#external locus

By: Christina Buttons

Published: Apr 25, 2026

After spending most of my life feeling different and alone, an autism diagnosis gave me the kind of relief that was impossible to resist. But it was based on a lie.

In 2019, I was 30 years old, living in Los Angeles, sharing an apartment with my two cats, and working remotely as an artist. Most of the people my age I knew at the time were setting down roots: getting married, building families. Meanwhile, I spent almost all my time alone, surrounded by plants, animals, and murals. I had no desire for anything else. I enjoyed having a space where I could keep the world, and other people, at a manageable distance.

This had been the case for most of my life. From childhood on, I struggled to make friends, which took a toll on my self-worth. By adolescence, my mental health had deteriorated, and I spent close to a year cycling through multiple psychiatric hospitalizations, outpatient programs, and group homes for depression and self-harm. At age 15, I was groomed online by a much older man, culminating in a traumatic sexual assault. Immediately afterward I tried to end my life, then spent a year in a youth residential treatment center in Utah.

I never had a good explanation for why so much in my life had gone wrong. But the residual effects of this turmoil followed me into adulthood, making it easier to retreat into a kind of comforting solitude.

Then, as an adult, seemingly out of the blue I began encountering stories along a similar theme: women discovering, later in life, that they were autistic. With titles like “The Invisible Women with Autism” or “What My Adult Autism Diagnosis Finally Explained,” these stories told of women who spent years feeling different, misunderstood, and chronically overwhelmed, before experiencing the relief of finally having an explanation.

They also proposed a newer understanding of autism, citing a growing body of research about a “female autism phenotype.” Autism, the research explained, had long been defined using symptoms that show up frequently in males—and are usually very overt behavioral, linguistic, or social difficulties. Autistic girls, by contrast, are more likely to turn their struggles inward, presenting as merely quiet and anxious. As they grow into adolescence, the thinking goes, they are frequently treated not for their underlying autism—which went unrecognized—but for the mental-health problems they developed as a result.

This understanding has spread over the last decade, leading autism diagnoses to rise sharply each year, with some of the largest increases among young adult women. Autism experts have long framed this rise as the uncovering of a “lost generation” that has been there all along. But skepticism is now beginning to emerge. Last month, Uta Frith, one of the pioneers of autism research, warned that the autism spectrum has become so broad that it risks losing clinical meaning altogether.

But I didn’t know any of this back in 2019. The female autism framework was the first explanation I had ever encountered that united the crises of my youth with the realities of my adulthood. And once I began reviewing my life through that lens, I started to see signs everywhere.

The social difficulties I experienced since childhood now looked like an innate communication deficit. My monotonous voice, flat emotional expression, lack of eye contact, and failure to respond to humor—all of which were noted in psychological testing I endured as a teenager—seemed to confirm it. My all-consuming fixations on things like sharks and parasites became autistic special interests. My habit of overcomplicating basic tasks became executive dysfunction, my clumsiness a gross motor impairment, and my fidgeting “stimming.” Even my food intolerances and obsessive-compulsive tendencies seemed to fit the pattern.

But the clearest sign was in my daily war against bright lights and loud noises, which finally seemed to have a real name: sensory processing sensitivity. Suddenly, every aspect of my life, every little inadequacy or abnormality that had once tormented me, had a medical explanation.

• • •

Within a few weeks after encountering this research, I went to a psychiatrist for an evaluation. The assessment lasted about an hour and involved a long series of questions about my interests and experiences that seemed thorough and careful. When I finally received a formal autism diagnosis, I felt immense relief. The diagnosis quickly became the most important part of my identity. It also gave me a sense of purpose: I decided I wanted to help other girls be diagnosed earlier and avoid going through what I had as a teenager.

I joined the online autism community on Instagram, a loose network of accounts that created content about the condition, where I found other women with stories very similar to mine. Using the hashtag #ActuallyAutistic, hundreds of users claimed that their “lived experience” gives them not only the exclusive authority to define autism but also the right to self-diagnose. Their posts revolved around neurodiversity, framing autism not as a disorder but as a natural variation in human experience. As progressive activist Blair Imani put it in one popular Instagram post, “Autism is a natural part of human diversity. Autism is not a disease to be cured.” At first, I saw this interpretation as a positive. But the more I learned about that framework, and the deeper I sank into its world, the more uneasy I became.

Neurodiversity is rooted in an academic framework that recasts autism as a minority identity whose only true impairments are the barriers created by a “neurotypical” world. Followers of the movement reject the idea that autism causes any sort of “deficit.” The problem, activists insist, is not autism itself, but a society unwilling to accommodate autistic people.

