Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Stereotypes and the Martyr Complex: A Dangerous Combination
If you’re like me, you’ve spent the last few months trying to figure out the reasons for the near collapse of law and order in this country. Most of us realize that events following the George Floyd death have been in the planning stage for a long time; the Marxists saw a moment of weakness in our society and capitalized on it with merciless determination.
I get all that.
But I wasn’t able to figure out why most of the people who have praised Black Lives Matter and volunteered to be rioters and protestors are white. Political leaders (as in mayors and governors) have celebrated the lawlessness and bowed to the causes of criminals. Tongue lashings from women of the white elite are witnessed by many, as are spoiled teenagers who have indulged in their first looting attempts.
What is going on?
I’d like to propose a theory for the willingness of Americans to debase themselves and engage in these extreme activities. It is a combination of the pseudo-science of stereotyping and bias, as well as the timely emergence of a Martyr Complex. Let me first explain the misleading conclusions that have been reached about stereotyping and the role it plays in the activities of the last few months.
In recent years, the study of stereotypes has revealed some fascinating factors:
Psychologists once believed that only bigoted people used stereotypes. Now the study of unconscious bias is revealing the unsettling truth: We all use stereotypes, all the time, without knowing it.
Actually, this conclusion doesn’t surprise me. Our brains are complex organs and the unconscious is, by definition, unknown to us. The article goes on to say:
Previously, researchers who studied stereotyping had simply asked people to record their feelings about minority groups and had used their answers as an index of their attitudes. Psychologists now understand that these conscious replies are only half the story. How progressive a person seems to be on the surface bears little or no relation to how prejudiced he or she is on an unconscious level—so that a bleeding-heart liberal might harbor just as many biases as a neo-Nazi skinhead.
I was still reluctantly onboard, until Jon Bargh, Ph.D. of New York University reached a more questionable conclusion:
‘Even if there is a kernel of truth in the stereotype, you’re still applying a generalization about a group to an individual, which is always incorrect,’ says Bargh. Accuracy aside, some believe that the use of stereotypes is simply unjust. ‘In a democratic society, people should be judged as individuals and not as members of a group,’ Banaji argues. ‘Stereotyping flies in the face of that ideal.’
I disagree with every sentence of their statements: (1) a stereotype almost always has some truth. For Dr. Bargh to say applying the generalization to an individual is always incorrect, is, well, too broad a generalization for me; (2) stereotypes in our thinking are not, in themselves, just or unjust, unless we apply them unfairly; they simply exist; (3) democracy does not require judging others at all, but is only intended to protect our rights; and (4) since stereotyping has nothing to do with democracy, it doesn’t fly in the face of any ideal (unless you are a Progressive).
I have made the effort to parse this paragraph because it reeks of the politicization of science. The scientists intend not only to tell us that we are victims of our unconscious mind, but they go on to say even more:
Of course, we aren’t completely under the sway of our unconscious. Scientists think that the automatic activation of a stereotype is immediately followed by a conscious check on unacceptable thoughts—at least in people who think that they are not prejudiced. This internal censor successfully restrains overtly biased responses. But there’s still the danger of leakage, which often shows up in non-verbal behavior: our expressions, our stance, how far away we stand, how much eye contact we make.
So, we must become fully conscious or our unconscious minds will lead us to be racists. We are hopeless human beings who are unable to be perfectly conscious, i.e., free of our stereotypes of others.
* * * * *
Now that we have explored the mindset of stereotypes and how we are victim to those stereotypes we hold (whether we know it or not), let me go on to explain the role of the Martyr Complex, also known as Martyr Syndrome, in the societal chaos, as well as its relationship to stereotyping. (Do not confuse the Martyr Complex with those who are called to martyrdom, such as Todd Beamer, shown above, who sacrificed his life on United Flight 93.)
I think most people agree that we live in a secular society, and that many of our citizens not only reject religion but have disdain for it. Nevertheless, many people crave some kind of religious experience (in the broadest sense), although they would call it something else. Belief systems like Marxism, Leninism, Leftism, and Progressivism today are thriving. One aspect of these “isms,” however, has been the missing role of the martyr. What is the definition of a martyr?
