Victims

We in the West idealize the victim. We see others as victims, and we see ourselves as victims. The victim status confers status. So very naturally we seek that status, and to the extent that we identify with it we draw our self esteem from it. We look around for a victim niche to give us legitimacy, value, worth. We post-Christians, have embraced the Tree, but have repudiated He who hung upon it, we cling to the symbol, make of it an idol and spurn the salvation He wrought upon it.

No wonder our enemies despise us! We have embraced weakness and cast off strength, and called ourselves noble for having done so. We have done so because we seek to be compassionate. We feign compassion, which, bereft of relationship, vulnerability and love. To us, wrapped in our self congratulatory bacchanal, the other is no more than a prop on our stage, to be cast away when we tire of the act. "Give me that adulation the unconditional moral authority demands!" "Oh, you poor thing, you, let me stroke my ego by pandering to your victimhood."

The World seeks balance, and has raised up for us a mirror image. Having exalted ourselves by a sham weakness, there is raised up against us those who will, if we permit it, we hollow men, dstroy us with the invincible vision of their strength. We are too stupid to see them for what they are, but pander to them and debase their equally unhinged humanity by labeling them with the highest accolade we know. "You are a victim of all sorts of socio economic psychological deprivation! Let us stoop to you and bestow upon you the blessings only we can give, oh you unholy sainted victims! Let us understand your quaint non-Western ways, come bask in our unconditional multicultural regard. Come titillate us and we will condescend to you."

No wonder they hate us. They do not see themselves as victims, but as victors. Fired by the dark beauty of their demonic vision they long to destroy us who have lost ours, traded away for a pat on the head. Their lives have meaning, and they live it to the full. Their lives have passion and drink it to the dregs. And we, vacuous idolaters, stand paralyzed and agape, uncomprehending as they first utter then carry out their murderous threats. If this is indeed all we have become, we deserve the fate that will overwhelm us. And the world will be engulfed in a darkness fit to extinguish even Bethlehem.