But for a community organized around social impairment, they maintained an astonishing number of social rules. Certain language and beliefs were treated as harmful, and activists policed them aggressively. Terms like high-functioning, low-functioning, severe, and profound were condemned as “ableist.” Again and again, I watched popular accounts direct their thousands of followers to comment sections so they could scold people for using the wrong language or expressing the wrong views about autism.

Activists reserved particular contempt for anyone who upheld the medical understanding of autism spectrum disorder, targeting organizations, researchers, and universities that treated autism as a disorder and supported work on its causes, treatment, or cure. They compared that work to eugenics and tried to shut it down through petitions, harassment, and public pressure. Too often, they succeeded.

In practice, of course, this put highly verbal adults with relatively mild difficulties in the position of speaking for people with profound disabilities who cannot speak for themselves. But that didn’t stop the activists. In fact, their most visible hostility was directed at parents of severely impaired children who spoke honestly about their children’s lives. Activists castigated these parents for supporting Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), an autism therapy designed to reinforce more “normal” behaviors—for example, helping autistic children develop language skills or memory—and reduce harmful ones. According to them, ABA is abusive because it suppresses children’s authentic selves.

My personal experience indicated differently. In my 20s, while putting myself through college, I worked as a special-needs caregiver for severely impaired youth, including children with autism. There were times when children needed to be restrained to prevent them from hurting themselves or others. It very quickly became clear to me how little some of the most virulent activists on social media understood about the level of disability they were talking about.

But when I defended parents of autistic children from activists’ accusations, I was met with hostility myself. I faced even more pushback shortly afterward, when I began referring to myself with the term Asperger, commonly understood as a less severe version of autism characterized by similar but milder forms of social and communications challenges. It felt important to distinguish between people with severe impairments and people like me.

[ After transitioning into journalism, Buttons began to reevaluate her own diagnosis. ]

The response was fierce. Activists rejected the idea that there was any sort of hierarchy in the autism spectrum. Some even called me a Nazi because of the history of Asperger’s namesake. After about a year in that community, I began to pull away. I unfollowed many of the accounts and turned to other interests and online communities.

Even then, I still believed I was on the spectrum. I wasn’t ready to let go of the medical framework that explained the isolation I’d felt all my life.

• • •

Then, my life changed. In 2022, after working for several years as an artist, I became a journalist. The career shift was spurred by my discovering the stories of detransitioners: mainly young women who had once identified as transgender and now no longer did, and whose experiences were largely ignored by mainstream media. I could relate to them; many of them, like me, had struggled deeply as teenagers and searched for a label that seemed to explain their suffering. As I learned more about their experiences, I was forced to think more critically about how activism and media shape cultural narratives around identity and diagnosis, and how perverse social incentives can lock those narratives into place.

It became harder and harder not to apply that same level of scrutiny to my own autism diagnosis.

I soon began taking on stories that required heavy reporting. As I spoke with sources, built rapport, asked sensitive questions, and earned their trust, I realized something that should have been obvious much earlier: I do not have a social communication deficit. Not only was I competent at socializing, I was good at it, and I improved the more I did it.

Which forced me to ask: What else could have explained my social discomfort? In retrospect, the answer was more ordinary than I wanted it to be. I was a sensitive, introverted child who felt social mistakes intensely. Instead of responding to them by becoming more resilient, I chose to retreat into my interests, because they felt safer than people. Over time, that withdrawal hardened into a pattern.

In other words, what looked like an innate communication deficit was, in large part, the result of inexperience. Socializing is a skill that develops through practice; I simply hadn’t practiced it.

My diagnosis unraveled further once I started questioning the other traits I had come to see as autistic. Introversion, high sensory sensitivity, intense interests, and social camouflaging are not exclusively the features of an autist; they are widely distributed across the general population. But using the female autism framework, I came to see them as a meaningful pattern.

This framework became so influential in large part because it offers a compelling explanation for why girls were historically diagnosed with autism at lower rates than boys. It is the kind of narrative the press finds irresistible: a scientific correction to a historical wrong against women. Over the course of about a decade, it has become a powerful cultural script through which more and more women have begun to reinterpret their own lives.

This happened very swiftly, partially because an autism diagnosis is not especially difficult to obtain. The process, which has no objective medical test and relies primarily on self-reported traits interpreted by individual clinicians, leaves enormous room for confirmation bias and error. My own evaluation did not consider alternative explanations for my experiences, only that they had been present since childhood.

