This might be not the right place to ask, but is there a theory or phenomenon that explains why so many people side with the perpetrators/people in power when abuses are being commented on?
Sympathizing with the clergyman in your example, or another pop culture example I’ve seen recently is defending private jet usage.
The easy answer is “brainworms”, but there must be more to it than that, surely?
Victim blaming is so prolific, I find people justifying it in a way that sounds like, “it would never happen to me, so it’s your fault for letting it happen to you.” People either aren’t willing or aren’t capable of understanding a different perspective from their own, so they aren’t able to sympathize.
How we label that deficiency (and it is a deficiency) will be hard to do because the causes can be so varied.
It always reminds me of the Bill Burr interview:
The news anchor is going, “Bill, aren’t you being a little hard on those people?” In reference to something like clergymen raping boys.
And Bill is like, “How do you think those boys feel?”
This might be not the right place to ask, but is there a theory or phenomenon that explains why so many people side with the perpetrators/people in power when abuses are being commented on?
Sympathizing with the clergyman in your example, or another pop culture example I’ve seen recently is defending private jet usage.
The easy answer is “brainworms”, but there must be more to it than that, surely?
Victim blaming is so prolific, I find people justifying it in a way that sounds like, “it would never happen to me, so it’s your fault for letting it happen to you.” People either aren’t willing or aren’t capable of understanding a different perspective from their own, so they aren’t able to sympathize.
How we label that deficiency (and it is a deficiency) will be hard to do because the causes can be so varied.