Just by looking at the news, you’ll be flooded with the stories about people who have been discriminated against and are seeking tolerance for themselves. However, with all of the social progress movements gaining momentum in our country, it’s becoming increasingly hard to not offend certain people. Our society is geared to provide love and support for victims of injustice, but lately many individuals have been clamoring to gain recognition as victims. These self-victimized people tend to have a lot of social and political power as well, and use their status as an oppressed people to garner sympathy and even to dictate what others can and cannot say. There are actual victims that have suffered unspeakable crimes, and these are the voices that deserve all of our nation’s ears and support. However, there is grave offense being taken to the most petty statements and results in responses of legal action and social media campaigns, which lead to what we call a "victim culture."
A scholarly paper titled “Microaggression and Moral Cultures”, written by sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, gives some insight into how our moral culture has transitioned into what it is today. Back in the 19th century, we had what was called an “honor culture”. If you were ever slighted or offended by someone, you were encouraged and even expected to seek out retribution on your own. This might have come in the form of a duel or a fist fight, where the winner would assert his honor and dominance. As we became more civilized, a “dignity culture” arose. There was no need to prove one’s honor, and problems were solved peacefully in court or through other administrative bodies. If someone took offense to a minor insult, the incident was either ignored or settled out of court. Nowadays, our society has transitioned into a victim culture, where people are encouraged to respond to even the slightest insults by contacting an authority figure and making the case that they are victims of some form of prejudice.
An article on the National Review brilliantly explains this new victimizing culture that we have transgressed to. As James French puts it, “In victim culture, a person cultivates their sense of weakness and fragility, actively retarding the process of growing up.” Victimization culture is especially prevalent on college campuses, where professors have been demanded to give “trigger warnings” before discussing any material that might be considered offensive to any of the students. Some universities have even enacted “safe spaces” where students can blow bubbles, eat cookies, and play with children’s toys after being exposed to offensive language or rhetoric.
Grown adults are getting so offended by controversial debates that they have to momentarily go back to pre-school to soothe their hurt feelings. As William Bigelow writes on Breitbart, our victim culture is “infantilizing” college students, which has the effect of restricting speech and discussion of controversial topics. Rational solutions, like simply ignoring an offensive remark or talking it out with the person who caused the offense, seem totally out of the question. Instead, college students turn to the authorities in order to protect themselves from objectionable words and statements. They depend on the administrative bodies of their schools to maintain a completely politically correct environment. As Campbell and Manning wrote in Time Magazine, “Even unintentional slights are acts of aggression, all hurtful words are a threat to their safety, and it is the responsibility of the authorities to protect them.” This kind of mentality is not only harmful to the spreading of new ideas on campuses, but it also creates a generation of entitled, morally dependent people.
So, what do we do? First of all, we have to understand that we cannot control what other people think. The United States is a free democracy and every citizen has the right to believe whatever they choose to believe, no matter how much someone else may disagree with it. Trying to create "safe-zones" in college is nothing more than a temporary escape from reality. In the real world, there are no safe zones, and you won’t be able to call the police because a Starbucks barista pronounced your name wrong and you felt offended.
Tolerance goes both ways, and just as our society has welcomed so many different communities with loving arms, we also have to respect the opinions of those who aren’t as tolerant. If you feel that someone has offended you, try to express your feelings to that person and attempt to understand their own point of view. Whether or not you agree with them, you have taken the time to try and understand their position and formulated an educated opinion rather than taking offense right off the bat. It is also our responsibility to resist the victim mentality and take proactive steps to resolving political and social issues. We cannot move forward in life if we always act like victims, so we must constantly challenge our pre-existing notions with new ideas, listen to people we don’t agree with and deal with our confrontations like mature adults rather than running to a safe space where words can’t hurt us.