And the thing is: I didn’t ask for any other explanations. The appeal of an autism diagnosis is not mysterious. While some other psychiatric labels carry stigma, autism invites sympathy. By framing behavior as the product of a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition present from birth, the diagnosis suggests that a person’s actions are outside their control. While this may be true for people with a profound disability, for those without severe intellectual impairment it can provide an external locus of control: the sense that one’s life is governed by irrepressible forces. In some cases, that can also discourage the belief that change is possible or desirable.

In other words, it offers relief from the weight of responsibility for your perceived flaws and failures. My diagnosis gave me coherence. It brought order to what had been a painful and confusing history, and it presented me with a reason to stop expecting more of myself. I found that appeal impossible to resist.

But life is more complicated than that. My struggles were less a product of biological certainty and more a messy overlap of environment, temperament, and choice. I have had to learn to be comfortable with that ambiguity.

I no longer think I am autistic, nor that I ever was. I just took a little bit longer to find myself, and took some wrong turns along the way. And I still struggle: After staying guarded and isolated for so long, I face an ongoing battle to let people in. But I’m doing it. And my self-worth is now rooted not in a diagnosis but in my personal and professional accomplishments, which expand each day.

What happened to me is not interesting because it is unusual. It is interesting because I suspect it is increasingly typical. Research shows that more and more people, especially young women, are over-identifying with psychiatric diagnoses, desperate for some sort of label to explain their struggles or abnormalities. This has consequences. Once challenges are understood as symptoms of a permanent condition, it becomes harder to imagine that they might be worked through, adapted to, or overcome.

Losing the autism label allowed me to regain something more valuable than certainty: agency. My difficulties did not disappear, but they no longer defined the limits of who I could become. There is comfort in a story that shifts responsibility away from the self. Sometimes that comfort is almost irresistible. But in the end, it is better to believe in the possibility of change than to embrace a narrative that says you never had a choice at all.

==

By: Tom Golden

Published: Nov 10, 2025

Part 1 of 3 in the series “The Victim Trap: How a Culture of Helplessness Took Hold”

Something powerful happens when a person begins to see themselves as a victim. It doesn’t just shape how they interpret the world — it shapes who they become.

In therapy, I’ve watched people recover from immense trauma once they reclaimed a sense of agency — the feeling that they could influence their own lives. I’ve also seen others sink deeper into despair when they made victimhood their identity.

The difference isn’t what happened to them. It’s how they understood what happened.

1. The Loss of Agency

The first casualty of victim thinking is agency — the belief that your choices matter.

When someone becomes convinced that their suffering is entirely someone else’s fault, they begin to feel powerless. Over time, that belief solidifies into a mindset. Life starts to feel like something that happens to them rather than something they participate in.

Psychologist Martin Seligman called this learned helplessness: after enough experiences of uncontrollable pain, the mind simply stops trying. Think of an animal that has been shocked in a cage with no escape. Even when the door is later opened, it doesn’t leave — because it has learned that effort is futile.

Humans do the same thing psychologically. Even when their circumstances change, the sense of helplessness remains. People stop acting not because they can’t, but because they’ve learned that trying doesn’t work.

2. The Seduction of the Victim Identity

Victimhood can feel strangely comforting. It offers a simple, satisfying story: “I’m suffering because they wronged me.”

That story brings sympathy and moral clarity — two powerful emotional rewards. It can even give life meaning for a while, especially when pain otherwise feels random or senseless. The problem is that, over time, this identity replaces growth with grievance.

When the victim role becomes part of one’s personality, it begins to demand constant confirmation. Every slight, disappointment, or setback becomes further proof that the world is unjust. In relationships, this can look like chronic mistrust — interpreting neutral behavior as betrayal.

It’s a trap that trades short-term comfort for long-term paralysis. The more we tell the story, the more we become it.

3. Blame as a Refuge from Responsibility

Blame is a refuge. It protects us from guilt, uncertainty, and the anxiety of freedom.

If we can point to someone else as the cause of our pain, we don’t have to face our own part in it. Yet this comes at a heavy price. Without responsibility, there can be no empowerment.

Responsibility doesn’t mean self-blame; it means reclaiming authorship — the power to choose how to respond. In therapy, progress often begins the moment a person stops asking, “Why did this happen to me?” and starts asking, “What can I do with what happened?”

That subtle shift — from passive to active, from blame to authorship — marks the true beginning of healing.

4. The Emotional Cost of Victim Thinking

Living as a victim is emotionally exhausting. It keeps the body in a constant state of alert — scanning for unfairness, injustice, or disrespect.

Each time we perceive ourselves as wronged, the body releases stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. Over time, this constant vigilance wears down the nervous system. Sleep suffers, digestion falters, the immune system weakens.

