Victim Mentality
Rick Knight (rknight@platinum.com)
Fri, 12 Sep 97 10:16:06 CST
Mark Crosby wrote:
As Diana's funeral brought the country to a standstill, the message
was clear: It has become sacrilegious to suggest that suffering has no
intrinsic meaning, or to state that the experience of being a victim
does not automatically confer on the individual any special qualities.
An enlightened society would treat its victims with compassion and
respect, but not with the kind of adulation that should be reserved
for heroes. And that's just the point: Yesterday's public adored and
revered heroes, today's celebrates frailty and weakness.
Britain has not only lost Diana. If the experience of the past week is
any indication, it may also have lost something more important: the
belief that what matters is what you do, not how much you say you
suffer.
Rick Knight:
Another spin: the royal family (Windsors) are an antiquated notion,
Britain's rich and famous icons (like our Hollywood icons). The
citizenry (to whom that means anything) look to these people for
connection, to admire them and to whom their heritage as a
centuries-old monarchy is tied. The Windsors behaved they way they
do, with reservation and disconnection. This time, that wasn't
suitable for the British public. Grief often brings out the pettiest
of qualities in people so they spent the week after Diana's death
resorting to quips about who was being authentic in their grief (if
they weren't busy assigning blame...the photogs, the drunk driver, the
antiquated construction of the tunnel).
Diana may have been a victim but she was also a hero in the eyes of
her countrymen and apparently much of the world. To try to classify
her as one thing or the other is rather moot in my book, save perhaps
for the exercise of classifying the British populace in a broad sweep
which also seems rather trite.
Now, Mother Teresa, there's a victim for you! Poor woman died of old
age and didn't sign up for cryonic preservation, a victim of her
antiquated belief system! ;->
Rick