Historically, a martyr is someone who chooses to sacrifice their [sic] life or face pain and suffering instead of giving up something they hold sacred. While the term is still used this way today, it’s taken on a secondary meaning that’s a bit less dramatic. Today, the term is sometimes used to describe someone who seems to always be suffering in one way or another.
I am suggesting that the historic definition applies today, practiced in the extreme. Elaborating on this definition, there is this statement:
Know that people with martyr syndrome suffer mostly by choice. When someone has martyr syndrome, they often choose to continue suffering, rather than fixing the problem, because they think that their suffering provides them with the completeness and fulfillment required to lead a meaningful and whole life. More than anything, a person with martyr syndrome longs for recognition and approval from those around them. (Italics are mine.)
By this time, you might be asking about the connection between stereotypes and martyrdom.
If people become convinced there is absolutely no way that they can rid themselves of their racism, they are filled with overwhelming guilt. If they aspire to achieve an ideal life, they feel hopeless. They must do something to atone for, be punished for what they believe and who they are. They must present themselves as martyrs to the cause. They must declare it publicly, verbally flagellating themselves and decrying the unbelievers.
The leaders of Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and all the other organizations who are marching in our streets know just what they are doing. They seized an opportunity to maximize Progressive guilt, self-hatred, and pain. They will continue to recruit the people who cannot “free themselves” of their inherent stereotypes and urge them to seek martyrdom. And they will welcome them with open arms.
If we do not stand up for truth and traditional values, they will try to take the rest of us, kicking and screaming, with them.
Published in Culture
Haha, I love it when I get into with a proabortion type, and they sneer, “You prolifers say all that, but you won’t lift a finger to help a girl in trouble.”
I reply, “Yeah, except for that woman and her boy who lived with us for three years.”
I think the need to be approved of and conforming to society is driving a lot of it – and it doesn’t need to be the entire ‘American’ society, just the society that they are moving around in. I think it’s reached a tipping point – it used to be normal in some places to be a member of the KKK – your neighbor was, the guy down the street was, and your boss might be. Or to be a Nazi or a member of the communist party – hey, you want to get ahead in your career don’t you? Don’t rock the boat, keep your head down, and just do what you’re told. In other better societies those same people would have conformed to those better conditions and never done things that would be thought of as monstrous.
And I’m not saying that our current crop of malcontents are the KKK or Nazis, just that once feeling certain ways and doing certain things become ‘normal’ people who don’t want to stick out will ‘normalize’ themselves and join in with gusto to prove they are part of the group.
Add in to that a certain cadre of hard leftists who seem to be operating under a militant / insurgent model getting even limited support from outside entities (China / Russia / Iran – I’d really like to see an examination of this similar to the kind of support the environmental movement may have received — let’s not forget that Germany put Lenin on the train to Russia) and who are able to point that at what they want to destroy and you can get something pretty explosive.
If I were a dictator. Haha, I had a boss who said, “Arvo, if you were a manager, you’d have the happiest employees in the world, but they wouldn’t get anything done.”
Police reform, maybe along the lines of Sen Tim Scott’s proposals. I posted an essay on 13th with some comments on criminal justice reform. I’m very excited about the possibilities the recent SCOTUS decision on church schools allows.
Those would be a good start.
And if I did get a wish, or something like that, it’s becoming very clear to me as interact with my Black left of center friends and my White right of center friends, that all y’all need to start visiting each other and eating and sipping tea and stuff and mostly listening to each other.
In general, the perceptions of each other are wildly imaginative.
My guess is that they do it to keep every sentence from sounding like a question because of rising inflection on the last word. Many women do that.
Bingo.
How many people do they have to kill before you’ll consider them the equivalent of the KKK?
Well, since I wasn’t making the comparison on the number of murders committed in their name or due to their actions and ideology, I guess I don’t have an answer to that.