Psychologically, the effects are just as corrosive. Chronic resentment hardens the heart. Cynicism replaces curiosity. Trust becomes dangerous. Eventually, life starts to feel like a battlefield where every encounter carries the potential for harm.

When that happens, even joy feels suspicious — as if it could be taken away at any moment. Gratitude becomes nearly impossible.

5. Gratitude as the Antidote

Gratitude and victimhood cannot occupy the same space. One looks for what’s been taken; the other notices what remains.

Practicing gratitude doesn’t mean pretending injustice never happened. It means refusing to let it define you. It’s an act of quiet rebellion against despair — a way of saying, “You may have hurt me, but you don’t own my perspective.”

Even small acts of gratitude — writing down three good things each day, thanking someone sincerely, noticing the ordinary kindnesses that surround us — begin to loosen the grip of grievance.

Gratitude shifts the focus from what’s wrong to what’s possible, reminding us that healing begins not with fairness, but with perspective.

6. The Loop of Confirmation Bias

Once victimhood takes root, the mind begins to filter reality to fit the narrative.

Every perceived slight becomes proof. Every kind gesture from “the enemy” is dismissed as insincere.

Psychologists call this confirmation bias: our natural tendency to seek evidence that supports what we already believe. It’s how belief becomes identity — and identity becomes destiny.

This loop can be hard to escape because it feels truthful. The more you look for injustice, the more you’ll find. Eventually, you stop seeing anything else. The mind edits reality until it mirrors the wound.

7. Reclaiming Agency

Freedom begins with the quiet realization: I can choose my response.

That one insight breaks the spell of helplessness. It doesn’t erase the past, but it reclaims the present.

When people rediscover agency, they stop waiting for justice before living again. They stop making peace conditional on apology or fairness. They act from strength instead of grievance.

We cannot rewrite the past, but we can decide what story it tells about us — tragedy or transformation. The choice is ours.

Closing Reflection

We live in a time when victimhood is often rewarded — socially, politically, even financially. It’s praised as awareness, celebrated as moral insight. But the personal cost is enormous.

It steals joy, isolates the heart, and locks people into a story that keeps them small.

The truth is, pain is inevitable; helplessness is optional. And the moment we reclaim our authorship, even suffering can become a source of strength.

By: Colin Wright

Published: Dec 23, 2024

A new study from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) has revealed an alarming surge in anti-civil activity online following the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The NCRI study, titled “Killing with Applause: Emergent Permission Structures for Murder in the Digital Age,” highlights the profound societal implications of this event, showcasing the disturbing normalization of violence against corporate figures and the role of social media in amplifying such narratives.

While the specifics of Thompson’s murder are shocking, the NCRI warns that the broader cultural shift it appears to be facilitating may be even more worrisome. The data reveals an evolving “permission structure” online—a system in which social media platforms amplify narratives, and susceptible individuals provide justification—resulting in the normalization of violence on a scale previously confined to small extremist communities.

The murder, which occurred outside a Manhattan hotel during an investors’ conference, has sparked a wave of online glorification, memes, and merchandise celebrating the shooter, Luigi Mangione. The NCRI’s findings expose an unsettling trend: mainstream social media platforms are becoming breeding grounds for rhetoric that not only justifies violence but also facilitates its transition from the digital realm to the real world.

Public Opinion Reflects Shifting Norms

The NCRI’s research reveals a major societal shift, highlighting how public opinion has veered dangerously toward accepting violence as a legitimate response to perceived systemic injustices. Nearly half of Americans surveyed (44 percent) believe that Thompson’s murder was at least somewhat justified, reflecting a growing openness to violent means of addressing grievances. This finding is particularly alarming as it indicates that support for such extreme measures is no longer confined to isolated groups but is increasingly mainstream.

The data shows that social media plays a critical role in shaping these attitudes. Among heavy social media users—those who spend more than 5.4 hours per day on these platforms—the justification rate surges to 64 percent, starkly contrasting with just 23 percent among low-use individuals (0-1.3 hours per day).

Even more concerning is the generational divide: a staggering 78.8 percent of respondents aged 18-27 expressed at least partial justification for the murder, signaling a profound shift among younger demographics toward endorsing “targeted violence.”

The younger generation’s overwhelming approval for violent actions suggests a troubling cultural normalization of aggression as a tool for addressing grievances.

Platforms of Concern: Bluesky and Beyond

One of the most striking revelations in the NCRI study is the role of mainstream platforms like Bluesky in fostering permissive attitudes toward violence. Bluesky, widely lauded by political progressives as a kinder and friendlier alternative to X/Twitter, now exhibits the highest justification rates for the UHC CEO’s murder (78 percent), surpassing even extremist platforms like Gab and 4chan.

