This summer I’ve been reading a book that I have started to describe as a labor of love. It’s not an easy book to read; last week it took me over 3 hours to read 22 pages. I have to have two bookmarks when I read it, one to mark the page I am reading, and one to mark the endnotes that explain the obscure historical and biblical allusions that are all over the place. I’ve been reading The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky (even pronouncing the author’s last name is a challenge for me and I sound stupid when I do it…and I practiced).
I like to read challenging books though because it’s like lifting weights. If I keep lifting with lighter books all the time, I won’t get any stronger (smarter), but the more I lift with heavier books, the stronger my muscles get. And since I spend ten out of twelve months doing reps with the same books I’ve been reading for years, I worry that I’m not growing as much as I could, so summer is a time for strength training so to speak. And if I keep reading books like this one, not only will I sound even more pretentious (pretentiouser?), but I will also have Michelle Obama (mind-)arms in no time. (PS, I’m not talking about literally lifting books as if they are weights; however The Brothers Karamazov is a bit hefty, so it might actually work outside of this metaphor as well).
So, a few weeks ago I read a paragraph in The Brothers Karamazov that I had to go back and reread about 10 times because it struck me as completely true about people in general. (And one of my favorite things about Dostoevsky is that he blends fiction, theology, and sociology so well in his novels…which explains why it takes 3253 million hours to read 6 pages). Anyway, an ancient and highly venerated monk is talking to the patriarch of the Karamazov family about lying. The patriarch of this family by the way is daft as hell, and Dostoevsky actually uses the word “buffoon” to refer to him more often than his real name. The monk tells the buffoon that:
“The man who lies to himself can more easily be offended that any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offence, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill—he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offence, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it…”
And this is why I love great fiction (also known as literature). It points out universal truths about human nature and human behavior that sit just below the surface of our everyday lives. Good fiction gives you these epiphanies about yourself and the people around you and it is one of the most exciting and enlightening experiences you can have…while sitting still and reading. I know I’ve got a good book in my hands when I find myself thinking or saying aloud, “Wow! That’s so true!” (Usually I say it aloud because after 5 years of living alone, I’ve started talking to myself without realizing it. This can, has, and will continue to lead to embarrassing situations).
Dostoevsky brings up the fact that people love being the victim, at all times. There are some situations when in fact we are the victim entirely. If someone steals your identity, your car, a member of your immediate family, or a very expensive yet rather small electronic device that didn’t exist 10 years ago, then you are definitely the victim. There is a perpetrator out there who either deliberately or at random selected you as the victim of his or her crime. You are likely to experience fear, anger, disgust, frustration, confusion, sadness, regret, among many other negative emotions. You rightfully consider yourself to be a very unlucky person who was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Considering how unpleasant it is to truly be the victim, it is ironic that we like to make ourselves the victims in so many nonthreatening situations. Dostoevsky even says that we find something “pleasurable” in it as we create a “picturesque” situation in which we are the injured party. Rewriting our personal, day-to-day experiences as if we are the underdog gives us the right to have all of these negative emotions like indignation, fear, confusion, sadness, etc. Making ourselves the victims of different situations ironically gives us so much power over our own lives in the strangest and saddest way. (Ironic because when you are the actual victim, you feel completely powerless. Of course, that might be why we do it, in order to feel like we can control situations even when we can’t?). Self-victimization allows us to create a “reality” that is worthy of being repeated to others with the always enticing line (unless you use it 3 times a day) “You will not believe what happened to me..” (And now I’m starting to wonder if our obsession with publishing our daily happenings (and non-happenings) on social networks is increasing and encouraging this human tendency to be the victim…and if that’s the case, does that makes us the victims of these social networking websites????? …jk).
