WHY DO PEOPLE ESPECIALLY OF FAITH TEND TO BLAME THE VICTIM?

A girl is raped and blamed for being in the wrong place and the wrong time.

A person of another race to yours is murdered and you reason that they provoked it for "they come here to take our jobs".

There is a tendency to blame the victim in all persons already.

Faith in the power of prayer makes it worse.  When a person of prayer blames say the girl, their attitude, even if they are not aware of it is, "She should have been more careful.  She should have been closer to God too.  He protects if we let him."

Melvin Lerner the well-known social psychologist strove to give us some light on why people blame the victim and actually want to do so. Why do they do it? Why are they prepared to do it? Why do they risk hatred and abuse by taking such a position?

He said that the blamer wants to believe he or she is safe even if that is not true. If you fear a sickness such as cancer, you relieve your own fear of it happening to you or to a loved one, by blaming the sick person.  Lung cancer victims will be accused of smoking too much.  The woman having a Down Syndrome baby in her 40s will be blamed for getting pregnant at her age.

I can be mentally ill and inflict misery on my family and friends and blame them for my condition and my actions. I don’t want the pain and anxiety of blaming me.

Alarmingly with all that, people are choosing more pain to deal with something less painful.

And for me to deny that an evil is an evil and to instead blame the innocent person who suffers it so I can feel good and live in a dream shows no real respect for my loved ones.  What if they are attacked next?  What if they were attacked instead?  I am making it harder for them to discern evil and myself to protect them from it.

Shockingly victim blaming is the reason why we hold that some terminal illnesses such as Motor Neurone disease as meriting the right to die and other equally terrible ones as falling short. The pro-life position is that the right to euthanasia claimed for certain terminal illnesses is wrong but understandable. They deny that many another illnesses deserve the same understanding. While insisting that euthanasia is wrong, they still exhibit a victim blaming outlook. One purpose is blaming is the hope of making a social climate where the victim is shamed by the blaming.

We must keep in mind that a person may have more than one reason for adding to the victim's degradation.  You feel safer if you imagine that the victim is the one who could have prevented the harm.  You prefer to do that than admit that there is danger out there that could threaten you.

We are asked to say even of murderers, "He did not hate the victims but what they thought they were". Nobody admits a proper evil motive. Is the plan to help evil thrive by muddying? If so you are sure it is a problem for others and will not effect you.   Is the plan to save yourself from seeing evil in all its true horror just so you can feel better?  It is a short step from trying to whitewash over the darkness in the culprit to blaming the victims.  It is clear that you are more interested in softening what he is as a person than in the victims.  If the anybody affected by the crimes suffers from hating this person you will blame them in the sense that, "They should see he is misguided and that did the harm.  It was not evil.  And even if it were evil we can't see into his soul so we should assume something more kinder and charitable."

Evil likes to look justified.  Usually it is portrayed as something terrible that had to be done.  It hides itself in a pile of good to make it that bit harder to eradicate.  Thus to pretend that the murderer did evil but was not touched by that evil and is a mistaken person is co-operating with evil and is itself evil.

Hanna Arendt said that our actions, even the heinous ones, are irreversible. She said that what harm is done is done and is still harming so don’t make it any worse by empowering it by refusing to forgive and committing yourself to healing the damage. This is not about forgiving so that you can feel better. That is selfishness masquerading as virtue. It is forgiving that you and others can be better as persons now and in the future.

Notice how she is victim-blaming here?  The victim is accused of keeping somebody's irreversible evil deed alive but surely even the monster does more good than bad?  What about the irreversible good?  If it is strong enough the evil will not matter. 

If good and evil acts have irreversible consequences and, as she says, that nobody has a very good idea about all the results of what they do, then fog appears.  An evil that is unforgiven may now have no important results left.  You cannot trace.