is spot on. The patronizing insideous manipulation of how society responds to real problems becomes a romance with disempowerment and I believe ultimately nihilism .
I'm a Native American kid, raised in the poverty on the reservation. Back in the early 2000s, when I taught Ethnic American Literature, I would say on the first day, "Okay, all you brown and black students are in college. You've bypassed all the real and imagined barriers and boundaries that stopped you from getting here. So you've won your first great battle. Congratulations! Now what are you gonna do?" These days, that intro would get me escorted off campus after my first class! In that Ethnic Lit class, I also taught the work of Irish and Italian Americans. And played a documentary about a deaf family's struggle with cochlear ear implants so that our class could discuss Ethnic fundamentalism. My syllabus would also get me escorted off campus.
This article cracked me up on multiple occasions. For good reason! And the pictures too!
I was wondering doc, I spent about close to ten years in a victomhood mentality, after experiencing some traumatic experiences as a young person within my family. One of the most freeing things I heard was hearing somebody talk about victim mentality without it being addressed at me directly. I recognized this is what I had been perpetuating for a long time and it exacerbated when I briefly flirted with woke ideas for a while. But ultimately taking responsibility for my own actions and behaviors really helped. I do sympathize with young people especially today, as I think they might be wasting years like I did, without benefiting from making changes. I'm not a victim anymore, and life is mostly good, with the inevitable ups and downs. Thanks for sharing this great article.
Absolutely brilliant. The irony is that the supposedly privileged like me feel the same way —our perception is that minorities like Marcus have a huge leg up on us in the job market these days, so the insidious philosophy demoralizes both the alleged oppressors as well as the alleged oppressed.
That reveals its true purpose which is to demoralize, divide, and disrupt our society as a prelude to its overthrow and a revolution by modern communists.
Not convinced. Much of people’s lives are in the hands of fate, and social mobility is far less prevalent than mainstream messaging would have it. You might actually be right to think you are held back because your face doesn’t fit. Rather than responding with some “anybody can be anything” pablum, it might be better to figure out what can actually be changed, and what is best to be borne without frustration.
You can agree that the Medical Model is a huge problem and totally disagree on what does cause psych issues. That’s part of why people don’t unify over change. I don’t agree with your view or the other one presented in your piece. Does telling people they can will themselves out of suicidal thoughts, cutting, psychosis, work? For a mild depression, exercise, medication, diet change, focusing on your strengths can work. But unfortunately many psych issues are too serious for that. Believing you’re a victim isn’t what causes psych issues.
It’s quite clear that the author is pointing out a very specific cultural and psychological industry-engineered therapeutic program that is perpetuating negative consequences primarily for young and impressionable individuals.
The critique of the Critical Theory/Social Justice informed therapeutic model is essential for a positive transformation toward individual personal agency. And this approach doesn’t “victim blame” or ignore the maladies that you mention. They simply require an alternative remedy specific to those adversities.
It mentioned seeing oneself as a victim perpetuated by woke culture a number of times. Not what I have found to be the cause of psychological issues. It’s a viewpoint that is use to attack people who are struggling. People are told they are playing the victim when they are in a serious struggle. It’s not helpful. It’s annoying at best.
Not the cause, the enabler. The author reveals in passing grasp of the systemic issues in a way that differentiates from subsuming oneself into victimhood. This might well be annoying if one holds to blaming externals (that have been internalized). It’s a challenging premise—but apt.
It’s easy to sit outside someone else’s struggle and say what they are doing wrong. But to move forward there needs to be an understanding of other’s situation. If the viewpoint is that there now reason why people develop psych issues other than they see themselves as victims or choose to live in the past, then the MH field has no value which does sound like Roger’s view. I think MH field could have value but I would stay away from it as it existes now.
So it's really perfect. If it isn't the initial cause , it will soon be the primary cause ; as trauma is not in the now for most, but in a past forever revisited .
I read it as an amalgam of anecdotes. I didn’t think an actual Marcus existed exactly as portrayed. But, I have seen this thinking in young people around me. Many times. Specifically around Climate Change. Utterly demoralized young people whose demeanour changes instantly when the topic arises. Their shoulders sag, their facial expression becomes hangdog.
This article is truly remarkable. More people need to be exposed to it. My favorite mic drop line: "We are not our categories. We are not our oppression scores. We are not our trauma narratives. We are something far more dangerous – we are human beings, endowed with the power to create, to choose, to transform."
The 'mental health' field demands fealty of those who practice therapy. Language and political positions are policed. Licensure can be revoked if speech and thought norms are violated. This is done by recasting speech, which the state cannot control, as conduct, which the state and licensure authorities can control.
