The victimhood epidemic

Trying to reclaim the language of suffering

It seems like almost everyone wants to be a victim these days except real victims. Somehow we have become a society in which victimhood is our most valuable currency. Yet those who earn the most from this, in terms of status, fame and bank balance, are nearly always not actually victims at all.

   Identity politics is the driving force behind this new grievance Olympics. The more marginalised, discriminated against, wounded and generally down trodden you present yourself to be the more you are listened to and the more immune you become from criticism. I give you Meghan Markle’s Oprah interview! Modern ‘victimhood’ even bestows a type of innate moral superiority. However the problem is that ‘being a victim’ has become an elastic catch all concept that can be applied to any feeling of hurt. When we have significant numbers of young people, encouraged by our education system, who believe that ‘words are violence’,  yet also ‘silence is violence’ and ‘micro aggressions’ can lead to ‘trauma’, we have a victim culture. There was a time when the word trauma was reserved for either a severe physical or mental injury. But our language around mental distress has turned into an alphabet soupy mess. I took an online ‘victimhood’ test, a psychological assessment of to what extent one perceives oneself to be a victim. The test is from the website IDRLabs.com and is created by academics at the university of Tel Aviv. It was fascinating that even in such an expert study the words ‘hurt’ and ‘offence’ appeared to be used interchangeably. Yet being offended doesn’t necessarily mean being hurt, which is in itself is quite a subjective word. ‘You really hurt my feelings by asking if I’d put on weight’ is very different from ‘my partner cheating on me really hurt.’ Much has been written about the pernicious culture of easily taking offence in terms of the culture wars. The problem is not just the ease with which offence is taken but the extreme reaction to being offended. Offence immediately becomes ‘hurt’ which immediately becomes ‘trauma’ which becomes ‘victimhood’.

   There is no better example of exaggerated modern ‘non victim victimhood’ than the saga of sexual harassment and assault accusations against the Very Revd Martin Percy, Dean of Christ Church Oxford. Alannah Jeune, a 29 year old PhD student, claims Revd Percy stroked her hair in the sacristy in October 2020. Apparently he stroked her hair for a full 10 seconds along with remarking ‘Have you done something different to your hair today? It’s looking glorious’. That was it. In the eyes of the Church and college hierarchy this makes Ms Jeune the victim of sexual assault. She herself told the Telegraph, “The whole thing was weird and creepy. He assaulted me while wearing a collar in a cathedral.” She should have left it at ‘weird and creepy’ and reported him for unprofessional conduct. But she claims she was so ‘traumatised’ that this incident cost her her job, housing and PhD. I myself know that getting inappropriate attention from a senior academic can be unpleasant. During my nearly 7 years at Oxford I had several such instances, ranging from inappropriate compliments during seminars to a drunken hand where it should not have been. It may be controversial to say so but none of these registered as ‘hurt’ or even especially upset me. On the other hand an actual assault by a doctor when I was 14 has cast a dark shadow over my life. Genuine scars give one perspective.

  To a certain extent we could all regard ourselves as ‘victims’ of the last two years of inhumane lockdowns. However there is a danger that we lose our grip on both perspective and the language of our grievance. If all of us are victims what distinguishes the suffering and needs of different people? It becomes alphabet soup again. Recently data released by the Royal College of Speech Therapists showed that toddlers’ speech and motor skills have dropped sharply as a result of a lack of socialisation due to Covid restrictions. These infants could be described as lockdown victims. However, as with all lockdown measures, such as school closures and social isolation, the most seriously harmed are those who were already disadvantaged in terms of economic status, health/disability and family circumstances. Yet I witness a hysteria amongst parents who have perfectly healthy children who were anchored during the pandemic storm in loving, stable, secure homes. There is much talk of missed events and activities, e.g. birthday parities, school trips, camping with mates etc. Yet if we start using the language of trauma and victimhood for these undoubted stresses on the young where is there left to go when serious illness, abuse or poverty strike? Joanna Grey has recently written a heartbreaking article for The Conservative Woman ( https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-nhs-is-neglecting-child-cancer-patients-why-wont-the-media-expose-this/ )about the failings in child cancer care. She highlights the shocking inaction in dealing with this dire situation. The victims of Covid vaccine harm also face a wall of inertia and even outright hostility from Government, media and the healthcare system. There is a crisis in social care and mental healthcare with elderly and vulnerable younger adults being left in the most desperate circumstances. There are enough victims in society without an over sensitive, self indulgent victim culture distracting us from where help is truly needed. I have been called a ‘victim’ by various professionals dealing with trauma. I accept that with painful regret but will not be defined by it. However in my online ‘victim test’ I scored below average in several categories indicating perceived victimhood. That says a lot about how this concept has lost its way.

  The grooming gangs scandal should have alerted us to the danger of letting perceived victims, in that case members of a particular racial or religious community, conceal the plight of genuine victims, the abused girls. There is a danger that even the vital campaign to highlight lockdown harms will get derailed by the modern love of grievance. Nothing exposes societal disparities more than lockdowns. It is lockdowns who have shown us who the real victims in society are and they deserve our language and our actions to reflect that.