Bluesky’s user base skews younger and more tech-savvy, demographics that the NCRI study identifies as particularly susceptible to violent rhetoric. The combination of algorithmic amplification of extreme views and a vulnerable audience creates an environment ripe for the proliferation of violent narratives. This grim reality was recently illustrated when Bluesky users called for the murder of journalist Jesse Singal, en masse, due to his fact-based reporting on pediatric “gender medicine.” Users even posted what they believed to be his address and photos of his apartment door online.

Across social media platforms, including X, Reddit, and TikTok, there has been an alarming increase in content justifying violence. Viral hashtags like #EatTheRich and “Free Luigi” dominate many online discussions, and moderation efforts often lag behind the pace of content creation and dissemination, allowing violent rhetoric to flourish.

From Memes to Real-World Impacts

The transition of violent rhetoric from online spaces to real-world actions is perhaps one of the most troubling revelations of the NCRI study. Viral memes, fancam edits, and merchandise such as “Free Luigi” t-shirts have commodified his image. Events like the “UHC Shooter Lookalike Contest,” held in Washington Square Park, reveals how online rhetoric is influencing real-world behaviors. Participants, many of whom were dressed to mimic Mangione, gathered to celebrate and parody the assassination, demonstrating an alarming erosion of societal norms.

On social media, fancam edits and viral videos glorify Mangione’s actions, framing him as an anti-establishment icon. According to the report:

These videos frequently feature romantic or hyperbolic captions, highlight niche cultural affinities, or focus on his physical appearance, further amplifying his image and fueling narratives that glamorize his actions. This glorification fuels permission structures that could inspire others to perceive violence as a legitimate form of activism.

The hashtag #EatTheRich has surged by over 500 percent week-over-week, accompanying calls for violence against corporate figures and circulating “CEO Wanted” posters and executive “hit lists.” These posters, which feature “mocked-up mugshots of healthcare executives,” promote vigilante justice and represent “a deliberate attempt to provoke fear and destabilize corporate leadership.”

According to the NCRI report, “The murder of Brian Thompson appears to have catalyzed a dangerous feedback loop, where glorification, humor, conspiracy, and targeted harassment create an environment ripe for further violence.”

This blending of online rhetoric and offline action reflects what the NCRI describes as an “emergent permission structure,” which they describe as “a framework that justifies previously unacceptable beliefs or actions, with a clear division of labor: Social media platforms provide the amplification, while psychologically susceptible individuals provide the justification…” Taken in concert, these elements form a system that normalizes and even glamorizes acts of violence.

The Lionization of Luigi Mangione

Luigi Mangione’s transformation from an obscure figure to a symbol of anti-establishment resistance has been meteoric. Within days of his arrest, his social media following exploded from 5,000 to over 400,000. The slogan “Free Luigi” was posted 47,000 times in 48 hours, generating nearly 800,000 engagements across X and Reddit.

The commodification of Mangione’s image extends beyond social media. T-shirts, mugs, and other merchandise featuring his likeness are being sold on e-commerce platforms, trivializing his actions while profiting from the controversy. New cryptocurrency “memecoins” such as $LUIGI have also emerged, turning a deadly act into a speculative financial opportunity.

Psychological Drivers

The NCRI study identifies three key predictors of support for the murder: authoritarian tendencies, heavy social media use, and diminished personal agency. These factors interact in a synergistic way, with social media amplifying authoritarian predispositions and fostering the normalization of violence.

The combination of authoritarianism, an external locus of control, and social media’s amplifying effects appears to be a perfect storm for radicalization. These factors interact in a way that makes violence seem rational and even heroic to those who might otherwise feel marginalized or voiceless.

The interaction between these psychological drivers is particularly pronounced among younger demographics, who are both heavy social media users and more likely to experience anxiety or disillusionment with traditional systems. The NCRI study reveals that among users aged 18-27, those with high authoritarian tendencies and heavy social media use were the most likely to justify violence.

A Call to Action

The NCRI study concludes with a warning:

As digital platforms become arenas for ideological conflict, the consequences extend beyond individual incidents of violence to threaten broader public safety and societal cohesion. This transformation underscores the urgent need for strategies that address the root causes of digital radicalization and mitigate its impacts.

The challenges we face require a comprehensive and collaborative response. No single entity can address the complexities of digital radicalization alone. Policymakers, educators, platforms, and community leaders must work in unison to restore the moral boundaries against violent extremism.

