Do you always blame the victims?!

Ah, blame the victim... Or, at least lets doubt and question them first... Hmm. Even before we look into the crime itself, that had them become a victim? Would any crime be justified to the 'guilty' victims? And who to decide? The final aggressor? Is that what a society with democracy and justice system is build up around, or did we leave some an eye for an eye mentality in our modern societies?

It is quite remarkably that not one reply on this question was looking into the aggressor and their behavior, they were more or less, with a few exceptions focused around the victim and their guilt towards the aggressor. Hmm. Food for thought.

Wait, wait, wait, Madam; you're jumping to conclusions too fast.

If you read my comment again, you will see that the very first word is "might". I said that the victim MIGHT have "provided the initial provocation through inappropriate words or actions". I'm not including the case where a woman who gets raped gets blamed for inviting it upon herself by dressing inappropriately; or that a man who gets mugged and looted of his valuables and cash by a gang of hoodlums should not have carried such things on his person.

It is, however, quite possible that the victim instigated the aggressor by some offensive remark. Let me give you an actual example, one to which I was an eyewitness.

In 1971 I was a student in London living in an international hostel. One morning, at the breakfast table, an argument broke out between two students, an Indian and an African; I don't remember what it was about, but at one stage the Indian guy, became very livid and called the African "the son of a bastard". On hearing this the African was so enraged, he got up, took hold of his (wooden) chair, and brought it crashing down on the Indian's head. Fortunately, there was no bleeding that I remember, and a fellow student and myself took the man to a nearby hospital and got him attended to.

Now, madam, I ask you: Does the victim not deserve the blame? At 30 or 31, he should have known better.

See, this question was a generic one and not taking a specific case into mind... There will be plenty of them. That's why I find it remarkably how most replies take the angle of looking at the minority of cases there will be with a victim having been causing a conflict themselves. I still don't see how it will justify anyone to attack them in any hurtful way. Does it make something better that the mistake is repeated? Does it really give an solution on said conflict? I don't claim every victim is innocent in a non-provocative way. I am puzzled with why the majority of replies here automatically starts looking at the cases where a victim might have been provocative. The question asked if we always look as the victim and blame them. That is remarkably. 

Think about it! Not you, but everyone!

I do appreciate your point of view, but I want you to consider this.

The issue is one of action and reaction. Is the violent act an action (i.e. provoked by the aggressor), or a reaction (consequent to some provocation by the victim). 

When I re-read your question, I found it subtly loaded, supported by your words in the Description. You "suggested", albeit inadvertently, that the victim is perceived to have had a hand in provoking the act, which probably made many of those who responded subconsciously gravitate to the reaction interpretation above.

Perhaps if your question were worded as follows, this inadvertent bias among the responders might not have occurred.
"Should the victim always be blamed?" (That's it, no more.)

Think about it, SapphicHeart. 

 

This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at October 21, 2016 1:21 AM MDT

I suggest nothing, I mention some of the blames I hear automatically used questioning a victim. The words that will meet a victim, making them not alone deal with the aggression they just met but more so also the blame by others victimising them one more time. 

Again, no one was (except one or two) talked about the aggression they met. Why do we assume they might have been "asking" this themselves? My question might be loaded and seen in the eyes of the aggressor, and that perspective seems to be taken by the spectators as being taken for granted, no matter like this question itself you cannot see what really happened in the unseen. Hmm.

I'm not talking about pitying anybody. I'm talking about compassion and empathy. I don't see this very much around nowadays off or online. As inside the replies of this question. Remember we don't talk really close friends, there I suspect most of us being way more supportive.

Thank you takin part. It is appreciated.