ALL THEY WANTED WAS A COOKIE
It was bound to happen. The victim machine just hadn't gotten there yet. But it has now, thanks to Amy Alkon, and it's a doozy. The new victim class is---of all things----men in flagrante delicto.
And she's squealing in delight and righteous indignation. She's found a new class of victim she can counsel with her It's Not Fair/You're Being Treated Like A Dog shtick.
Today, therapists, advice goddesses, lawyers and others in the helping professions eat, sleep and live (as in make lavish amounts of money) off the victimhood of others. They spend inordinate amounts of time identifying, diagnosing, advising, drugging, suing, legislating, adjudicating and attempting to cure it all while perpetuating their victimhood and racking up billions in billable hours and professional kudos.
And that's even before John Edwards became a presidential contender.
These victims have rights, no responsibilities, no insight and get a free pass to wander the halls of civilization in a suspended state of adolescent animation, while their new helpful advocates champion their cause. It's about either/or rather than both/and. It's about having your cake and eating it too.
Their daily grind---24/7/365----revolves around the elevation of VICTIMHOOD to a Divine Designation. Victimhood is made up of an identified victim, a person deceived or cheated, as by his or her own emotions or ignorance, by the dishonesty of others, or by some impersonal agency: a victim of misplaced confidence; the victim of a swindler; a victim of an optical illusion, and an identified victimizer, a person who swindles, cheats or dupes others.
Only problem is that the Amy's of the World never focus how a victim is deceived or cheated by their own emotions, dishonesty, wishful thinking or lack of discipline. That would verge on taking personal responsiblity, and we can't have that. It's about assigning blame to others with remedies outside oneself---new laws, court decisions, publicity, government intervention and ever greater finger pointing, as the victim decibel level continues to rise.
It goes without saying that you cannot have a victim (the designation you want most, if you want Amy or Jessie on your side) without a victimizer (the designation you want least). Two sides, same coin, blah, blah blah. (But you may rest assured the helping professions love to assign which is which.) It should also be noted here that while the machines of victimhood assign only blame, the world of personal responsibility gets left far behind in the dust. Never mind that personal responsibility is the innate reality of each and every individual regardless of gender, race, color, religion, creed or nationality.)
And so it behooves Civilization's Helping Professions to keep finding new classes of victims and victimizers for the pipelines of their prestigious psychoanalytic journals, advancement of their reputations, bank accounts and blogs. It's like the drug companies who must invent new ailments, like moving foot syndrome, in order to foist new drugs on the market for their bottom lines.
Today, on Pajamas Media, Amy Alkon gives us a piece of her mind about women who victimize her new pet victims du jour: men in the act and and under the influence of their---how to say it on my blog? ---of their tiniest reptilian brains.
MEN WHO JUST CAN'T HELP THEMSELVES
Get your hankies out, folks, before you venture any further into this piece entitled: Daddy Nobucks, When Involuntary Fathers are Made to Foot the Bill, as Amy asks with a straight face, should men who say they don't want children to the object of their immediate affective gratification be held financially accountable if and when they unintentionally get their female objects pregnant?
Great question, Amy, glad you asked. The short answer is Y-E-S.
And Y-E-S also to the woman involved. It's both/and. Both are victims and victimizers who share responsibility. Either they now work out the child they created or the courts and social agencies will, and it will never seem fair to one or the other, or both. Class dismissed.
But if you don't like this answer and prefer Amy's instead, start the violins. Hands may collectively be wrung all the way to the end of the rather lengthy comments.
Amy whines on that if a man says he doesn't want children and then creates them, completely by accident with a woman he just met at, say, a bar while they both drank themselves under the table and into bed together, that he must be a victim and the woman, a victimizer if she keeps the child and wants his financial help, often for the rest of his life. He was drugged and duped by her and not himself, poor guy, and now he shouldn't have to pay out to her revenge machine for the bill.
What Amy means is, making babies shouldn't count if you're not in your right mind or if you've made it clear you don't want or aren't ready for children, but yes, you do most certainly want to have sex on demand without any further questions or consequences.
Amy----- "who has no patience for unscrupulous women luring unwitting partners into checkbook daddyhood"----continues follows:
"As I wrote in my syndicated advice column, in no other arena is a swindler rewarded with a court-ordered monthly cash settlement paid to them by the person they bilked. In an especially sick miscarriage of justice, even a man who says he was sexually victimized by an older woman from the time he was 14, has been forced to pay support for the child that resulted from underage sex with her."
My, she has a way with words.
In Amy's world having sex anytime, anywhere with anyone is a Divine Right and should carry no responsibilities or consequences whatsoever. Technology absolves us from all that. And if technology or wishful thinking fails, then we still shouldn't have to suffer consequences---because we say so!
Amy's readers---victims and would be victims waiting in the wings----are eating it up like chocolate chip cookies a la mode.
Amy and others of her ilk are victim makers and enablers. They keep the victim machines going full-steam in our world of perpetual rights without responsibilities, where more laws enabling victims rights and government intervention and funding are the only answers she can find.
A victim commenter whines as he reflects on her piece:
The law must change. Males must be considered human beings. Males are NOT ATM's with legs!
Indeed. There's truth in them thar hillls. However, why ever should this brilliant man think that the burden of change rests with the law and government, instead of with himself? If he doesn't want to become an ATM with legs, then praytell why should he treat himself like one? Why not take a little time to get to know the woman to see if she's really someone he should walk away or run from on the front end, before ever having sex?
Oh, I forgot. It's because men are no longer responsible for their own discernment, choices, drinking habits and most of all getting their immediate sexual needs gratified on demand. And of course, then neither are women.
Instant gratification with no consequences is another Divine Right in Amy's World of Fairness.
Only problem is it's not the real world. But it sure brings more "victimized"men in flagrante delicto to the Amy's of the world for "advice" and "fairness," with nary a word about personal responsibility, commitment, love, morality, discernment and those dreaded and ignored words abstinence until marriage.
Those are not words adolescents want to hear, nor the Victim Makers want to convey. Words like that might start turning people into grown-ups which then might take some of their clients away of their voracious victim pipelines.
But until men can control themselves on the front end of in flagrante delicto they are indeed ATMs with legs waiting to happen.
Brilliant piece of writing on a complicated subject that undoubtedly dates back to when loose women required loose men to furnish them with dinosaur meat for the rest of their lives.
ReplyDelete.. oh....hush up!....
ReplyDeleteAs a therapist since forever, I frequently ask myself--and others--if we are making our clients into children by our empathy about their woes. There has to be a real balance between hearing their story and helping them to see their power to change it. I believe that the best therapy teaches people how to be responsible for themselves, their thoughts and feelings, and for creating their own life how the want it to be--in essence, we really grow them up, out of victim and victimizer.
ReplyDeletePat, how fortunate your clients are to have you as a counselor.
ReplyDeleteYou're just the kind of person I want as a best friend.....
I agree that Pat sounds like a good therapist. Web, you have made many good points about the "helping professions." Caseworkers keep telling Colleen and I what a great job we are doing in helping to develop responsible little peopple. They think it is because we are both graduates in the helping professions. Actually, it is in spite of our training!
ReplyDelete