Every once in a while a therapist can sneak in a truth or two. Not often. And never, ever, ask a client "what are your adverbs?"
I shared this comment on the page of Josh Slocum, who restacked it. But I also wanted to put it on your page.
One of the things I am most grateful for after my family is that I didn’t end up with a social justice therapist. It could have happened so easily and my situation would have been irresistible to one- especially a woman. It very likely, given enough time, could have cost me my life. I could actually feel my muscles tensing and my throat closing a bit while reading the job interview portion.
This was such a great article. Thank you so much for writing it.
No, he is Irish, (by name) which means that he is automatically enrolled in a deprived minority by virtue of his ancestors dying in the Potato Famine caused entirely by British Colonial Oppression and their few survivors emigrating to somewhere that had pizza such as Chicago..
Et voila! There had to be one of these responses. 🙄Here’s a radical idea - not every white man is privileged or comes from a privileged background, something that I am sure pains you to admit.
The ideology that's discussed in this piece has managed to make being a white man a very real disadvantage in many important contexts in recent years, while simultaneously making racism against nonwhite people more popular in the counter-institutional zeitgeist. It's clearly been a social, psychological, and political disaster, and for the most part, it's only really been benefiting a small cadre of opportunist grifters who are well situated to play the identitarian game to their advantage.
I think the author's right that learned helplessness doesn't improve things for anyone, though, and I can absolutely see how this ideology reinforces learned helplessness for some people.
If we want to continue the real legacy of the civil rights movement and actually improve life for the powerless masses (including men and white people), we're much better off building solidarity across identity lines so we can get together and focus on getting our economic system to work for the general populace, instead of falling for these divisive ideologies while the very wealthy grab everything that's not bolted down.
Amazing that some on here can still spew the 'it's the system and you can't overcome it' crapola. What do you say to a young kid in dire circumstances? Give up ,it's no use? I could have done that and did at times...then I stopped listening to liars and naysayers...leaving behind those who kept on listening.
So the reply you know nothing about this person was for Dianna, but now we know a lot about Frank: dismissive and more interested in being mean than learning or engaging.
You’re assuming I’m Christian. I’m more of an anti-muslim and anti- white liberal. And as far as language, I use all slurs and shit on all people, if I think they deserve it.
Horrible article. Ur “spirit” is just as dualist as “victimhood” by ur logic. At least environmental factors are actually separate from the individual. Bad argument. Dunno how ur a professional.
The most radical act in today's world isn't to document your victimhood – it's to transcend it. It isn't to understand your chains – it's to break them. It isn't to validate your limitations – it's to shatter them. - AMEN!!!
The chains are all in the mind. Great article. You are saying what the problem really is. Democrats can’t live without depressing people. The liberal elites can’t live without virtue signaling, so it is important to them to buy into the victimhood. Buy in and spread the despair that comes from a life that always says “You’re Screwed!”
"Virtue signaling" is such an apt term.
The pathology can be traced back to the abortion controversy. On some level, in the case of most pro-'choicers', a subconscious one, a mind with any capacity for reason must consider that the premise of the position is that the unborn aren't persons; and ask, "What if that premise is wrong?"
A pretzel-like maze of psychological defense processes need to engage and maintain in order to avoid the reality of that question. One of those mechanisms, compensation, explains the virtue signaling. They try to advertise their virtue to compensate for their subconscious acknowledgement that they actually have none.
This also explains their fixation with labeling anyone with whom they disagree as Nazis. With the death toll from abortion exceeding even that of historic Nazis, they're projecting their guilt.
This is brilliant. Thank you. As a fellow therapist (a young one) I have watched as the field has devolved into a social justice machine. Many of my therapist peers buy into it hook, line, and sinker. I’ve felt alone as the propaganda has never quite sat with me. Thank you for articulating so well what I believe to be true about personal power and transcendence. I write this as I, myself, have recently crawled out of the pit of years of chronic illness… my adversity has been my greatest gift.
Good for you, and glad that you're getting physically better as well. I would recommend looking into ways to brand what you do as something else.
Fields of endeavor who do what you describe generally end up being discredited wholesale as a dirty word. And the clock is ticking on a wave of made-for-clickbait lawsuits around this kind of pervasive harmful conduct and its subsequent effects. When that wave hits, having patients who have already been calling you something else for a while now will help a lot.
You might find some ideas worth considering in the several discussions these two have had as well:
https://youtu.be/psdGuIfY2qs?si=xyz1rmcGDiGyGOSQ
Thank you thank you thank you what a beautiful post. You have nailed what is occurring on the head. I hope that many will listen to this and see just how trapped they are and how they can break free.
