Althouse: "Will it be permanently victimizing ourselves, and whining, whining, whining?"

June 29, 2012

"Will it be permanently victimizing ourselves, and whining, whining, whining?"

"Or will it be something else: the something else is the syntax of life, the vocabulary and the lexicon of the Holocaust survivors saying, 'Remember us positively.'"

25 comments:

sakredkow said...: The struggle to not be a victim is one of the most worthy struggles for a human being. I say it's a struggle because I believe even those who don't think they see themselves or others as victims very often do without realizing it. Virtually no human is exempt.

This is my favorite quote from Victor Frankl. I think this should be taught in schools:

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."; 6/29/12, 7:58 AM
traditionalguy said...: For 3 years they somehow ended up, one from a family, and one from a city, in BenGurion's enclave on the eastern Mediterranean after fighting the British attempt to sell them out one more time to get oil rich Arabs Sheiks to cooperate with the King of England's Empire by armed force.

That was an exciting time.

I wonder why Exodus has never been seen on the Networks or on cable TV the last 50 years. It had some great actors and the best musical soundtrack of the era.; 6/29/12, 8:07 AM
rhhardin said...: There's Holocaust books for children, so they can get in on being a victim early.; 6/29/12, 8:23 AM
Hagar said...: The Holocaust was a western European, or Ashkenazi, experience. Most Israelis today are descendants of immigrants from "Arab" countries or the former Soviet Union, who are only vaguely, if at all, aware of the Holocaust.; 6/29/12, 8:57 AM
M. Simon said...: The central issue of our times:

For what are you willing to be a slave?

For what are you willing to enslave others?

http://classicalvalues.com/2012/06/it-is-a-moral-question/; 6/29/12, 9:10 AM
DADvocate said...: phx - Victor Frankl immediately popped into my mind also. I found "Man's Search for Meaning" one of the most inspirational books I've read. It's mostly about refusing to be a victim.; 6/29/12, 9:14 AM
DADvocate said...: For what are you willing to be a slave?

For what are you willing to enslave others?

The quote I keep at the top of my blog:

"Better starve free than be a fat slave."
- Aesop's Fables

Too bad so many don't grasp the value of freedom.; 6/29/12, 9:17 AM
edutcher said...: Good for them.

Show the bastards they couldn't destroy any part of you.

PS phx, one of our stock Lefties, makes a big speech about not being a victim while Leftism is totally dependent on the culture of victimization.; 6/29/12, 9:24 AM
ricpic said...: I have no illusions about gentiles feeling anything but annoyance when nudged to feel holocaust guilt. After all, it's not about their tribe. Jews should let go of the holocaust for a completely different reason: it's warping to define yourself by a wound.

As for the human race learning from its past? Aren't we willingly drinking from the communist trough again? Ya know, the folks whose end game is mass murder.; 6/29/12, 9:28 AM
Anonymous said...: Phx, amazing and inspiring quote. The one thing that is truly ours, our attitude.

And for those beautiful women, victim no longer. So sad to see so many of the people who survived that time in history dying of old age at such high rates now. Their legacy has been well documented though, there's that.; 6/29/12, 9:29 AM
Anonymous said...: Ricpic, you would be wrong about gentiles and especially those of us of Germanic heritage, not feeling a tremendous sense of guilt.; 6/29/12, 9:32 AM
wyo sis said...: I find the different attitudes about victims completely odd. Jewish holocaust survivors get lectures about playing the victim and black street toughs get to endlessly replay white guilt and black victimization even while their victims are being railroaded into court by a media template.; 6/29/12, 9:41 AM
Known Unknown said...: I have no illusions about gentiles feeling anything but annoyance when nudged to feel holocaust guilt. After all, it's not about their tribe. Jews should let go of the holocaust for a completely different reason: it's warping to define yourself by a wound.

Never forgetting is but one component of vigilance.; 6/29/12, 9:41 AM
sakredkow said...: The easy task is identifying someone else who is playing the victim card. You're almost always right. Just try to find someone who's not a victim!