Would it make you feel better if I consider them to be heading down the road of the Bolsheviks, the Khmer Rouge, and Mao? It seems to fit better – the KKK and the Nazis, whether they meant it or were just using it for power, appealed to a return to what was in their opinion a better past, where as the others wanted to replace everything that currently stood.
And like those movements, there may be people pulled along believing in the greatness of the cause until they too get lined up against the wall.
Yes.
Even starting that kind of conversation requires a certain level of trust and a certain amount of time to get to the point of having that trust. And unfortunately in the current environment I’m certainly not having an open and frank discussion about things with anyone I don’t trust 100%. Even if we were only talking about favorite books, or childhood memories, I’d have the same kind of filter running as I do when I’m at work now.
THAT’S what worries me most about things right now. I think the majority of America of all race and creeds has more in common than we are led to believe and we aren’t being allowed to realize that. And won’t until it’s too late.
Dude! You have asked THE question.
By my count we’ve had approximately 1,000,006 racial uprisings in my lifetime, each one demanding Change. And each time some stuff changes – some of it dumb, some of it very dumb. And a few things ok.
What mostly changes is the basic attitude of whites and blacks. Slowly but surely your ordinary racist folks from the ’30s age out, younger people are more tolerant and understanding and eager to help. The official programs the politicians pass are generally more destructive than helpful, but the attitudes of the people grow more tolerant and inclusive as generations go by. Blacks and Whites in America now have a level of equality in the culture that would have been undreamed of in the 30s. I’m 63 and consider myself pretty much “post-racial” – it’s a great time to be alive, let’s all enjoy it, and each other.
But to the current generation of activists – and let’s not leave out race-hustlers, and race-exploiters like BLM – the smallest remaining problem can be magnified into the worst racial injustice mankind has ever known!
Problem is, nobody knows exactly what it is that they think ought to be changed. What, specifically, is your demand? Your plan? What would a world that you would be living in contentedly and agree that there is now harmony and justice look like?
They don’t know any more than you or I do. The best thing they seem to have figured out is that it involves lots of burned out buildings and spray paint.
It’s pretty simple. Destroy America. Period.
Some is college. Look at the video of this bizarre women (man) in a green skirt berating police who stand there quietly as she goes on and on about how they are not as educated as she is. Of course, given the state of colleges today, there is no evidence that such a person is educated.
The video is here.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/07/nypd-taunted-by-protesters-black-judas-you-guys-go-to-clown-college/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=df176998-f9b4-4346-9788-d893eeebb8ef
It really is amusing. My brother in law had a Master’s in Public Administration. He was a Chicago cop for many years and retired.
Susan QuinnPost author
could they be anticipating when a mob comes by, their houses will be spared thanks to the signs?
No offence taken, Susan. I love speaking varieties of Australian, I just think it sounds really different from Valley Girl.
I don’t think it’s necessary to believe in Marxism to support the revolution. It’s enough to believe that because systemic racism must be destroyed, the system that gave birth to it (the US Constitution, classical liberalism, and Western civiliazation) must likewise be destroyed.
The Chinese are fine with that. Their goal is their own hegemony—which means the end of US hegemony—and if barbarians want to do stupid things, so long as they don’t bother China it’s no skin off China’s behind.
The US, if it retains any wide use of technology, will be force to use Chinese devices and so subject to Chinese surveillance and control. The only possibility of avoiding this would be for the US to begin developing its production of strategic rare earth element. This would only be possile if Trump wins, and the environmental movement will fight this tooth and nail. This will leave China with its stranglehold on strategic materials, so look for heavy Chinese support for the “environmental” lobby should Trump retake the White House.
Men and women experience the world very differently. I wouldn’t notice things (eg a trans person in the public bathroom I’m using) that (I think) most women definitely would notice and some (many?) would find threatening. It’s pointless for me to insist that my way experiencing it is the cultural norm and dismissing how women experience it without asking them why they experience it the way they do. And vice versa. It even seems like a good approach.
