Well Being: Victim, Warrior, or ?

Choose carefully. How you self-define determines what you will become.

Self-victimization is one of the most prevalent trends in today’s post-modern society, and is deeply embedded in the psychological and philosophical frame of reference often referred to as “woke”.

James Lindsay’s “Translations from the Wokish” lists three relevant key terms:

• Victim/victimhood. Victimhood is defined as “the condition of having been hurt, damaged, or made to suffer, especially when you want people to feel sorry for you because of this or use it as an excuse for something.

• Victim blaming. The Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime defines victim blaming as being when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially at fault for the harm that befell them.

• Victimhood culture. According to Campbell and Manning (who coined the term), victimhood culture engenders “competitive victimhood,” incentivizing even privileged people to claim that they are victims.

Victim or warrior.

For some reason, our minds like the simplicity of structuring political and philosophical debates and trends as “dielectics” - essentially, that there are two sides to every issue. In my opinion, this often leads to the logical fallacy of a “false dichotomy”, because most important issues are quite complicated with many more than just two “black and white” aspects to the underlying truth. Dialectics, also known as the dialectical method, is a method of philosophical argument that involves a back-and-forth dialogue or debate between opposing sides. It originated in ancient philosophy and continued to be developed in the Middle Ages. The concept excludes subjective elements such as emotional appeal and rhetoric. Plato presented his philosophical argument as a back-and-forth dialogue or debate, generally between the character of Socrates, on one side, and some person or group of people to whom Socrates was talking (his interlocutors) on the other. In other words, western culture (and our minds) has been trained and programmed over centuries to always think in terms of a simplistic and over simplified dialectic.

So what is the dielectical opposing psychological force or trend to woke victimhood? Within society the victim trend exists in oppositional tension with another trope or trend, the warrior mentality.

Writing for Psychology Today, in her article “Are You a Warrior? And If So, What Kind?” Carol S. Pearson, Ph.D., a former provost and professor, examines the Warrior trope.

Warriors generally are associated with two kinds of courage: (1) the ability to fight to protect themselves and (2) setting goals and developing the strength and skills to accomplish them. If we do not have enough access to the Warrior archetype, we may let other people push us around, lack direction, or fail to achieve our goals because we do not persist.

The Warrior Paradigm in Government and Public Policy

The Preamble to the United States Constitution declares that two purposes of our government are to “provide for the common defense” and “promote the general welfare.” The Warrior archetype specializes in the former. When a problem arises, Warriors identify the threats and then seek to eliminate them. In government, the Warrior generally is hawkish in international affairs, harsh on crime, and cares deeply about protecting national borders—in the extreme, viewing undocumented people essentially as invaders. Primal Warriors also emphasize the right of citizens to carry guns and argue that the way to maintain peace is through the deterrent of maximizing the nuclear stockpile and other weapons of mass destruction. In Warrior politics, the goal is to defeat the other party, and, to that end, propaganda may replace truth, leading to the epidemic of fake news. However, the Warrior also can fight for values such as “truth, justice, and the American way.” The goal can be to preserve the best of the past or to move toward a vision of the future. In such cases, the enemy is not the other party; rather, it is ignorance, and the weapon is truth.

Dr. Pearson also recommends caution:

Warrior Christianity teaches that there is a battle going on between God and Satan, and it is important to be on the winning side lest Hell await, and the Warrior side of all the Abrahamic religions engages in wars against evil on behalf of God. Whether we are religious or not, if we see ourselves as the moral winners engaged in a contest for the soul of our country against the forces of evil, we may find this a slippery slope into demonizing those we disagree with.

She also discusses other roles which may combine effectively with warriors:

The Warrior with Caregiver cares about threats to the survival, health, and happiness of individual people and groups. In this context, the Warrior/Caregiver develops strength in our citizenry through capacity development—education and job training, healthcare, and mandating safe living and working conditions—as well as caring for all those who cannot care for themselves. The Warrior/Caregiver, overall, balances self-interest and altruism, thus promoting the Constitution’s goal of “promoting the general welfare” and delivering on the promise of “liberty and justice for all.”

