this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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It always reminds me of the Bill Burr interview:
The news anchor is going, "Bill, aren't you being a little hard on those people?" In reference to something like clergymen raping boys.
And Bill is like, "How do you think those boys feel?"
This might be not the right place to ask, but is there a theory or phenomenon that explains why so many people side with the perpetrators/people in power when abuses are being commented on?
Sympathizing with the clergyman in your example, or another pop culture example I've seen recently is defending private jet usage.
The easy answer is "brainworms", but there must be more to it than that, surely?
Victim blaming is so prolific, I find people justifying it in a way that sounds like, "it would never happen to me, so it's your fault for letting it happen to you." People either aren't willing or aren't capable of understanding a different perspective from their own, so they aren't able to sympathize.
How we label that deficiency (and it is a deficiency) will be hard to do because the causes can be so varied.
If it isn't direct victim blaming then it is people who can't understand that others have different experiences.
"My priest didn't molest me, so that person must be lying!"
If all else fails some people even resort to supernatural explanations like karma. I’ve seen this with illness, like when someone has a disease that they didn’t cause themselves in any way such as cancer or an autoimmune disease. Somebody told me that I must have “been really bad in a past life” to be chronically ill. It’s like they’re unable to accept that some people are unlucky so they really want it to be the victim’s fault somehow.
With something like celiac, people suggest you have it because you’re misinformed and believe it exists, or they invent reasons that they think you caused it for yourself. Same with type 1 diabetes, another condition for which the cause is entirely unknown other than genetics. People also like to downplay severity, without considering that it varies, and say things like “I know someone with that” (which may or may not be accurate) “and they don’t have such a problem with it”.
This. I would also add that there's another superficial belief that goes somewhat like 'if I support it, it will never happen with me' or 'if I side with oppressor, I will never be an oppressed one'.
It is actually happening in my country - Russia. Those who were pro-war applauded when the anti-war community was repressed. Well, it's not been long until the government came for them. Poor idiots.
Right, commonly known as “the leopards will never eat MY face”