The Trouble with Liberals - ‘Blaming the Victim'
author: Brent Herbert
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Recently an anarchist posted a piece criticizing liberals for adopting positions that were basically equivalent with those of an undercover cop. A much more devastating critique of liberal Democrat ideology was published in 1971, by a black American, William Ryan. The title of the book is 'Blaming the Victim', which one reviewer called "an impassioned, brilliant expose of middle class ideology' and another called 'an illusion shatterer of the first order (which) will stop you dead in your tracks.'
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Ryan's book remains one of the most interesting dissections of Liberal Democrat thought I have ever read, and even years after reading it, what it said sticks with me, a testament to the power of its arguments. After reading a recent piece on the Portland site which expressed anger at liberals, it made me think once again of this classic book 'Blaming the Victims'. What the book said can also be applied to certain segments of the 'Green' political party, for as I have listened to the political debate, and analyzed certain Green positions put forward by certain Green candidates, once again I have found myself confronted with policies that have hidden within them the ideology of blaming the victim.
It is one of the characteristics of victim blaming that the inequality of Capitalist society is not questioned, but rather the blame for certain suffering and social problems is instead shifted to become a problem inherent in the victim. It is this middle class status quo attitude which is at the heart of victim blaming, and thus is found at the heart of to much of what passes for 'liberalism' in the world. These liberals want to preserve the status quo, since they benefit greatly themselves from the way things are, but at the same time they are disturbed by the suffering and poverty along the margins. What they do not want is any sort of fundamental change which might result in a reduction in privilege for themselves, and at the same time they do not want poverty and injustice in the world, and perhaps unconsciously, they begin to tilt towards 'solutions' that involve blaming the victim. Such solutions are not always transparently obvious as 'victim blaming' and can even superficially appear to be 'progressive', and this is not surprising since it is important to this middle class liberal mindset to incorporate a self image as one who is not an oppressor.
One really classic example of victim blaming ideology, which preserves the status quo while purporting to solve some social problem, involves the sterilization campaigns which were such a big deal during the middle of the last century, and can often be heard coming round again, being mentioned from time to time by Green candidates. Now the problem with hunger is problem with economic inequality. As FoodFirst.org research has indicated, there is actually enough food produced on the earth to give every human being 3500 calories a day, enough to make everyone fat. Only paupers starve to death in famines, and people do not die in famines because food is not available, but rather because they are the poorest of the poor.
Now sterilization ideology holds that the large number of poor people in poor countries around the world are 'destroying the environment' and 'depleting resources'. Now it is true that when people are driven to desperation, they can be hard on the environment, however when people put pressure on the environment, they do it because they are impoverished and poor, and a real solution would address their poverty. This would involve a more equitable sharing of the world's available resources, and since this could be perceived to threaten the privileges of middle class liberals and greens, they don't go there. A psuedo-solution involves blaming the victim, and making a call, as liberals often have, and as some Greens still do, for sterilization campaigns for the poor, to reduce their numbers and reduce stress on the environment. The argument is cloaked in liberal sounding ideology. The problem with the poor is that they can't afford birth control, and therefore it is the charitable duty of concerned liberals and greens to see to it that they get such services, and preferably they should be sterilized, since this is the most cost effective and simple solution.
Now when you look at the facts, liberals and greens should probably be sterilized, and if the concern is for the environment, you would get more bang for your buck that way. If you look at the statistics, Americans, as one example, use on average about a third of the world's resources, while having something like 5 per cent of the world's population. It is just amazing the way that system of perpetual consumption works in a classic capitalist society like America. American's release the lion's share of CO2. When you look at the stats you will see such amazing things as Americans consuming one third of the world's copper, and other such astonishing statistics. The typical American puts as much stress on the environment and consumes as much of the environment as about 100 of the poorest people on earth. Therefore, a sterilization campaign which targets Americans would be most cost efficient, and would deliver the maximum bang for the buck. So, therefore, it should be the case that 'charity begins at home' and liberals and Greens should begin by sterilizing as many liberals and greens as possible, before setting their sites on the so called 'third world'.