Once I read this paragraph, I started to pay more attention to this weird pleasurable derivative that Dostoevsky brings up in his novel, and I started to see just how guilty I was of this on a daily basis. I’m the worst about it when driving. As soon as I get out on the road, it’s me against all the other cars. If someone cuts me off, I immediately respond as if it was done intentionally, and sadistically. I imagine the other driver in the car looking up in the rearview mirror, laughing maniacally in satisfied vindication (and for some reason when I was writing this, I pictured the other driver as Voldemort). If I am on the highway and someone is driving too slow in the left-lane, I react as if they are there by design just to make me to reset my cruise control. Jerks. Reason should tell me that no one in their right mind would want to intentionally have a high speed crash on the highway. And since insurance companies seem to understand their purpose about as well as North Carolina politicians understand the word constituency, it’s doubtful that the guy who cut me off was really hoping for an accident. (Unless he is actually Voldemort, and then he wants to kill me because of my filthy muggle-blood). Regardless of this logical explanation, I will still call the person who cuts me off an ass-hat, and be angry at them for at least an hour. How could they have done such a thing to me?
I also became the victim at the grocery store a few days ago when the overly helpful U-Scan employee rang up and bagged all my groceries for me after I screwed up once. (In my defense, I was ringing up unmarked produce which is a little bit trickier). I tried to hide my frustration but surely in his machismo he just assumed that as a young woman I was too stupid and frail to handle the U-Scan. When he asked me if I needed help carrying my groceries to my car, I thought I might throw up onto his smock. Were my little-lady fingers too delicate to carry three grocery bags and some orange juice at once? Logically, he was probably just trying to be nice and helpful. And he probably offered to carry my groceries out because the store was almost completely empty that morning and he saw that I didn’t have a cart. I told him no (maybe a little too loudly), and walked out to my car cursing his condescension the whole way. (Listen, I know that this is crazy, but the good news is thanks to Dostoevsky, I am now aware of my tendency to become the victim, and I can therefore do it less often. And don’t make me feel bad about this because I will make you the perpetrator so fast, you won’t even know that you meant to hurt my feelings in the first place! Crap…I did it again).
I don’t think my tendency (and maybe yours too if you feel you are the victim of this self-righteous blogpost) to be the defendant is completely my fault. It might stem from a very dangerous concoction that I find myself diluted in on a daily basis. I made a pie-chart that illustrates this concoction because it’s summer and I have time to do things like make pie-charts. Plus, pie is delicious.
It seems highly likely that these four factors work together to create the perfect climate for self-victimization to spread like wildfire.
After realizing that I suffer from this problem on a daily basis (man, I even subconsciously made myself the victim here with my diction…holy crap, it’s going to take a lot of effort to fix this), I wondered about what the consequences of constantly being on the defense are. Dostoevsky talks about this too in that same paragraph. The monk tells the buffoon that “the man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks…in his vices…and so pass[es] to genuine vindictiveness.” Meep! That is terrifying. According to Dostoevsky, if we (I used we instead of I because it made me feel less alone and scared, so don’t be offended…strength in numbers) don’t stop doing this, we might lose the ability to love? No thank you. I’ve always heard the saying that if you tell a lie so many times, you actually start to believe it. If we continue to make ourselves the fictitious victims, then we will actually start to believe that we are always the victims, and then we won’t be able to trust or love one another at all. These consequences are mighty heavy just for the sake of being able to enjoy the celebrated role of the underdog, or update your Facebook page with a status that will get a lot of action.
After examining the consequences of self-victimization, my next question is how do we stop doing this? How do we stop skewing reality, especially when we live in such a reactionary world? I think I’ve decided it’s best to consider the “perpetrator’s” intentions at all times. If someone goes out of their way to intentionally do something to hurt or anger me, than my indignation is justified. Otherwise, I should probably just suck it up.
Okay, so I think that helps out with my self-victimization problem, but how do I deal with the powerful surges of (sometimes violent) rage that inconsiderate people incite within my 5’2 frame? I mean, I never feel like a victim when I see an abandoned shopping cart, but it still makes me crazy angry. Maybe Dostoevsky has written a chapter about indifference with a discourse between two characters about abandoned shopping carts or double-parked cars that will allow me a world-view-changing epiphany? I’ll let you know when I finish this book which will probably be sometime around my 45th birthday.