The study concludes:

The spread and scope of justification for murder have significantly eroded what was once the monopoly of fringe communities in supporting violence and glorifying shooters online. This shift underscores the urgency of initiatives aimed at reinforcing the bonds of civic trust and restoring civility. Such efforts are essential not only in countering the tide of extremism but also in fostering a resilient society where dialogue and mutual respect prevail.

==

EDIT: Wow, this managed to attract the murderous psychopaths. I hope you'll be just as understanding when someone kills someone you care about and justifies it in the name of nebulous "systemic" somethingisms.

If there was ever any doubt about Colin's premise, it has been proven by the insanity of those cheering it on in the reblogs.

The death penalty is unfair, unjust, and evil, unless you walk up to a rich guy you don’t like on the sidewalk and shoot him in the back. The only form of the death penalty that’s okay is the form that doesn’t include a judge, jury, or court, and where the executed person has not been charged with, convicted, or even accused of any specific crime.

You don't get to call it "justice" when it's not just bypasses but is in direct violation of the law.

"Arbitrarily killing people I don't like is good akshully," is not the moral high-ground you think it is.

How many times do you think you would have been shot dead if it became acceptable for someone to simply arbitrarily execute you because they don't like you, what you do for a living, what you do with your free time, what you eat, what you stand for, or any other random disapproval?

By: Tom Golden

Published: Nov 13, 2025

Part 2 of 3 in the series “The Victim Trap: How a Culture of Helplessness Took Hold”

When the mindset of victimhood spreads from individuals to entire groups, something powerful — and dangerous — begins to happen.

The sense of personal injury becomes a shared moral identity. Suffering, once private, becomes political.

At first, this can bring solidarity and even healing. A wounded community finds its voice. People who once suffered in silence finally feel seen. But over time, the same force that unites can also divide. The story that once offered meaning starts to reshape how people see themselves, their nation, and even morality itself.

1. The Birth of a Moral Identity

When groups define themselves by what was done to them, they gain not only empathy but a sense of moral righteousness. The logic is simple — and intoxicating:

“We have suffered, therefore we are good. They have power, therefore they are bad.”

This moral binary simplifies a messy world. It provides clarity and belonging, offering the comfort of a single story where virtue and vice are clearly assigned. But it also freezes both sides into unchanging roles: one forever the victim, the other forever the oppressor.

These roles are psychologically powerful because they remove complexity — and with it, responsibility. Once a group becomes identified with innocence, it no longer needs to question its own motives. Its cause is automatically just.

Modern politics thrives on these fixed roles. They provide ready-made moral drama: heroes and villains, innocence and guilt. But like all drama, they require constant rehearsal to stay alive. Without conflict, the script falls apart.

2. The Emotional Rewards of Group Victimhood

Collective victimhood feels empowering at first. It transforms personal pain into a larger moral purpose. What was once chaos becomes coherence.

Being part of a group that has “suffered together” gives life meaning and creates unity. It offers protection from isolation. There’s comfort in saying, “We’re not crazy; we’ve been wronged.”

In social movements, this dynamic can quickly become a badge of belonging — a way to prove loyalty to the cause. Those who display the most outrage, or carry the most visible wounds, often gain the highest moral status.

Psychologists call this competitive victimhood: when groups begin to compete for recognition as the most wronged. The greater the suffering, the greater the virtue. But moral status can become addictive. Once a group learns that pain equals virtue, it begins to search for more pain — and when real injustices run out, it may start to manufacture offense to sustain its moral authority.

It’s a strange paradox: the more a group celebrates its wounds, the less it can afford to heal them.

3. Biases that Keep the Wound Open

Victim thinking doesn’t just change beliefs — it changes perception itself. It amplifies cognitive biases that keep the wound raw and prevent ​healing.

Confirmation bias: Interpreting every disagreement or policy change as proof of oppression. The mind filters the world for evidence of persecution.

Attribution bias: Assuming malice rather than misunderstanding — reading intent where there may be none.

Availability bias: Because the media highlights what shocks and wounds, stories of cruelty stay vivid in our minds while quiet acts of goodwill fade from view. We remember every injustice, not because it’s most common, but because it’s most visible.

Moral typecasting: Once a group is labeled “the victim,” society struggles to see it as capable of harm — while the supposed “oppressor” becomes incapable of innocence.

This last bias deserves a closer look.

Social psychologists Kurt Gray and Daniel Wegner discovered that people intuitively divide the world into moral types: those who act (moral agents) and those who suffer (moral patients). Once someone is cast in one role, our minds tend to freeze them there.

