Age-old hatreds are being resurrected in new forms.
The rise of victimhood-thinking has occurred largely among the ‘woke’ left.
It’s an incredibly damaging mindset, because it’s the mindset of those who think like losers.
Blaming all their problems on others rather than taking responsibility for their own inadequacies, and dividing our societies into ‘oppressed’ and ‘oppressors’ keeps us mired in the old hatreds and old fights of the past.
Additionally, casting every successful group of people as having somehow stolen from others or oppressed others stops us from learning from and emulating those who have been successful.
The most advanced and successful civilizations are able to set aside their past fights and learn from those who achieve great things, integrating those achievements and understandings into their own society and growing stronger as a result.
By contrast, those with the mindsets of losers remain stuck in blaming others and remain jealous of successful groups and successful countries rather than learning from them.
With the endless talk of ‘colonialism’ and the race-based thinking pushed by many current ‘progressives,’ it has been the left feeding the most into the rise of the victim era.
However, some of that same victimhood thinking is surfacing on the right as well.
Anti-Semitism, and nods to anti-Semitism are being increasingly seen among some who consider themselves ‘free thinkers,’ as they ‘free-think’ all the way towards the same pathetic ancient conspiracy theories that led to so much suffering in the past.
As an example, Kanye West has been repeating the same-old claims of Jewish People supposedly running the media, and said he would go “death con 3” on Jewish People. Obviously, he meant “DEFCON 3”, but that doesn’t make it any better.
What is being passed off as some sort of “just asking questions” is simply a regurgitation of the same vile anti-Semitism that we would have thought our society had overcome.
This can easily lead to a normalization of anti-Semitism, and that is something we must ensure doesn’t happen.
Generalizing any group is dangerous, as no group can be completely labelled as one thing. Further, if anyone was to generalize about Jewish People, those generalizations should be positive, given the resilience of the Jewish community through so much hardships.
And this is where the loser-style thinking comes into play. Anti-Semites look at the Jewish community’s resilience and successful aspects and instead of having admiration or respect, choose to be jealous and conspiratorial. It’s pathetic, and it never leads anywhere constructive.
The left has been coddling anti-Semitism for some time – note how attacks against Jewish People are often overlooked when they can’t be blamed on politically-convenient targets – and it would be horrible to see the right move in that same direction.
Sadly, anti-Semitism isn’t the only relic of foolish thinking that is resurfacing.
Some among the left and the right in Canada are also falling for the narratives being pushed by Russia. Seeing some people who just spent the past two and a half years constantly talking about freedom all of a sudden start pushing a pro-Putin perspective is completely absurd. Others who consider themselves ‘anti-colonialist’ are now somehow identifying with Russia because Putin talks about past Western colonialism, not realizing that he is currently trying to destroy the identity of Ukraine as a nation – about as ‘colonialist’ as it gets.
People must be able to understand that multiple things can be true at the same time. It can be true that our own political and media establishment is untrustworthy, while it is also true that Russia’s political and media establishment is even more dishonest and – due to the absence of democracy and any internal scrutiny – can lie with even more impunity. And it can be true that the West has been imperfect, while also true that past imperfection doesn’t justify Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
Fight the old fights, or advance into the future?
As we approach 80 years since World War Two ended, and 30 years since the Cold War ended, we risk having to refight those same battles.
If we allow anti-Semitism to spread once again, and if we in the West fall for Kremlin narratives, we could end up throwing away all that makes the Western world great.
Instead, we must overcome the mistakes of the past, overcome the false beliefs and hatreds of the past, and focus our minds on building a prosperous and technologically advanced future so we can achieve our full potential.
Spencer Fernando