As for the poorest of the poor, there problem is not that they exist (which is what the sterilization campaign suggests) but rather that they are poor, and poverty is caused by inequality, which is not addressed by sterilization ideology, since this ideology, in classic liberal style, is a victim blaming ideology which manages to disguise itself as 'progressive' so that it can appeal to both liberals and greens, without involving genuine social change, which is the defining characteristic of all victim blaming ideologies. After reading Ryan's book, ever since that day, I make it a habit to pause for reflection whenever confronted with a liberal (or green) policy, in particular the policies of liberal Democrats, and I rigorously analyze and dissect the policy to exhume any last hidden trace of victim blaming ideology (there are a few books a person can read in their lifetime that stick with them forever, and for me Ryan's book was one of them - it was just that important).
Victim blaming ideology is not restricted to political parties and their supporters, for as Ryan documents in his book, the very Aid agencies which are supposed to be helping the poor are often targeting the poor with victim blaming ideology.
Sometimes this can be very obvious (or so it could become, once people have trained themselves to spot victim blaming). This blaming the victim is always - ALWAYS - found to be correlated with a pro-status quo attitude which by its very nature, being devoted to preserving the status quo, is by that same nature, against blaming the system and thus instead blames the victim. Consider the following example - In Columbia three quarters of the arable land is held by a small oligarchy, a few families, who also control an equally large portion of the wealth of the country. There is a small middle class, and then millions of impoverished people who live with squalor and malnourishment. The poor are poor because they are poor, not because they exist, and not because there is something intrinsically wrong with them. The poor of Columbia are poor because of the rampant inequality that exists in Columbia, and therefore to help the poor is to level the playing field, which means challenging the status quo. Currently, the official policy is to finance military repression (under the code name 'the war on drugs' which is a way to arm the militias). Columbia is currently the most dangerous country on earth in which to be a labor union organizer or human rights worker, with these people being gunned down on a daily basis, and bloody revolution has been boiling in the country for decades, with death squads roaming the country side, keeping the poor both poor and terrified.
Now let us examine some of the blame the victim ideology that is often peddled by Aid agencies. We are told that for less than a cup of coffee a day we can help little Sue. She is a deserving child since she works hard carrying water and doing chores for her mother. We can't help all the little Sues of the world, but we can help one hard working and deserving poor child. Your dollar a day will see to it that Sue gets a nutritious snack, clean water to drink, and a chance to go to school, and the promise for a brighter future for little Sue. Sometimes we might be told that if we give Sue a fish, it will feed her for a day, but if we teach Sue to catch fish, she will feed herself for life.
Now we won't be told that the poor in countries around the world are so poor because of the gross inequality and oppressive violence that exists in poor countries around the world. Most of the little Sues shown on television are black or brown skinned, and it is often the case the elite rich are lighter skinned people, descendants of those who exploited the poor during the colonial age, and now enjoy a permanently entrenched and privileged position at the top of the wealthy heap. That we won't see. Rather what we will be presented with is poverty, with no context, and the subtle suggestion that poverty is caused by the victims of poverty. For example Sues problem is either that she has to work carrying water and thus can't get an education at school, and so rise out of poverty, or perhaps she is just to stupid to know how to catch a fish, and requires the donations of generous (white) liberals to provide the funds to teach her how to fish.
So then poverty, we are told (falsely) is caused by low education or general ignorance. What we are never told is that there is no place for Sue to catch a fish (all the fish having been 'privatized' after all) and if she gets out of her school classes she can then join the millions of other poor people trapped permanently in the slums, or she can join the army of millions of child prostitutes on the streets, since these are the only options open to the poor.
Now it might be the case that one poor kid like little Sue rises up out of poverty, after passing her grades at school. This would make little Sue a fine example to be paraded on the screens by Christian religious television. If she was taught about Jesus at school that would be best, since then she can testify about how Jesus did so much for her. Millions of others will continue to rot, because they are no opportunities, and there are armies and death squads to make sure no opportunity comes up, but Christian Television makes a habit of parading these solitary role models. For example, I recently listened to the testimony of a male child prostitute who, along with a few hundred others, was rescued by some church, and trained in Jesus and so on. He then testified that he was planning to go out and testify about Jesus to those other millions and millions of child prostitutes, you know, to teach them to stop sinning and learn the error of their ways, one must suppose. Once again we are given no context in which to understand the millions of child prostitutes, but rather we are told that 'you can't help all the child prostitutes' (you are disempowered to enact change, protecting the status quo) and then you are told 'but you can help a tiny fraction of the child prostitutes' (this is where you get to assuage your guilty conscience by doing something).