In partnership with the Magician—for example, in the Star Wars movies—the bad guys are the fascist, cruel Warriors and the rebels are energized by the power of The Force (Magician). Wonder Woman’s magic infuses Warrior superpowers with love; her lasso makes people tell the truth, and her bracelets deflect aggression. In the 2017 Wonder Woman movie, the Amazonian hero is caught up in World War I and becomes determined to kill Ares, the god of war, and thus end forever all the pain and suffering he causes. Although she does not use archetypal language, she learns that killing Ares does not end war because warlike impulses are embedded within people. In the language of this blog, this means that you cannot kill an archetype, but archetypes can evolve along with human consciousness. In her identity as Diana Prince, Wonder Woman ends the movie with this statement of her new mission:

“I used to want to save the world. To end war and bring peace to mankind. But then, I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light. I learned that inside every one of them, there will always be both ... Now I know. Only love can save the world. So I stay. I fight, and I give ... This is my mission now. And forever.”

The idea of ending war through the power of love isn’t new. Jesus was on to it, as were many other wise spiritual teachers in various traditions. Most of us want peace on earth; the question is how to attain it.

Love has always been present in the Warriors who are willing to die to protect the people they love or even the road warriors who will work so very hard to provide for their families. The Warrior already has evolved into many new forms that do not involve killing one another, and right now, many are fighting for love as caring for others, along with the right to love who you love, for love of the earth, for love of truth, for love of the Divine and of country, even if we do not always agree with one another about what any of these demand of us.

Cognitive Dissonance and Self-victimization

Marsha M. Linehan, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle and Director of the Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics, is the creator of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), a type of psychotherapy that combines cognitive restructuring with acceptance, mindfulness, and shaping. She defines DBT as facilitating a synthesis or integration of opposites, meaning two opposing things being true at once, which is one way to resolve the inner tension of recognizing that two things can be both believed to be true and also contradict each other at the same time.

Unfortunately, holding two opposing ideas or frames of reference in your mind at the same time is associated with “Cognitive Dissonance”, a major source of psychological stress and pain. Cognitive dissonance develops when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other. Psychological pain and discomfort is triggered by a person's current belief clashing with new information that they receive.

You may have encountered cognitive dissonance when either you or others have been confronted by fact-based data concerning the COVIDcrisis that contradict the approved narrative of the time. When mentally challenged by new information inconsistent with currently held models of “truth” or reality, individuals (and organizations!) will do all in their power to transform the contradiction in ways that will resolve their cognitive dissonance and reduce their discomfort by resolving the inconsistencies. The most psychologically primitive and immature method for resolving this tension is to deny the inconvenient truth. You know the meme- All scientists agree when you censor the ones that don’t agree. What makes that one funny is the underlying truth, and the recognition of how immature that all too common behavior is.

In a sense, the definition, labeling, censorship and response to officially defined mis- dis- and malinformation concerning COVID case fatality rates, early treatment protocols, and lack of mRNA vaccine safety and efficacy is a psychologically primitive and dysfunctional attempt by “leaders” of western administrative states (“Leviathans”) and self-anointed “one world government” globalist organizations (WHO, WEF, UN) to resolve the cognitive dissonance and associated psychological pain of encountering the truth of what they have done over the last three years.

These political organizations seek to resolve the dissonant painful truth of how poorly they have managed the COVIDcrisis (which is inconsistent with their self-image of benign competent authority) by not only denying data which demonstrates their gross ineptitude, opportunistic malfeasance and outright fraud, tragic disrespect and damage to both global humanity and individuals, but also by attacking or censoring any who have the temerity to speak of such things. Damage that has clearly occurred, and is most easily resolved by denying the ability of others to even discuss these inconvenient truths through deployment of advanced propaganda, PsyWar and censorship technologies.

So what options do you have when confronting the awesome power of governments, their militaries, their various domestic enforcers and their intelligence service agencies to deploy advanced PsyWar technologies on you, as they seek to control both all information you are able to access, all speech you may wish to share with others, as well as your own personal thoughts, emotions, beliefs and your very soul?

It is so tempting to play the victim, to go along to get along, to just let them have their way with you. To allow them to control you, and to control your future and that of your children. To self-victimize.

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Consider this essay from clinical psychologist Jill P. Weber Ph.D., published in Psychology Today, titled Self-Victimizing Again? There is relief for the persistently victimized.