The real miracle is identifying the victim in yourself. Then looking at him or her soberly, with complete objectivity. And eradicating the victim.

We're trained to feel sorry for ourselves, to feel victimized, to feel powerless in the face of unfair forces who are so much stronger and unjust than we are.

I refuse.; 6/29/12, 9:48 AM
sakredkow said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/29/12, 9:57 AM
sakredkow said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/29/12, 10:00 AM
wyo sis said...: The people giving away their last piece of bread were not the same people who were snatching other people's bread from them. So who's the whiner? Maybe you have to be a real victim to decide. The meaning the word victim is different depending on who uses it. We need a new word.; 6/29/12, 10:10 AM
Matt Sablan said...: I've never been made to feel -guilt- over the Holocaust. Just profound sadness that, as a human race, we could screw up so massively. It is to America's credit in our Holocaust museum we have a room dedicated to how America morally failed in many cases. That reminder isn't there to weaken us; it is there to encourage us to hold ourselves to higher standards.; 6/29/12, 10:14 AM
edutcher said...: phx said...

The easy task is identifying someone else who is playing the victim card. You're almost always right. Just try to find someone who's not a victim!

The real miracle is identifying the victim in yourself. Then looking at him or her soberly, with complete objectivity. And eradicating the victim.

We're trained to feel sorry for ourselves, to feel victimized, to feel powerless in the face of unfair forces who are so much stronger and unjust than we are.

Some of us are. There are others who make their own way in the world.

Guys like phx hate that.

I refuse.

Sure.; 6/29/12, 10:21 AM
Colonel Angus said...: Ricpic, you would be wrong about gentiles and especially those of us of Germanic heritage, not feeling a tremendous sense of guilt.

I'm intrigued by those who feel guilt over wrongful acts committed by total strangers generations ago whose only connection is ethnic similarity.

Of course I am qualifying this comment on the assumption you were not a member of the Wehrmacht or Waffen SS.; 6/29/12, 10:35 AM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/29/12, 10:52 AM
Anonymous said...: Colonel,
I was born in Austria, where my parents and many of their fellow Donauschwaben, who were ethnic Germans lived in what was once the Austria-Hungary region of Europe. My family lived in Camp Haid, a DP camp after they were either ethnically cleansed by Tito's partisans or evacuated with the retreating German army, in october of 1944, as my family was.

I grew up with the sense of guilt and shame at what they "allowed" to happen to the Jews they shared towns and villages with. There were plenty of ethnic Germans who knew what was happening, yet did nothing or even condoned it. I don't blame the ones who disagreed but didn't resist not hard enough, but I understand and share their national guilt and sense of shame.

Years later I married a Jewish man, amazing how our families interacted.; 6/29/12, 10:57 AM
sakredkow said...: I refuse.

Sure.

Other than just telling everyone you know me to be a victim, you would actually point out for everyone where and when I sound or act like a victim, right?; 6/29/12, 2:07 PM
Deb said...: I have one family member who is a Holocaust survivor. Victim? Not at all. Her experience made her extremely strong, as - in my experience - it did most survivors. Grief stricken, heartbroken, yes; victims - no. They do not talk about their experiences except to teach others. I am frankly in awe of them, that they were able to build such a life after such devastation.; 6/29/12, 5:03 PM
Luke Lea said...: There is something to be said for remembering the Holocaust as an emblematic rather than unparalleled event in human history. There was not a single outrage perpetrated against innocent Jews during WWII which had not been committed countless times over against equally innocent men, women, and children in obscure corners of the world. The only difference is that the victims here, so far from being illiterate and voiceless, are amongthe most literate and unforgetting people on earth and that the event took place in a narrow slice of space and time and in the full light of history. A terrible human price has was paid to build the modern world of liberal democracy. This makes it more precious, not less. Let us remember the price and never forget the people who paid it.; 6/29/12, 10:01 PM