So then these sorts of Aid agencies and church groups of this type (who never provide context, who disempower social change) facilitate the status quo and actually harm to cause of the poor more than they help, by blaming the poor for the poverty (spreading a false myth), preserving the status quo (by hiding the root causes of poverty) thus keeping the poor in poverty, and by constantly disempowering people by telling them 'you can't help the poor' and then offering them the sop of helping one little kid to ease their conscience. This last destructive lie of blame the victim ideology is particularly virulent and harmful to the poor, since they can be helped, its just that the will to help them does not exists. The means exist, only the will to act is missing, and this fact is covered up by lies by victim blaming aid agencies and churches (visit foodfirst.org, a really good group that can provide you will the kind of information that will empower you instead of disempowering you by telling you its hopeless when this is not true).
The above example demonstrates just how brutal to the poor liberal ideology can be, and if you watch some of those liberal appeals for funds, you can also be struck by just how deceptive liberal victim blaming ideology can be (it masquerades as a campaign to help the poor while it viciously cuts the ground out from under their feet, doing it all while covered with a gloss of liberal compassion and concern - remember to watch for the complete lack of context of the root causes of poverty, listen for the victim blaming bit (usually the suggestion of ignorance on the part of the poor) and then wait for the vicious liberal attack on the poor ('you can't help them, there's nothing that can be done for them all, and all you can do is help just one small child'). Its brutal, and its very excellent at both preserving and protecting the privileged status quo, while keeping the poor viciously oppressed, while at the same time making liberals feels 'progressive' - classic stuff and I loathe it with a passion.
In his book, Ryan makes a particular point of dissecting that classic bit of liberal Democrat victim blaming known as Johnson's Great Society. As he states in his book, 'The War on Poverty was doing all the wrong things - following all the formulas for blaming the victim so precisely that it was downright eerie.' He then notes that progress was made during this period, and it was for precisely this reason that he says he wrote the book, for 'the specific ideology of blaming the victim is a major weapon being used to slow down progress toward equality.' In a forward added to a later edition of the book he adds that 'I underestimated the scope and the severity of the counterattack mounted in the last few years.' The artillery was provided by Liberal Democrats, and he states that over time 'the generic formula of blaming the victim - justifying inequality by finding defects in the victims of inequality - has been retained, but in a much wider, more malevolent and dangerous form' which target blacks and the working poor in general.
Much of what he described of the 60s continues to be relevant today. For example, the rotting state of inner city schools was ignored, and instead attention was focused on what was called 'the culturally deprived black child' who was in this way destined to fail at school. Attention was also focused on such things as 'the failure of the black family.' This is being recycled again, and you hear over and over again about the 'need to fix the black family' or you hear about the 'black father problem.' Black unemployment and black failure in the larger society can be said to be traced back to this fundamental flaw with 'black fathers' in the 'dysfunctional black family'. This thing is still with us today. As the author describes this type of thinking, we are led to believe that the problems black people are experiencing in society are related to 'growing up with a never present father (replaced by transient lovers) with bossy women ruling the roost, so that the children are irreparably damaged... and never learn to become upright All-American boys. Is it any wonder that black cannot achieve equality?'
As well the poor were said to belong to 'a culture of poverty.' This old thing was dredged up in what was called 'Welfare Reform.' The problem with the poor is that they had a deviant value system, and the solution was to force them off of welfare. This same thing was described by the author in his book about the Great Society of the 60s and lo and behold it resurfaced again during the Clinton Administration. How little has changed.
Now we know that it is official state policy in the capitalist culture of America to have a permanent unemployment rate of (officially) 5 per cent. (The actual rate of unemployment is typically much higher than the official rate.) When the unemployment rate drops below this level, the Federal Reserve will step in to 'cool down the over heated economy' by jacking up interest rates, until more people lose their jobs and the rate of unemployment is one again fixed at its 'ideal rate'. The ideal rate of unemployment is one that keeps a steady supply of workers available while keeping their wages down (in otherwords rather than a 'sellers market' where workers could set their price, unemployment is permanently maintained in the economy so as to establish a permanent 'buyers' market which favors the employer, who can offer less in wages, even demand cuts in wages, backed up by many millions of unemployed people who provide a kind of surplus which keeps workers in line, since they can easily be replaced.)
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According to an article in the Washington Post,
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/01/politics/johnson110201.htm
Economists like to talk about a "natural rate of unemployment" that, depending on the economist you ask, hovers around six percent.
Over the last forty years, there have only been thirteen years where the average annual unemployment rate has been less than 5.4 percent.
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The concept of permanent unemployment as official state policy is also discussed by an economist in the following paper...
