The Conversation We Are Not Allowed to Have (Victim Blaming)

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Simone Collins: We're, we're just talking hypothetically and taking on characters in this episode because.

Malcolm Collins: Because, yeah, yeah. No, this is not us. If somebody quotes us in this episode and they're like, can you believe they said this? I was like, could you not tell this was a comedy episode? Could

Simone Collins: you not tell? This was a deep fake

Malcolm Collins: I am saying these are the type of questions that in a hypothetical world where victim blaming was not a concept that was shamed, somebody might ask. How would we test whether the phenomenon of men physically abusing their wives is caused primarily by the wives or caused primarily by the husbands? And then the other person would say, ah, of you and weird science world where we only care about data.

I guess what we would need is a control situation. We would need a population where some women. dated women, and some men dated men, and then we would need to look at the level of physical abuse within these two populations. What are the physical abuse rates in lesbian relationships? What are the physical [00:01:00] abuse rates in male gay relationships? Oh, oh no, they're much lower than in straight relationships in male gay relationships, and much higher in lesbian relationships. Oh no, this is not what the data was supposed to say.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: So we were like, well, I mean, we're not, we haven't ruined our careers enough as it is. And why would you let someone else cancel you when you can just cancel yourself? So today we talk about victim blaming and why, why there's a case to be made. Oh my God, we're going to hell.

Malcolm Collins: Blaming is one of these really interesting things where.

I think it started as a good concept for people, right? Way that like, don't be ashamed to see a psychologist movement was really healthy to start. You know, some people needed to see psychologists back when psychologists were still healthy. And then it became a never ever criticize a psychologist. For doing [00:02:00] anything and never ever say somebody should stop seeing a psychologist that they're seeing because that person is employing cult like abusive practices and then that allowed cult like abusive practices to begin to proliferate within the psychologist community because you are not allowed to tell somebody anymore.

Hey, actually the things that psychologists are doing with you are actually very similar to cult tactics, building dependence, you need to get away from them, how dare you shame me for seeing a psychologist, it's always valid to go to somebody who affirms anything I do, no matter the It's very useful.

The cause to myself or my community that's what I need, my affirmer. Or the person who tells me, oh, you have some deep seated thing in your past and you can only fix it by coming to see me repeatedly. But then the same thing happened to and, you know, that's dependency right there, right?

And then the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the same thing ended up happening with this other group. Which is victim blaming, right?

Simone Collins: And we're not talking about victims of, you know, systemic [00:03:00] racism, natural disasters, blah, blah, blah. We're talking about typically

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. But, but there was a reason.

Like, it used to be too common in the past. I'll admit. It used to be too common. People would see a woman Who'd get great. And they'd be like, well, you know, look at the way she was dressing. Right. Um,

Simone Collins: and totally inappropriate situations. You know, these are women who are going about their work, going about their lives, you know, who are being attacked.

And yeah,

Malcolm Collins: and they would say something like. How could this have happened? Right? And, and, and then their initial reaction is to say, well, it must have been the victim's fault. And this is something that happened in society. Like, this is a natural inclination that humans have to want to blame the victim.

And so it was important that we had a movement that pushed against this, but. The movement went insane and ended up creating a prohibition because you know, if you look at our big bill on signalers, if people are status signaling, they realize they can [00:04:00] raise their status within their group by pointing out this behavior and others, even when it was a justified behavior that ascribing any fault.

On the part of a victim of something i. e. that in any way they contributed to the probability of that thing happening to them was an immoral thing to do and lowered your status was in the community. Now, this is a problem because. Like, obviously, there is always some level of I did something that increased the probability that a negative thing happened to me.

You know, I'm reminded of the Die Hard scene, right? I don't know if people remember this. I think it's from Die Hard 2 or something, where the guy's walking around a black neighborhood with, like, racist billboards on him or something. And you're like, Oh my God, because the bad guy is making him do this.

Not to get too personal, but a white man standing in the middle of Harlem wearing a sign that says, I hate niggas, has got some serious personal issues you got about ten seconds before those guys see you.

When they do, [00:05:00] they will kill you, you are about to have a very bad day.

Malcolm Collins: Right? You know, you are scared for this individual in this environment. And, you know, somebody comes by and is like, Hey, you shouldn't be doing this and try still, you know, and that's how he ends up with his, I think, partner for that movie. So yeah, it's a good movie. But the point being is if that individual ended up getting shot or injured in that community, you can be like, well, how dare you say that the fact that he was walking around with a racist sign in a predominantly black community how dare you say that influenced the crime?

But even woke people wouldn't say that. They'd be like, yeah, of course that influenced the fact that he was injured. It's the same thing with children. You know, you have a child, right? Like a child gets hit by a car because they ran across the street without looking both ways and waiting for their parent.

That is a tragedy. Is it partially the child's fault? Yes, it's partially the child's fault. Like, I'm sorry, that is a horrible thing to say it is partially that child's fault. You could be like, well, the child wasn't fully sentient yet or [00:06:00] anything like that. It's really the parent's fault. Fine! Let's talk about an adult.

If an adult crosses a road without looking both ways, and they get hit by a truck, and I'm like, look, obviously the truck shouldn't have hit them. But, it is partially their fault, and they're like, well that's a horrible thing to say. It is, okay, it's a horrible thing to say, but there is a reason we need to be able to victim blame.

Hmm. Let me explain what that reason is. It is because if we don't do that, then I cannot learn from that incident. I cannot say, oh, it is dangerous to cross the road without looking both ways. And then I cannot teach my children about that. I can't say if you don't look both ways before crossing the road, you may be hurt.

And so he's like, come on, nobody's saying that. Okay. Imagine I say to my daughter, if you go to a nightclub dressed like that, yeah. You make it great. And then somebody's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's victim. Well, the crime hasn't even happened yet. [00:07:00] I am merely pointing out an increase in statistical odds due to a behavioral pattern.

I