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Bonds That
Make Us Free, Part 10: Making the Worst of Things
by
C. Terry Warner
That we can
use our victimhood as an instrument of blame has bizarre implications.
Think of it: If I'm a self-betrayer, accusing others so as to excuse
myself, I am able to feel right about what I'm doing only because
I've got evidence that someone else is doing wrong. My belief
in my "goodness"; depends upon my belief in someone else's
"badness."; Amazing!
It is well to
remind ourselves of a basic point we learned in chapter 2: We seek
this diminishment of others and our own elevation not because of
any wrongs they may be doing to us. We do it because
of the wrongs we are doing to them. Our demeaning,
judgmental, and cruel ways grow out of our own self-betrayal and
not, as we almost always suppose, from any need to defend ourselves.
In this simple
fact is embedded one of those cosmic truths that help us understand
the causes of the miseries that human beings inflict on one another,
such as prejudice, hate, bitterness, vengeance, and cruelty. We
can't feel justified in withholding kindness from others unless
we find, or invent, some reason why they deserve it—some deficiency
or despicable characteristic that requires us to ignore or correct
or chasten or punish them.
Instances of
this truth can be found in every institution and context of life—in
diplomacy, in labor relations, in classrooms and neighborhoods.
I'll offer only a couple of examples here, since all the stories
included in this book illustrate the phenomenon to some degree.
I recall one
successful man telling about an acquaintance with whom he had attended
college:
His very existence
irritated me. He drove a Porsche and dated the flashiest girls.
I had to walk in the snow and couldn't take any girl out because
I didn't have money to spend.
Years later
we moved into a neighborhood where he lived. He owned some small
restaurants and drove three expensive cars. I began accumulating
data. His wife, a real display piece, had had her teeth capped and
had plastic surgery done in strategic places. She seemed to be interested
in only one thing: spending his money. These things pleased me deeply.
A while ago
a neighbor asked if I knew him. "Is he the one with the hot
dog stands?"; I asked, in mock naïveté. The neighbor said that
my old acquaintance had gone bankrupt. I put on a long, concerned
face and said, "That's awful,"; but inside, I'm ashamed
to say, I was just about bursting with secret glee.
Secret glee?
Over the bad fortune of another person? Yes. If I'm a self-betrayer,
the defeat of the person I'm envying shows how undeserving he or
she must be, and in my mind this excuses my envy, my pettiness,
and my unkindness.
A person who
rejoices in another's troubles or failures will be disappointed
when that person succeeds.
A good illustration
of this is found in a story recounted by a young woman named Lauren:
I was going
to a dance but didn't have the dress I wanted to wear. I could picture
it lying in a heap in the corner of my sister's bedroom, wrinkled,
stained, and untouched since the day she borrowed it two weeks before.
I was seething.
Then I heard
a knock at the door. It was my sister with my freshly cleaned dress
in her hand. Did I thank her for her thoughtfulness? No, I immediately
began to berate her instead. I demanded to know why she hadn't returned
it sooner. Had she carelessly stained it so she had to have it cleaned?
Or was she just inconsiderate about when I might need it again?
Of course, she
became defensive. "You should have told me you needed it earlier,
or that you really didn't want to lend it to me.";
"I shouldn't
have to beg you to return what's mine,"; I shot back.
She threw the
dress at me. "Take your stupid dress. I'll never borrow anything
from you again!"; And she stomped out.
"See,";
I thought to myself, "she wasn't even grateful that I let her
borrow it.";
As self-betrayers
we typically reject good fortune and find disaster useful, just
as Lauren did. We do so because we are using our victimhood to justify
or excuse ourselves. Portraying ourselves as victims validates the
lie we are living, which is that someone else is doing us harm and
that our role is strictly passive. Good fortune, on the other hand,
takes away that validation—if those we accuse treat us well, we
lose our excuse for treating them poorly. When we give in to pessimism,
defeatism, or despondency, it is because adopting such an attitude
helps us avoid responsibility for ourselves and supports our efforts
to justify ourselves in our self-betrayals.
Lauren's story
shows how, by our self-victimizations, we exaggerate others' destructiveness
and our own helplessness. Mental health professionals often speak
of clients "horribilizing"; or "awfulizing";
or "catastrophizing"; their situation or the conduct of
others, or of "minimizing"; their own contribution to
their problems. These invented and admittedly awkward terms attempt
to capture the way we exaggerate the distinctiveness of others and
the losses we think they are inflicting upon us.
We can see that
it costs us a lot to secure evidence of our justification and personal
worth. We have got to feel mistreated or inconvenienced or stoop
to cowardice or petty self-absorption. The worse we think we're
treated or the more we feel put upon or helpless, the more certain
we are that we're doing the best that can reasonably be expected
of us. For self-justification, we are willing to pay almost any
price—and very often the higher the price, the more justified we
feel. That's why we typically do not respond favorably when
someone suddenly offers to reduce the price—like the sister who
borrowed the dress and returned it clean. To us, such good gestures
threaten to deflate our justification; we feel a keen pang of disappointment.
Violence
is a mark of the self-betraying way of life. In the next section,
we will see how we accuse and abuse other people by making victims
of ourselves.
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© 2001 Meridian
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