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http://www.tracer2.com/admin/uploadedPublications/194_tlmrexpert0110.pdf
What is the full-employment rate/natural rate of unemployment?
by Dr. Larry Allen
Low unemployment rates invariably kindle and quicken inflation ...
the term 'full employment rate" (denotes) the lowest non-inflationary
unemployment rate possible with ideal government economic policy. (Note : the Feds interest rate policy)
The concept of the natural rate of unemployment retreats
a bit from the idea of a fully employed economy in which
everyone wanting a job can find one. The natural rate of
unemployment equals the prevailing unemployment rate
when wages stand at a level that balances the demand
for workers with the supply of workers. Theoretically,
free market economies, free from disturbances,
particularly unsuspected and unforeseen shocks, enjoy a
natural tendency to seek the natural unemployment rate
and remain at that rate indefinitely.
Thus far, economists have not pinpointed the precise
unemployment rate that equals the natural unemployment
rate. There seems to be more agreement among
economists that the natural rate changes over time,
probably due to changes in demographics. Between 1975
and 1985, the natural rate likely fell within a range of 5.5
and 6.5 percent. Today, a natural rate between 4.0 and
5.0 percent seems more realistic.
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Now we know that it is official government policy that literally millions of people live in enforced poverty and remain permanently jobless forever so as to maintain 'the natural unemployment rate.' At the same time, liberal victim blaming ideology claims that there is a 'culture of poverty' which has resulted in warped and twisted values among the poor, the only cure for which is to force them off of welfare. Now the real problem is that the poor are kept poor to benefit the rich, who need compliant workers who are kept in line by the constant threat of unemployment, a state of affairs which is permanently maintained to achieve exactly this imbalance of power between capitalists and workers (the system is permanently distorted the create poverty to the benefit of capitalists). So then, there is the real problem, and welfare reform (as it was called) is a classic example of Democrat victim blaming ideology, which surfaced during Johnson's 'Great Society' and then again during the Clinton Administration in the 90s. The poor suffer from a 'deviant value system' which causes them to 'rely on welfare' and as Ryan noted in his book 'the obvious fact that poverty is the absence of money is overlooked.'
Ryan writes "I have been listening to victim blamers for years. The process is very subtle. Victim blaming is cloaked in kindness and concern...its is obscured by the perfumed haze of humanitarianism...one tends to become confused and disoriented by those who practice this art...'
Liberal victim blaming ideology is a departure from the prejudice of the past, when blacks were dismissed as being sub-human and Victorian society condemned the poor as poorly bred and defective due to heredity. Liberal victim blaming shifts the blame to the environment (rather than the gene pool). So then the poor have 'deviant values' which they learned from 'a culture of poverty' (as just one example). So as Ryan writes, this type of liberalism, 'is a brilliant ideology for justifying a perverse form of social action designed to change, not society, but rather societies victims.' For example, attention can be paid to correcting the 'cultural deficiencies' of the black child, while leaving the schools to rot, giving 'health education' to needy (and ignorant) poor people who keep making themselves sick all the time, while ignoring the malnourishment that comes with poverty and the grotesque inequalities in the health care system. (One strange example he gives in the book is that of a coloring book for children warning of the dangers of eating lead paint, which portrayed as neglectful and thoughtless the mothers who did not constantly watch their children and so as to prevent them from eating lead paint...forcing the slum landlords to do something about the lead paint problem was not addressed.)
I found Ryan's book to make for fascinating reading, and even years later it continues to influence me. Let's just say I have never looked at liberal Democrats (or greens, for that matter) quite the same way again, and I encourage people to consider reading the book, both to understand liberalism and to protect yourself from the damaging effects of liberal victim blaming ideology (disguised as it so often is in 'perfumed haze of humanitarianism' while at the same time it can be doing atrocious damage). You can summarize this sort of liberal ideology as follows : The status quo is never challenged, and the root causes of the problems never addressed, while what action is taken is targeted at changing victims.
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We need something better than tax cuts for business to "stimulate" the economy. We need jobs -- or adequate alternative payments -- and living wages. We need a bigger piece of the pie. Which means the middle class and the rich are going to have to accept a smaller piece of the pie. That person who waits on you at your favorite restaurant is tired of being exploited.
You want us to help you get rid of Bush, instead of voting for Nader? Then give us something important that we need. Rolling back the Bush tax cuts and getting us out of Iraq is not going to improve my situation.