It is a Parody, OK? There are very few people who suffer from 'Marcus-complex' , and the odd thing is that most of them are perfectly adapted to survival in a rather complex, metro-sexual world that they embrace. The only way to escape this is to move to the country, grow cabbages, and raise chickens - (as I did 35 years ago) it helps focus the mind having to shovel a bit of manure ;-)
Man this is spot on. The patronizing insideous manipulation of how society responds to real problems becomes a romance with disempowerment and I believe ultimately nihilism .
I'm a Native American kid, raised in the poverty on the reservation. Back in the early 2000s, when I taught Ethnic American Literature, I would say on the first day, "Okay, all you brown and black students are in college. You've bypassed all the real and imagined barriers and boundaries that stopped you from getting here. So you've won your first great battle. Congratulations! Now what are you gonna do?" These days, that intro would get me escorted off campus after my first class! In that Ethnic Lit class, I also taught the work of Irish and Italian Americans. And played a documentary about a deaf family's struggle with cochlear ear implants so that our class could discuss Ethnic fundamentalism. My syllabus would also get me escorted off campus.
https://youtu.be/zXNrqKPsac0?si=nBZAXnGXiG9sGAzr
It's why I follow you.
This article cracked me up on multiple occasions. For good reason! And the pictures too!
I was wondering doc, I spent about close to ten years in a victomhood mentality, after experiencing some traumatic experiences as a young person within my family. One of the most freeing things I heard was hearing somebody talk about victim mentality without it being addressed at me directly. I recognized this is what I had been perpetuating for a long time and it exacerbated when I briefly flirted with woke ideas for a while. But ultimately taking responsibility for my own actions and behaviors really helped. I do sympathize with young people especially today, as I think they might be wasting years like I did, without benefiting from making changes. I'm not a victim anymore, and life is mostly good, with the inevitable ups and downs. Thanks for sharing this great article.
Absolutely brilliant. The irony is that the supposedly privileged like me feel the same way —our perception is that minorities like Marcus have a huge leg up on us in the job market these days, so the insidious philosophy demoralizes both the alleged oppressors as well as the alleged oppressed.
That reveals its true purpose which is to demoralize, divide, and disrupt our society as a prelude to its overthrow and a revolution by modern communists.
Not convinced. Much of people’s lives are in the hands of fate, and social mobility is far less prevalent than mainstream messaging would have it. You might actually be right to think you are held back because your face doesn’t fit. Rather than responding with some “anybody can be anything” pablum, it might be better to figure out what can actually be changed, and what is best to be borne without frustration.
You can agree that the Medical Model is a huge problem and totally disagree on what does cause psych issues. That’s part of why people don’t unify over change. I don’t agree with your view or the other one presented in your piece. Does telling people they can will themselves out of suicidal thoughts, cutting, psychosis, work? For a mild depression, exercise, medication, diet change, focusing on your strengths can work. But unfortunately many psych issues are too serious for that. Believing you’re a victim isn’t what causes psych issues.
It’s quite clear that the author is pointing out a very specific cultural and psychological industry-engineered therapeutic program that is perpetuating negative consequences primarily for young and impressionable individuals.
The critique of the Critical Theory/Social Justice informed therapeutic model is essential for a positive transformation toward individual personal agency. And this approach doesn’t “victim blame” or ignore the maladies that you mention. They simply require an alternative remedy specific to those adversities.
It mentioned seeing oneself as a victim perpetuated by woke culture a number of times. Not what I have found to be the cause of psychological issues. It’s a viewpoint that is use to attack people who are struggling. People are told they are playing the victim when they are in a serious struggle. It’s not helpful. It’s annoying at best.
Not the cause, the enabler. The author reveals in passing grasp of the systemic issues in a way that differentiates from subsuming oneself into victimhood. This might well be annoying if one holds to blaming externals (that have been internalized). It’s a challenging premise—but apt.
It’s easy to sit outside someone else’s struggle and say what they are doing wrong. But to move forward there needs to be an understanding of other’s situation. If the viewpoint is that there now reason why people develop psych issues other than they see themselves as victims or choose to live in the past, then the MH field has no value which does sound like Roger’s view. I think MH field could have value but I would stay away from it as it existes now.
So it's really perfect. If it isn't the initial cause , it will soon be the primary cause ; as trauma is not in the now for most, but in a past forever revisited .
I found it superficial and trite, but it works as a parody piece.