This is the puzzle to me: If the side or coalition that wants to unseat Trump is excusing the violent protestors and also proposing nothing firm to build a solution beyond police reform (which Trump and Republicans are on board with anyway)….why would the chaos help them in any way? Both in the election and in the longer goal of erasing stereotypes?
I’ve seen these signs on houses that could easily house a few dozen refugees. Never seen refugees in those houses. Just a small family of limousine leftists leaving a huge carbon footprint as they lecture us on climate change.
I, too, reject the guilt theory and martyr complex notions. Those young (mostly white) men carrying baseball bats into “protests” and assaulting police and reporters (have you watched the videos?) aren’t feeling a sense of guilt or desiring suffering for the sake of the cause. Just the opposite. They have the fire of righteous indignation in them and their goal is to inflict suffering on the society that has made it possible for them to live in their parents’ basement and spew vile hatred from their thousand dollar laptop keyboard into the internet ether.
These are not people involved in any kind of serious self-reflection about their culpability in matters. Otherwise, they’d realize their ideology is intrinsically coercive, destructive of the good, and racist. But, I repeat.
Dennis Prager has a good take on the dynamics involved:
https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/02/the-present-moment-has-set-blacks-back-a-half-century/
Where we would agree, I imagine, is that lacking religion, these people lack meaning and purpose in their lives and are looking for something to supplant the ennui. The secular Left cultural and parental influences reduce their culpability for their despicable behavior, but they don’t take from the fact that they’re demon-possessed.
Seriously. Have you seen the pictures and videos?! There’s a massive spiritual war happening in our streets between the forces of good and evil, and evil seems to be carrying the day. There will be a reckoning. Let’s just hope and pray it’s in our favor before the clock runs out.
As an agnostic I would not use your terminology and frame. But I agree with your conclusions. Whether Nature is a creation of G-d perverted by sin or a thing solely in and of itself, it is a demonstrable force that can sustain or destroy mankind. We see the formation and progress of storms in Nature. No less should we see the formation and progress of storms in human affairs. We build against the destruction that Nature can do and to profit from its bounties. No less should our understanding of human conduct in collective action spur us to build structures to contain malign consequences and to harness providential energies. That is what our constitution does and why it must be preserved and followed with extreme exactitude. We were given a Rosetta Stone by our Founders, but have permitted etchings upon it that have obscured its message and usefulness in protecting us from the inevitable storms.
What evidence is there that the death of Arbery was racially motivated? How do you know that they would not have treated a white suspect the same way?
Likewise, I don’t know if any evidence that the actions of the officers in the Floyd case were racially motivated.
This is one of my points. There is a baseless attribution of racist motivation. That’s actually a racist thing to do – to attribute a particular motive to a white person, based on nothing but a stereotype.
It’s not the subject of this discussion, but this is not correct. There is empirical evidence on this issue, which usually finds no statistically significant genetic effect, and where there is a statistically significant correlation, it is small.
This is the key question. The justification for insurrection is “systemic racism” not even individual racism or a cumulation of evil acts. So it is important to examine the pieces of evidence to determine whether they fit a case for systemic racism. We are biologically designed to see patterns. And we will see them whether or not they exist. It is only through disciplined examination of facts and acknowledgement of important distinctions between that which facts suggest and that which facts demonstrate that we can avoid projecting a false pattern on reality.
Come on. I’ve never heard, or seen a video, that anyone hit Arbery with a truck. Anyone, please produce the video or the written account of this. The case is one of (at best) a kidnapping in Arbery’s view, versus a citizen’s arrest gone awry in the the others’ view. If you don’t have evidence that Arbery was struck by a truck then this is just race-baiting in its newest form.
This strikes me as analogous to Derbyshire’s column that got him fired from National Review. It was evidence to me that NR was losing its way.
https://www.takimag.com/article/the_talk_nonblack_version_john_derbyshire/
Derb’s kids are Eurasian.
Saw lots of them in Tucson but doubt many refugees were adopted.
Statistically accurate.
The KKK wasn’t about the number of people they killed – the violence was about the intimidation of everyone else.