The Trap of Victimization

 As I wrote earlier, that primary problem w education starts w/ the larger culture. I know that I am not the first to comment on this-people have been decrying the culture of victimhood for years. Among others, Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning wrote their influential The Rise of Victimhood Culture where they describe how positioning yourself as a victim gives one the moral highground. I know this is paradoxically a hackneyed and controversial take.

As described above, there have been people for years who have decried the over-victimization of American culture. I also realize that many do this, in part, to be able to continue to victimize traditionally marginialized groups. For certain, to blame the victim or shame people for sticking up for themselves has long been a tool of the oppressor. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that anyone who decries injustice is “playing the victim”. True injustice should be called out, and those responsible should be held accountable.

Moreover, in schools, there are real examples of students being treated poorly by others. When this is clear, students should be held accountable as best as possible by the schools. Everyone is familiar w/ the horror stories that have been well documented by the media where students are truly victimized by other students/social groups who have positions of power. The dynamic has been well explored and generally recognized by most thoughtful educators. It often can be exceedingly difficult, but schools should marshal resources and do what they can to stop predatory behavior by other students.

This real victimization, however, is exactly why the race to position one’s self as a victim is so insidious and deleterious to allowing educators to do their jobs properly and giving kids the tools to be successful in life. I’ll give you an example: Most of our seventh graders were invited to a Bat Mitzvah. The reception for the Bat Mitzvah was in an elegant reception hall that featured a beautiful staircase. This staircase served as the setting for many pictures that evening. One picture featured all of the girls in the class standing on various levels of this staircase. One boy from this seventh grade class knelt down by the staircase and began to look up the dresses of the girls. One of the girls noticed and smacked the boy across the back of his head. She then told the rest of the girls what happened, and the girls proceeded to ignore the boy for the rest of the evening. No adults witnessed this initial incident. When the boy got home, he reported to his parents that he was merely tying his shoe and one girl assaulted him, and the rest of the girls bullied him by intentionally excluding him for the rest of the evening. The parents then called school administration and asked that the kids be held accountable for bullying their son.

As a school official, how would you respond? In the parent’s (of the boy) minds, the boy was clearly being harassed. Once we talked to the girls, they were adamant that the boy precipitated all of the negative interaction by looking up the dresses of the girls. When we reported that feedback to the boy’s parents, they claimed that there is no way that their son would do that-he was beyond such behavior. Moreover, they became irate w/ us for deigning to suggest that the “victim”-their son, brought about any of the negative behavior because of his actions. Because we are such a small school, we knew all of these kids quite well. Of course, we had no way of knowing for certain exactly what occurred. That said, it would be more consistent w/ previous actions that this boy looked up the dresses of the girls than this young lady assaulted him for no reason.

Given all of this, I return to the question I asked earlier. What would you do? As a school administrator, we could have helped the young man (through discipline and education) learn that, while sexual curiosity is natural and healthy, to sexually harass women in that way could have dire consequences-for the women and himself. We could have further explained that, in many ways that he got off easy that night and, as he gets older, the consequences for sexual harassment get far more serious. We could have used the incident as an opportunity for him to examine what kind of man that he wanted to be-and how he could go about achieving that outcome.

We then could have talked w/ the girls. We could have affirmed that they do not need to accept sexual harassment and that we were proud of them for standing up for themselves in that way. Although they appeared fine, we could have had our counselors check in w/ them for any sort of psychological trauma and responded accordingly. We further would have discussed w/ them alternative responses and how they could respond should such an incident happen again.

In both cases, we would have had an opportunity to help all of the kids involved. We wouldn’t have demonized the young man-we would have given him an appropriate consequence and allow him to learn from his actions. There would have even possibly been an opportunity to atone for his actions and repair his relationships w/ the girls. We also would have given the girls the affirmation they would have needed. Finally, well difficult, the educators would have been left w/ a good feeling after being able to help all of the students navigate such a difficult incident.

Because, however, we did not have definitive proof and the boy’s parents were so quick to position him as a victim of bullying, we did not feel the latitude to make such judgements. We were left in the position of saying that we couldn’t take any action because we didn’t know for certain what occurred. The boy’s parents were livid w/ us-and worse the boy was unable to learn any lessons from his sexual harassment. The girls-and their parents were taught that next time any negative interaction occurs to become indignant and demand instant justice. And the educators were left disheartened by the whole experience.

It used to be that such experiences, while not desired, were the heart of why educators do what they do. Changing from a kid to an adult is extremely difficult. We expect mistakes, but we take great joy and satisfaction in helping students learn from these from these negative experiences. There is no greater feeling than watching kids grow and become better people.

We are being robbed of these opportunities because we have created a Moloch Trap. Moloch was a term from the Old Testament of the Bible-mostly from Leviticus that generally referred to Canaanite God that generally requires a human sacrifice. The idea being that the Caananites were going to prove just how holy they were by making the ultimate sacrifice to their God.

From this story we have the concept of the Moloch Trap. A Mooch trap is a concept that occurs when everyone acts in their own short-term interest but creates an eventual outcome that hurts everyone-including themselves. A common, although relatively innocuous, example of a Moloch Trap is the convention of everyone standing at concerts. One person stands to get a better view and, soon, everyone is standing. This ultimately results in no one getting a better view and being forced to stand uncomfortably in order to just have the same view which they would have had if they remained seated in the first place.

Everyone believes that the way to advance the interests of their own student is to claim victimization and demand justice from the schools. They want compassion for their student and discipline for other students. There’s no room for nuance or understanding that all kids are entitled to compassion. This means that educators lose the ability to make judgments and deal w/ students as individuals-and ultimately all students lose.

It has been my experience that exceedingly few students are beyond redemption. And all of them benefit from a combination of mercy and consequences. This is what allows students to grow. Without the ability to do this, students learn this lesson that the way to advance their own interest is indignation and try to position themselves as a victim. This creates the classic Moloch Trap. Everyone claims victimhood and everyone loses.

‍