Some archetypes of people have always existed throughout society. Most of them are benign or obviously dangerous. This one is both dangerous and usually well-hidden.
Being victimized
At some point or another, almost everyone on this planet will become a victim:
- Sometimes we’ve been abused.
- Other times we’re neglected when we need help.
- Yet other times we may fall through a crack in the system.
When we’re exposed to victimization, the correct answer is relatively straightforward, but difficult to perform:
- Accept and manage the hardship.
- Take responsibility for anything we may have caused to create the situation.
- Release ourselves from any and all substances that contributed or magnified our problems.
- Move on to succeed in spite of the victimization, or maybe even because of it.
Staying victimized
However, if we remain selfish and focus only on our problems, we can choose to stay a victim:
- Victimhood is easy, since it merely requires accepting helplessness.
- Taking responsibility takes work, can be difficult, and others don’t always reward it.
- While other people will often run to a cry for help, self-sufficient people often suffer alone.
If someone finds more comfort in abdicating responsibilities than the meaning from persevering, they’ll engage in further activities that both disempower themselves and burden others:
- They’ll stop pursuing self-development activities, since there’s little reason to try becoming a better person if it doesn’t create beneficial consequences.
- To the degree others will act to save them, they’ll regress into a more infant-like state of neediness.
- When confronted to act, they’ll blame others for their issues.
Once the above elements become habitual, this person has become a Professional Victim.
The victim attitude
Since they require the sacrifice of others to maintain their way of life, Professional Victims are typically masterful at framing stories to make themselves the victim.
- They’ll be quick to capitalize on others’ defects, but not willing to indicate any of theirs.
- Since it draws attention to their indolence, they won’t acknowledge the hard work of others who sacrifice for them.
- Others who insist they take accountability for their actions will be sidelined in lieu of more “accepting” friends.
It doesn’t mean they solely condemn and criticize. They very well may be a nice person, praise others, or give generously.
What they do, however, is poisoned by their endless neediness that they don’t know how to deal with.
The victim lifestyle
This type of behavior is very destructive to one’s sense of identity and self, so they won’t typically be able to do this by themselves for long. Many of them regress into a substance to escape their self-induced misery.
Their need for social validation will often develop a collective codependency with other Professional Victims. With enough of them together, they will develop a culture of protracted childhood.
Their community will often start with a shared hardship, but will often blossom into something far more potent:
- A general anti-authority, anti-rules disposition that glorifies impulsive behavior and rewards public rebellion.
- Spending excessive amounts of money on recreation and status symbols (e.g., jewelry, clothing) that indicate their association with each other.
- Discussions among each other tend to revolve around showing off status, techniques on exploiting the victimhood state within institutions, and ways to waste time in various forms of recreation.
These people contribute almost nothing useful or productive to society, and tend to drag down all upward progress that would otherwise come through the modern conveniences and benefits of civilization and technology.
As society becomes more complex, they can often develop advanced tactics to legally reinforce their image:
- Classifying themselves as a victim people group
- Exaggerating the issues from their neurodivergence
- Hiding their assets from the government via a trust
However, despite their presence being a type of cancer on society, there is a good reason they exist.
Made by good times
There is a famous memetic axiom spread across the internet:
- Srong people create good times.
- Good times create weak people.
- Weak people create rough times.
- Rough times create strong people.
This trend cycles continuously, and the “weak people” are very often groups of Professional Victims.
Since there is an inescapable sin nature present within any body of individuals, it only stands to reason that more power given to a group of people means more capacity for foolishness.
A group of people with a high ratio of Professional Victims has to have been doing well enough to support the people who drag down the group. In a more scarce society, people don’t endure their complaining, and they have often been forced to work, enslaved, or exiled.
In that sense, the number of Professional Victims present in a society mark the high point of that group’s glory. They also represent their demise once the next generation takes over. This is a huge reason golden ages of society and entire empires never last.