Man is a social animal. This statement is something that we
would have come across umpteen times without actually understanding how deep
and profound it actually is. It is generally taken to mean that human beings
cannot live or survive in isolation and they work better in groups. But like
all other animals, life is not so simple for us. We do not just get up, forage
for food, eat and sleep. We have been blessed (or cursed) with an additional
sense that allows us to feel, think and analyze more than our non-civilized
counterparts. With the changing world, the dynamics with which man interacts
has also changed. Social networking and the presence of internet that connects
us to the happenings all over the world has made the world a very small place.
An undesirable outcome of this is that it has increases the feeling of
vulnerability in man a thousand fold, especially his vulnerability in a
criminal event.
It is not that the crime rate has taken a huge leap in
comparison to the crime rates in the last few decades, but the knowledge and
awareness about the potentiality of the crimes has increased. Imagine a few
years back, if an old lady got attacked in her home in a small town in Mumbai,
the maximum number of people who would know about it would be the population of
Mumbai if the news made it to the papers. But now, it is not the case. A small
face book post or a tweet will make it the talk of the day for millions of
people. Similarly, before the era of Internet one would have a very small
knowledge of crimes happening in the world especially if he/she happens to live
in a crime free neighborhood but now Google has taken that safety net away from
us. So how do people handle this?? How do they go on with life without letting
it get to them?? They attribute.
"When a good man is hurt, all who would be
called good must suffer with him."
- Euripides
Attribution is a
widely recognized social psychological phenomenon. It is the process of
inferring the causes of events and behaviors. Please note that I don’t say
understanding but I say “inferring”. What is the difference you ask? While
understanding the cause, it is purely a fact based process where one analyses
the event without emotional attachment, but while inferring we apply our
“senses” and get a feel of the event thus not always entirely being objective
in the analysis. Attribution is supposed to be the main phenomenon behind one
of the biggest social atrocity known as “blaming the victim” or “victim
blaming”.
Victim blaming is not a new thing as far as the world is
concerned. It has been associated with the analysis of sexual crimes and
domestic violence ever since the 19th century till the rape-shield
laws were brought into effect in the early 20th century. It is said
to be a result of the two major attitude :
belief in a just world and the need to maintain vulnerability.
The first time “blaming the victim” was recognized as a
prevalent social phenomenon or an attitude was by William Ryan in his book
“Blaming the victim” in 1971 which was written as an answer to the Moynihan
Report which blames the Black people for their poverty based on their family
structure rather than the rule of the Americans over them which resulted in the
social disruption and the state of poverty in the black families. Hence, we can
safely understand that “victim blaming” is not something new or a twenty-first
century phenomenon.
Then why is that it has gained importance in recent times?
Over the past few decades, psychologists and sociologists
have been researching the cause of the human tendency to attribute blame on the
victims in a criminal situation. They have concluded that it is majorly to
avoid vulnerability and also to retain a sense of control over the events that
take place in one’s life. It is also observed that the tendency of victim
blaming is not born in any individual but is an attitude that is slowly woven
into the fabrics of a society’s ideologies and beliefs which later become the
yardstick by which one analyses certain events.
In the last few years, “victim blaming” has taken a
seriously ugly turn. Usually in the past this term was used only in the context
of victims of very ugly crimes such as rape, domestic violence, racism etc.
because these were the crimes that were seen as unpredictable and
un-controllable by the people which brought out the fear of vulnerability in
them. Hence, they blamed the victims to maintain their conception of a moral
and just world where bad things don’t and could not happen to good people. But,
if we notice the trend in the last few years, “victim blaming” is everywhere.
From small crimes like chain-snatching to the office-sexual-harassment, the
society spares no time in putting the victim on trial by asking questions like
“What were you doing there at that time of the night?” “How do you dress when
you go to office?” “Why would take the subway while carrying cash?” Why is it
that we work so hard to maintain the façade that we do live in a just world?
One explanation of this is that the sense of vulnerability
has gone up in the society with the world being a smaller place than it used to
be and also the lack of privacy increasing the fear of attack in people. We are
all busy in the materialistic pursuit our whole lives that we do not have the
time to sit down, think with a clear mind and understand a situation. It is too
easy to confront the victim than the perpetrator as the perpetrator represents
the unknown which we all fear and also want to distance ourselves from.
It is also that the social dynamics have changed such that
human interactions have lessened, deep bonds within people even in family are
rare and also the capacity to empathize with anybody is now diminishing as we
also have become less social and more animal satisfying our primal needs like
greed, survival and self-importance.
I do agree that believing in the horrors of the world and
acknowledging their strength does seem scary but denial is not the right way to
handle it. It does not minimize our vulnerability it only makes feel
invulnerable. It also traumatizes the victims when they should be comforted and
shown compassion for the fate they have suffered. It is always believed by
psychologists that emotional trauma is always difficult to overcome than
physical trauma. So, let’s not bequeath it to the victims in a need to satisfy
our sense of security and destroy our social environment by making it devoid of
humane feelings like empathy and compassion.
Let’s not question the victims because sometimes even they
don’t have the answers. It is indeed a sad fact that bad things do happen to
good people but they are never responsible for it.
- Wanna-be-Savant
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