Nietzsche - Beware of People Playing the Victim

ABOUT THE VIDEO
_
In this video, I talk about Friedrich Nietzsche, playing the victim, guilt, obligation, pity, disgust, and shame.

But before we can understand what it means to play the victim, we need to understand what it means to be a victim. For this essay, we can define a victim as someone who is taken advantage of by another person. And we can call the act of taking advantage of someone a crime. And typically, what we want for all victims is justice. And justice, as discussed by Nietzsche, can be thought of as giving back to the victim what was lost when the crime was committed. In other words, you can think of justice as the repaying of debts: the criminal must repay the debt they acquired by taking advantage of the victim. I’m not saying this is what justice means, but this is a way many people understand justice, and this definition is important in the context of this video.

So what does it mean to play the victim? What separates a genuine victim from someone playing the victim? A genuine victim was actually taken advantage of, but someone playing the victim wasn’t. And how do you determine whether someone was actually taken advantage of? It comes down to consent. Someone is taken advantage of when their presence is used in a way they didn’t agree to. And so a true victim did not give consent or was not in a position to give consent, such as in the case of a child or someone who was severely intoxicated. But someone who plays the victim gives legitimate consent and then claims they didn’t. Or they claim /you/ consented to things which you didn’t consent to or were not in a position to consent to. I’ll explore what both cases look like a little later on.

So why would someone play the victim? To put it simply, they play victim so someone will save them from their problems. They’re looking for a rescuer. And how do they get people to save them?

Someone who plays the victim has two main weapons: obligation and guilt, and pity and disgust.

OUR COURSES
_
Coming soon. Sign up to my newsletter to be notified when they release.

OUR MERCH
_
Coming soon. Sign up to my newsletter to be notified when they release.

OUR BOOKS
_

OUR FAVOURITE TOOLS
_

Adobe. The software I use to make my videos:

RELATED VIDEOS
_

CONNECT WITH US
_

CONNECT WITH ME
_

PODCAST
_

FURTHER READING
_

NOTES
_
(1) Videos are just my opinion, for entertainment and informational purposes. Just some things to think about—not advice.

(2) Some of the links in the description are affiliate links which I get a kickback from—at no extra cost to you.

[Danieleldj]

Being honest to myself, I realized that sometimes in my own life. I have played the victim, and sometimes I have fall into a victim's game. Most of this actions have come as Unconscious actions of unhealed trauma and toxic beliefs and patterns from my childhood. I keep reading and working on myself every day. To be a better human, for me and for all the people around me, and hopefully to make this world a more kind and better place. Thank you!

[properpsychology]

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.” -Carl Jung

[georgejohnking]

Being aware of drama triangles, and dodging them, is a social superpower

[JavierCR]

Everyone who plays the victim has one thing in common: They do not want to have any accountability for they actions or resolve them properly thus expecting others to do so and take the blame.

[echo]

I've always said, people who deserve our pity don't want it, the people who want it don't deserve it.

[dragonmaster]

This is definitely a difficult pill for me to swallow. I now realize I have had so many hidden expectations. I still have those expectations, but now I'm aware of it. I will aim to make my expectations known and reasonable. For a long time I only saw other people as being the toxic ones when I was playing victim, and it hurts to acknowledge this.
I'll keep working on improving myself.
Thanks for the video

[hippotizer]

Sometimes the only 'hidden expectation' we impose is that the other side 'plays fair and mature'. And yet, so often we get surprised.

[mclcorp]

My God, I felt like you were describing my household growing up. My parents separated when I was 13. My mom used guilt to keep me from leaving the house, going after the career I wanted, discouraging me from starting a new business. It wasn't until I became an adult I realized she was playing victim. What really surprised me when I would confront her was that she wouldn't own up to it. She would get defensive, come up with some lame excuse or start crying.

[Julia-cbwm]

From my experience, a lot of people who play the victim were actual victims at one time and they saw how much attention and power being a victim gave them. They were able to influence and control people around them with this victimhood without actually doing anything to influence them. But at some point the story gets old and they can no longer use that victim card to control people around them so they start to lie about experiences or they adopt the experiences of other people in order to maintain the influence and control that they get by being a victim.

[lizdaniels]

My son had a breakdown and needed my support but when he got better he felt guilty about spending time away from me. One time he said he felt like he had neglected me. I was shocked that he felt this obligation to spend time with me. At 33 years of age, he shouldn’t feel any responsibility to my happiness. I told him that I didn’t mind where he was in the world as long as he was taking in oxygen and had a smile on his face.

[jjwebster]

My mum was a professional victim. She'd learned that by being a victim she was never responsible for anything she didn't want to be responsible for, she learned that she didn't have to have any self honesty and it was ok to lie about stuff, she knew that she could play the victim to get her kids to compete with each other to give her attention even though she had favourites, she resented any of her kids from betteting themselves and expressed this through passive aggressive attacks, she used triangulation against her kids, she cheated on my dad and held him responsible then cheated on my step dad and blamed him for it, she broke my family twice and played the innocent.

What I learnef from my mum was that playing a professional victim is incredibly empowering and quite rewarding as you are free of so many self constrains of morality.

However, I also learned how truely corrosive it is and how debilitating it is to self growth and self development. Being a professional victim means you're stuck emotionally, stunted in your growth and never truly develop into adulthood.

[emilyvee]

We’ve been seeing this unfold on a grand scale in America.

[swatigupta]

I have played the victim and the worst of all was that I wasn't doing it for others but for myself. Anytime I did something for someone and they didn't do the same for me, I felt better because that helped in tagging them as bad people and me good. I loved being the "GOOD GIRL". It took me a while to get out of that behavior. Thank you for making this video. The thing about covert contract was really insightful.

[LucidLivingLL]

Playing the victim often happens from unconsciousness. People who are unaware of their power often play the victim. When you choose to play the victim you choose to not discover your innerpower.

[thedood]

It's happened so much in relationships when a narcissist egoistic person always plays the victim in the relationship

[JJ-ogjd]

You know I’ve realised that if you go out and help others with the intention of them repaying the same thing back one day, you’d never truly know how to appreciate genuine kindness.

[leegarrett]

Great analysis. In codependent rehab, we call this Loansharking - providing something that wasn’t asked for to create a debt, and then forcing repayment

[rafisrafi]

i have been playing the victim my whole life and i just realized that this dec 2021. since January 2022 I've been doing my best to change my toxic ways and atittude. wish me luck in my journey. see you all in the next years :)

[gotmilk]

Hey bro, thank you for using the example of the mother. You are saving a bunch of lives and I don’t think you even know how many. I found that out the hard way. But thank you and if they take this down pls put it back or do something bcuz you are saving lives with this. Hopefully the ones who need this are able to see it

[Swan-zwjo]

Victimhood is always more attractive than failure