That means when a group is seen as a victim, their actions are interpreted through a moral filter that excuses wrongdoing. Their pain becomes proof of virtue — and even when they cause harm, observers tend to explain it away as justified or defensive. Conversely, those seen as oppressors carry a kind of permanent moral stain. Even their good deeds are reinterpreted as self-serving or manipulative.

The tragedy is that this bias prevents genuine empathy in both directions. It denies accountability to those labeled as victims and compassion to those labeled as villains. In the end, everyone’s humanity gets flattened into a single moral role — and the cycle of grievance stays alive.

4. When Empathy Becomes a Weapon

Empathy is one of humanity’s most precious traits. But when victimhood becomes sacred, even empathy can be weaponized.

Claims of harm begin to override discussions of truth. Feelings become the final arbiter of morality. The question shifts from “Is this accurate?” to “Does this offend?”

The result is what might be called moral coercion: when guilt replaces persuasion and compassion becomes a tool of control. People censor themselves not because they’re wrong, but because they fear being seen as cruel.

You can see this dynamic almost anywhere today — in classrooms, offices, or online. A teacher hesitates to discuss a controversial historical event because one student might feel “unsafe.” A coworker swallows an honest disagreement during a diversity training, not because they’ve changed their mind, but because they dread being labeled insensitive. On social media, someone offers a mild counterpoint and is flooded with moral outrage until they apologize for the sin of questioning the narrative.

In each case, guilt ​ or shame ​becomes a weapon. The emotional threat of being branded heartless silences discussion more effectively than any argument could. And so compassion, meant to connect us, begins to control us.

Ironically, the groups that appear most powerless often become the most influential, because they wield the moral authority of suffering. When pain becomes proof of virtue, disagreement starts to look like aggression.

It’s a subtle but devastating inversion: empathy, meant to heal division, becomes a tool that enforces it.

5. The Emotional Toll on the Group

Living inside a collective grievance feels purposeful, but it’s emotionally draining. Righteous anger brings a surge of meaning — a sense of clarity and mission — but like any stimulant, it requires constant renewal.

A group addicted to outrage cannot rest. It needs a steady supply of offenses, real or imagined, to keep its story alive. When none appear, it begins to see insult in the ordinary and oppression in mere difference.

Without new conflict, the group’s identity weakens. This is why peace, paradoxically, can feel threatening to movements built on pain. Reconciliation robs them of their reason to exist.

The emotional cost is high: anxiety, exhaustion, paranoia, and isolation. The group’s members live in a permanent state of alert, bonded by fear rather than love.

6. How Collective Victimhood Divides Society

The tragedy of group grievance is that it unites within but divides between. Shared suffering bonds members of the in-group, but it hardens their hearts toward outsiders. Empathy becomes conditional — reserved only for those who share the same scar.

Once compassion is limited to “our people,” understanding dies. Dialogue collapses. Each side becomes trapped in its own moral narrative, convinced that it alone is righteous.

The cultural result is polarization — a society where everyone talks about justice while practicing vengeance, and where reconciliation feels like betrayal.

In such a climate, even kindness can be misinterpreted as manipulation. Every gesture is filtered through suspicion. Healing becomes nearly impossible because the wound has become the identity.

7. Toward a Healthier Collective Story

The way out is not to deny injustice but to transcend it. Nations, communities, and movements can honor their suffering without making it their defining story.

That transformation begins with language. Saying “We have suffered” keeps us anchored in the past. Saying “We have endured” honors the same pain but adds strength.

The first sentence describes injury; the second describes resilience. The difference seems small, but psychologically it’s immense — one keeps the wound open, the other begins to heal it.

Healthy cultures, like healthy people, move from grievance to growth. They tell stories not just of what was lost but of how they rose. They stop competing for sympathy and start competing for excellence.

Final Word

Victimhood once served a sacred purpose — to awaken empathy for the mistreated. It was meant to open our hearts, to remind us of our shared humanity and the moral duty to protect the vulnerable. When a culture witnesses suffering and responds with compassion, something profoundly good happens: justice grows, cruelty is restrained, and dignity is restored.

But somewhere along the way, that sacred purpose was replaced by something transactional. When victimhood becomes a currency, empathy turns into a market, and suffering becomes a brand.

You can see it in the way public life now rewards outrage and emotional display. A single personal story of harm, once told for healing, can now become a platform — drawing attention, sympathy, and sometimes even profit.

Organizations compete to showcase their pain as proof of virtue; individuals learn that expressing offense earns social status; corporations adopt slogans of solidarity not from conscience, but because compassion has become good marketing.

