All claims of the right, in other words, advance from victimhood. Even though republicans legislate in the interests of society’s most powerful, and even though conservative social critics typically enjoy cushy sinecures at places like the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal, they rarely claim to speak on behalf of the wealthy of the winners in the social Darwinist struggle. Just like the leftists of the early twentieth century, they see themselves in revolt against a genteel tradition, rising up against a bankrupt establishment that will tolerate no backtalk. Conservatism, on the other hand, can never be powerful or successful, and backlashers revel in fantasies of their own marginality and persecution.-- Thomas Frank
It is the traditional canard of modern conservatism that liberals are in the business of making people into victims. According to the a.m. radio shock jocks American democrats have created an election strategy that involves making voters feel like victims in order for liberalism to save them. Conservative bloggers are fond of highlighting race relations, feminism, poverty, and GLBT rights as topics under which democrats create a “victim culture”. It’s a common call from pundits and malcontents that liberals want to make people feel like victims that need help while conservatives want to empower people to be independent. Yet conservatives also employ this tactic for getting out the vote.
Religious conservatives are enamored with Matthew 5:11 which speaks of the holiness of those that are persecuted for their faith. In modern Christian right literature we see this obsession with persecution manifest again and again. Cultural conservatives decry the victim-culture of minority groups while holding up the white male as persecuted minority. Jonah Goldberg, editor of the conservative opinion magazine National Review, wrote in his infamous book that, “The white male is the Jew of liberal fascism”. Economic conservatives use the language of the common man being oppressed by fat-cat bureaucrats and special interests. Modern conservatives play the so called “victim card” as often as liberals. While presenting your ideology as a solution to a problem is not an underhanded approach but to do so while attacking your opponent for using the same rhetorical device is simply hypocritical. While certainly not all conservatives are guilty of this, an alarming number of public proponents have waded hip deep into hypocrisy.
This accusation of victim culture rings hollow considering the hypocrisy and even more so considering what is being attacked. Every political activist frames their position as a solution to a given problem. The problem is presented as a malignant social force. For some it’s poverty, sin, hate, or fascism. And the activist presents his ideology as the solution to that problem. Religious conservatives present secularism as the problem and institutionalized religion as the solution. Civil rights activists present discrimination as the problem and legislation as the solution. Even libertarians regularly make use of the image of the oppressed individual yearning for their concept of liberty. This is a common rhetorical device to advance your position.
The cries of victimhood and dependence are often little more than rhetoric. Every ideology cries out that the world is a horrible place and that only through their wisdom can you bring about utopia. Victimhood is not only the wrong term for this style of argumentation but it’s a misleading term, the sole purpose of which is to paint political enemies as leeches and deceivers. Calls of victim-culture may be qualified for some instances but the constant waving of this ad-hominem makes the term near useless for serious discussion. So remember the next time you see liberals decried, as victim-makers and victim fetishists just look and see if what’s really being attacked isn’t just the old slogan, “You have a problem and we have the solution”.
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