I like to read challenging books though because it’s like lifting weights. If I keep lifting with lighter books all the time, I won’t get any stronger (smarter), but the more I lift with heavier books, the stronger my muscles get. And since I spend ten out of twelve months doing reps with the same books I’ve been reading for years, I worry that I’m not growing as much as I could, so summer is a time for strength training so to speak. And if I keep reading books like this one, not only will I sound even more pretentious (pretentiouser?), but I will also have Michelle Obama (mind-)arms in no time. (PS, I’m not talking about literally lifting books as if they are weights; however The Brothers Karamazov is a bit hefty, so it might actually work outside of this metaphor as well).
So, a few weeks ago I read a paragraph in The Brothers Karamazov that I had to go back and reread about 10 times because it struck me as completely true about people in general. (And one of my favorite things about Dostoevsky is that he blends fiction, theology, and sociology so well in his novels…which explains why it takes 3253 million hours to read 6 pages). Anyway, an ancient and highly venerated monk is talking to the patriarch of the Karamazov family about lying. The patriarch of this family by the way is daft as hell, and Dostoevsky actually uses the word “buffoon” to refer to him more often than his real name. The monk tells the buffoon that:
“The man who lies to himself can more easily be offended that any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offence, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill—he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offence, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it…”
And this is why I love great fiction (also known as literature). It points out universal truths about human nature and human behavior that sit just below the surface of our everyday lives. Good fiction gives you these epiphanies about yourself and the people around you and it is one of the most exciting and enlightening experiences you can have…while sitting still and reading. I know I’ve got a good book in my hands when I find myself thinking or saying aloud, “Wow! That’s so true!” (Usually I say it aloud because after 5 years of living alone, I’ve started talking to myself without realizing it. This can, has, and will continue to lead to embarrassing situations).
Dostoevsky brings up the fact that people love being the victim, at all times. There are some situations when in fact we are the victim entirely. If someone steals your identity, your car, a member of your immediate family, or a very expensive yet rather small electronic device that didn’t exist 10 years ago, then you are definitely the victim. There is a perpetrator out there who either deliberately or at random selected you as the victim of his or her crime. You are likely to experience fear, anger, disgust, frustration, confusion, sadness, regret, among many other negative emotions. You rightfully consider yourself to be a very unlucky person who was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Considering how unpleasant it is to truly be the victim, it is ironic that we like to make ourselves the victims in so many nonthreatening situations. Dostoevsky even says that we find something “pleasurable” in it as we create a “picturesque” situation in which we are the injured party. Rewriting our personal, day-to-day experiences as if we are the underdog gives us the right to have all of these negative emotions like indignation, fear, confusion, sadness, etc. Making ourselves the victims of different situations ironically gives us so much power over our own lives in the strangest and saddest way. (Ironic because when you are the actual victim, you feel completely powerless. Of course, that might be why we do it, in order to feel like we can control situations even when we can’t?). Self-victimization allows us to create a “reality” that is worthy of being repeated to others with the always enticing line (unless you use it 3 times a day) “You will not believe what happened to me..” (And now I’m starting to wonder if our obsession with publishing our daily happenings (and non-happenings) on social networks is increasing and encouraging this human tendency to be the victim…and if that’s the case, does that makes us the victims of these social networking websites????? …jk).