Do you attribute control of your successes and failures to yourself or to some fated force outside of your purview? Whether it is your weight, your emotions, your spouse, your children, your paycheck--if you continually find yourself feeling angry, resentful or upset by the events in your life, reflect on who you blame for life’s ups and downs. How a person internalizes a particular point of view about control speaks volumes about their ability to live with a sense of wellbeing and contentment.

In personality psychology, locus of control defines how much a person believes that they are ultimately responsibility for their successes and failures. The word “locus” is Latin for “location”–essentially either a person feels the location of their control over life is either internal (rests within themselves) or external (rests with fates outside of their control). The concept was clarified by Julian B. Rotter in the 1950’s. He demonstrated that locus of control is on a continuum, some people are highly external, some highly internal, and some fall somewhere in the middle. Since the 1950’s this research has been brilliantly expanded by Carol Dweck with her theory of success as based on a “Fixed” or “Growth” mindset.

People who have a high internal locus of control believe that effort, hard work, learning from setbacks, soliciting feedback, eventually lead to success. People who have a high external locus of control attribute success to sources outside of their immediate control, i.e. luck, other individuals, environmental factors, accidental chance. If you have a high external locus of control, you do not see how your own actions or lack of action may be at the root of how you generally feel about your life.

People with a high external locus of control continually blame environmental factors for their hardships. For example, if they perform poorly at work, people with a high external locus of control are more likely to blame their boss, while those with a high internal locus of control may blame their own efforts and abilities.

If you have a high external locus of control you may continually find yourself experiencing the same set of negative consequences over and over again; this may occur interpersonally, professionally, emotionally and even in terms of your physical health. If your philosophy about control is outside of your conscious awareness then you are essentially a slave to it, repeating the same negative dynamics again and again, all the while feeling at the mercy of circumstance.

Over time, repeatedly reenacting the same problematic patterns of behavior causes a self-fulfilling prophesy to manifest. A person comes to believe that they truly cannot impact their own future; thereby sealing their fate as nothing more than a cog in a wheel that goes nowhere.

If you grew up with parents who continually emphasized effort and personal responsibility, you may have an easier time with life’s ups and downs. On the other hand, if your parental models continually blamed external factors for their difficulty or if you genuinely struggled with events outside of your control (socioeconomic status, trauma, abuse, war or social unrest) you may be prone to having a high external locus of control.

Locus of control has been extensively researched and is a significant factor in pro-health behaviors, emotional stability, relational satisfaction and professional accomplishment. Having a high external locus of control may make some more prone to depression, alcoholism and obesity.

It is important for your future contentment to consider how you approach setbacks, what is your attributional style? Answer these questions to find out.

1. Do you believe positive events in your life are mainly due to luck or chance?

2. When you hit a setback or fail at something do you blame others?

3. When you are upset do you feel like your emotions are out of your control?

4. When you have an argument with a friend/romantic partner do you repeatedly tell yourself what they did wrong?

5. When you hit a roadblock or challenge (interpersonally or professionally) do you tend to give up, i.e. want to break up or switch job assignments?

Answering yes to all of these questions suggests you have a high external locus of control, answering yes to a few suggests you externalize in some situations. Altering whatever tendency you have toward externalizing control will have a significant impact on your self-perception and your ability to get what you want in life.

Work to change to a more internalized locus of control. Whenever you find yourself upset or stuck over a relationship, work event, family event, notice if you are feeling that you are at the mercy of others and blaming them for your hardships or negative feelings. Even if your blame is warranted, wallowing in it is not going to help you achieve your goals or make you feel any better.

Resist self-pity—instead, focus on the problem that is within your control. Of course, you cannot control the actions and reactions of others. Remember though, you do control whether or not you surround yourself with toxic partners, impossible jobs. You also control how much effort you put into your professional pursuits, psychological wellbeing, physical and emotional health.

Self-determination is a remedy for feeling perpetually, and passively, victimized. You , alone, choose which way you wish to control your life.

So, what are you to be? Victim, Warrior, or ?

And there it is. “You , alone, choose which way you wish to control your life.”

How can you prevent yourself from the epidemic disease of self-victimization? How can you prevent Corporate Media, the Administrative State and the Globalists from victimizing you?

You have the power of self-determination. You can choose to be a victim, you can choose to be a warrior, or you can choose one of the other roles that empower you as an individual.

But seek balance, recognize that there are many options, and be careful in whichever role you choose. Each alternative comes with strengths, weaknesses and risks when taken to extremes.

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