I read it as an amalgam of anecdotes. I didn’t think an actual Marcus existed exactly as portrayed. But, I have seen this thinking in young people around me. Many times. Specifically around Climate Change. Utterly demoralized young people whose demeanour changes instantly when the topic arises. Their shoulders sag, their facial expression becomes hangdog.
To some this response is trite and superficial.
This article is truly remarkable. More people need to be exposed to it. My favorite mic drop line: "We are not our categories. We are not our oppression scores. We are not our trauma narratives. We are something far more dangerous – we are human beings, endowed with the power to create, to choose, to transform."
The 'mental health' field demands fealty of those who practice therapy. Language and political positions are policed. Licensure can be revoked if speech and thought norms are violated. This is done by recasting speech, which the state cannot control, as conduct, which the state and licensure authorities can control.
Every once in a while a therapist can sneak in a truth or two. Not often. And never, ever, ask a client "what are your adverbs?"
I shared this comment on the page of Josh Slocum, who restacked it. But I also wanted to put it on your page.
One of the things I am most grateful for after my family is that I didn’t end up with a social justice therapist. It could have happened so easily and my situation would have been irresistible to one- especially a woman. It very likely, given enough time, could have cost me my life. I could actually feel my muscles tensing and my throat closing a bit while reading the job interview portion.
This was such a great article. Thank you so much for writing it.
Let me guess … Dr. McFillin is a white man … has achieved everything thus far in his ‘charmed white life’ on his own. 🤢
No, he is Irish, (by name) which means that he is automatically enrolled in a deprived minority by virtue of his ancestors dying in the Potato Famine caused entirely by British Colonial Oppression and their few survivors emigrating to somewhere that had pizza such as Chicago..
Et voila! There had to be one of these responses. 🙄Here’s a radical idea - not every white man is privileged or comes from a privileged background, something that I am sure pains you to admit.
The ideology that's discussed in this piece has managed to make being a white man a very real disadvantage in many important contexts in recent years, while simultaneously making racism against nonwhite people more popular in the counter-institutional zeitgeist. It's clearly been a social, psychological, and political disaster, and for the most part, it's only really been benefiting a small cadre of opportunist grifters who are well situated to play the identitarian game to their advantage.
I think the author's right that learned helplessness doesn't improve things for anyone, though, and I can absolutely see how this ideology reinforces learned helplessness for some people.
If we want to continue the real legacy of the civil rights movement and actually improve life for the powerless masses (including men and white people), we're much better off building solidarity across identity lines so we can get together and focus on getting our economic system to work for the general populace, instead of falling for these divisive ideologies while the very wealthy grab everything that's not bolted down.
https://cinematimshel.substack.com/p/ideologically-out-of-line-and-insufficiently
Guess what, feminist hack: white men account for 75% of US suicides. So much for your agitprop about "charmed white life".
Amazing that some on here can still spew the 'it's the system and you can't overcome it' crapola. What do you say to a young kid in dire circumstances? Give up ,it's no use? I could have done that and did at times...then I stopped listening to liars and naysayers...leaving behind those who kept on listening.
How utterly superficial
Let me guess . You and "Marcus" are cousins 😬
And as far as my lovely mother, she’s still a woman, so why would I care what she thinks?
I am white and wealthy and have a Masters Degree. What can you tell me about my life from that?
Luck and privilege. (My daughter would say you won the birth lottery.)
You know nothing about this person. Don’t pretend you do.
It’s not privilege. It’s our ancestors sacrificed for us.
Be sure to feed your 10 cats today.
So the reply you know nothing about this person was for Dianna, but now we know a lot about Frank: dismissive and more interested in being mean than learning or engaging.
Man-hating feminists are people I shun, not learn from. For obvious reasons.
Slaves built this country under the direction of white male landowners. (Did your mama teach you to use that language when addressing others?)
Blacks hold other blacks in slavery TODAY, you dipshit.
Slaves didn’t build anything you stupid Karen. Actually they built wealth for their owners, that’s it.
Such language from a benevolent christian. Typical hypocrisy.
You’re assuming I’m Christian. I’m more of an anti-muslim and anti- white liberal. And as far as language, I use all slurs and shit on all people, if I think they deserve it.
As you say, this is all scripted. There is nothing organic about Wokeness. Where does the phenomenal money behind Wokeness come from, and what is its purpose? "There's nothing crazy about the Democrats' agenda": https://daveziffer.substack.com/p/theres-nothing-crazy-about-the-democrats
great piece
Horrible article. Ur “spirit” is just as dualist as “victimhood” by ur logic. At least environmental factors are actually separate from the individual. Bad argument. Dunno how ur a professional.