Once I read this paragraph, I started to pay more attention to this weird pleasurable derivative that Dostoevsky brings up in his novel, and I started to see just how guilty I was of this on a daily basis. I’m the worst about it when driving. As soon as I get out on the road, it’s me against all the other cars. If someone cuts me off, I immediately respond as if it was done intentionally, and sadistically. I imagine the other driver in the car looking up in the rearview mirror, laughing maniacally in satisfied vindication (and for some reason when I was writing this, I pictured the other driver as Voldemort). If I am on the highway and someone is driving too slow in the left-lane, I react as if they are there by design just to make me to reset my cruise control. Jerks. Reason should tell me that no one in their right mind would want to intentionally have a high speed crash on the highway. And since insurance companies seem to understand their purpose about as well as North Carolina politicians understand the word constituency, it’s doubtful that the guy who cut me off was really hoping for an accident. (Unless he is actually Voldemort, and then he wants to kill me because of my filthy muggle-blood). Regardless of this logical explanation, I will still call the person who cuts me off an ass-hat, and be angry at them for at least an hour. How could they have done such a thing to me?
I also became the victim at the grocery store a few days ago when the overly helpful U-Scan employee rang up and bagged all my groceries for me after I screwed up once. (In my defense, I was ringing up unmarked produce which is a little bit trickier). I tried to hide my frustration but surely in his machismo he just assumed that as a young woman I was too stupid and frail to handle the U-Scan. When he asked me if I needed help carrying my groceries to my car, I thought I might throw up onto his smock. Were my little-lady fingers too delicate to carry three grocery bags and some orange juice at once? Logically, he was probably just trying to be nice and helpful. And he probably offered to carry my groceries out because the store was almost completely empty that morning and he saw that I didn’t have a cart. I told him no (maybe a little too loudly), and walked out to my car cursing his condescension the whole way. (Listen, I know that this is crazy, but the good news is thanks to Dostoevsky, I am now aware of my tendency to become the victim, and I can therefore do it less often. And don’t make me feel bad about this because I will make you the perpetrator so fast, you won’t even know that you meant to hurt my feelings in the first place! Crap…I did it again).
I don’t think my tendency (and maybe yours too if you feel you are the victim of this self-righteous blogpost) to be the defendant is completely my fault. It might stem from a very dangerous concoction that I find myself diluted in on a daily basis. I made a pie-chart that illustrates this concoction because it’s summer and I have time to do things like make pie-charts. Plus, pie is delicious.
It seems highly likely that these four factors work together to create the perfect climate for self-victimization to spread like wildfire.
After realizing that I suffer from this problem on a daily basis (man, I even subconsciously made myself the victim here with my diction…holy crap, it’s going to take a lot of effort to fix this), I wondered about what the consequences of constantly being on the defense are. Dostoevsky talks about this too in that same paragraph. The monk tells the buffoon that “the man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks…in his vices…and so pass[es] to genuine vindictiveness.” Meep! That is terrifying. According to Dostoevsky, if we (I used we instead of I because it made me feel less alone and scared, so don’t be offended…strength in numbers) don’t stop doing this, we might lose the ability to love? No thank you. I’ve always heard the saying that if you tell a lie so many times, you actually start to believe it. If we continue to make ourselves the fictitious victims, then we will actually start to believe that we are always the victims, and then we won’t be able to trust or love one another at all. These consequences are mighty heavy just for the sake of being able to enjoy the celebrated role of the underdog, or update your Facebook page with a status that will get a lot of action.
After examining the consequences of self-victimization, my next question is how do we stop doing this? How do we stop skewing reality, especially when we live in such a reactionary world? I think I’ve decided it’s best to consider the “perpetrator’s” intentions at all times. If someone goes out of their way to intentionally do something to hurt or anger me, than my indignation is justified. Otherwise, I should probably just suck it up.
Okay, so I think that helps out with my self-victimization problem, but how do I deal with the powerful surges of (sometimes violent) rage that inconsiderate people incite within my 5’2 frame? I mean, I never feel like a victim when I see an abandoned shopping cart, but it still makes me crazy angry. Maybe Dostoevsky has written a chapter about indifference with a discourse between two characters about abandoned shopping carts or double-parked cars that will allow me a world-view-changing epiphany? I’ll let you know when I finish this book which will probably be sometime around my 45th birthday.
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