Imagine a town square where people once gathered to comfort the wounded. Over time, the square becomes a stage. The wounded are still there, but now they must keep their wounds visible, even open, because the crowd has learned to applaud pain more than recovery. The very empathy that was meant to heal now demands performance.

When compassion becomes currency, its value declines. What once flowed freely from the heart is now rationed, manipulated, and traded for attention or power.

The true mark of strength is not how loudly we proclaim our pain, but how gracefully we move beyond it. Real empathy — the kind that changes lives — begins when we stop spending suffering and start transforming it.

Our challenge now, as individuals and as a culture, is to remember that compassion and accountability must grow together — or both will die apart.

By: Julian Adorney

Published: Apr 10, 2025

A new study suggests that a growing number of Americans are embracing political violence—or at least the idea of it—as a solution to our problems.

The study, published by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), asked participants whether various acts of left-wing political violence, such as the murder of public figures like Donald Trump or Elon Musk, would be justified. Alarmingly, 48 percent of left-of-center respondents said that murdering Musk would be at least “somewhat” justified, with 9.1 percent deeming it “completely” justified. For Trump, the figures were even higher: 55 percent said his murder would be at least “somewhat” justified, and 13.2 percent considered it “completely” justified.

These findings reflect a disturbing trend. In recent months, the glorification of political violence on the left has been on the rise. Luigi Manglione, for example, became a cult hero among segments of the far-left online community after he murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. There has also been a surge in attacks on Tesla dealerships. According to the same NCRI study, 57.6 percent of left-of-center respondents said that destroying Tesla dealerships would be at least “partially acceptable.”

Behind these dry statistics are chilling anecdotes. In one Reddit thread, a user posted: “Rumor is muck”—a likely intentional misspelling of “Musk” to avoid Reddit’s crackdown on calls for political violence—“always has his kid on his shoulders to deter grassy knoll enthusiasts.” Another commenter replied, “If you ask me 1 potential future Musk is a worthy sacrifice for the betterment of the world.” Such comments are so common in certain online spaces that we risk becoming numb to how profoundly dehumanizing they are. As the NCRI report notes, “In these ecosystems, violence is not just justified—it is stylized, gamified, and embedded within a broader ideological narrative.”

What is driving this glorification of political violence? The report identifies several contributing factors. Because the hypothetical violence targets right-wing figures, support for it correlates strongly with activity on platforms like BlueSky—a left-leaning social media site that excludes conservative voices almost as a matter of course. Such homogenous digital environments can serve as an incubator for left-wing extremism where shared fear and outrage can intensify, echoing and amplifying through online communities until they harden into justification for real-world violence.

The second contributing factor the report highlights is an external locus of control, or “the belief that one’s outcomes are shaped by outside forces.” According to the report, individuals who feel powerless or at the mercy of external circumstances are significantly more likely to endorse political violence.

The last major contributor is a high score on measures of left-wing authoritarianism, which is “characterized by moral absolutism, punitive attitudes toward ideological opponents, and a willingness to use coercion for progressive aims.” As psychology professor Luke Conway writes in Liberal Bullies, left-wing authoritarianism, like its right-wing counterpart, is fundamentally driven by fear. He writes:

What turns people into authoritarians? The overwhelming answer from my own field suggests very clearly the primary causal factor that leads to authoritarianism: Fear. When people feel afraid, they turn to authoritarians to help solve their problems. Like a child scared at night, we want an adult to take our fears away. Thus, it is not surprising that every major theory of the origins of authoritarianism has fear at the center. [Bob] Altemeyer’s RWA [right-wing authoritarianism] Model shows that people who believe the world is dangerous – who live with chronic fear – are more likely to be authoritarian. Feldman’s Social Conformity Model shows that authoritarianism lies at the intersection of threat and social conformity. In probably the most influential model of the origins of authoritarianism, Duckitt’s Dual Process Model, authoritarianism primarily comes from threat.

Taken together, these findings paint a picture of the type of person who supports violence against figures like Donald Trump or Elon Musk. They are fearful. They feel powerless and believe their lives are governed by uncontrollable external forces. They may be overwhelmed by a sense of chaos and grasping for a feeling of control or empowerment. And all of these feelings are magnified within digital echo chambers that intensify fear and anger a thousand fold.

It’s important to note that although the study focused on left-wing political violence, this doesn’t absolve the political right. Most of the research centered on violent attitudes toward right-wing targets, and, unsurprisingly, left-leaning individuals were more likely to justify such violence than conservatives. However, when participants were asked, “How justified or not justified would someone be if they killed a powerful political leader?”, the responses were more mixed. Forty-one percent of Democrats and 29 percent of Republicans indicated that such an act would be at least somewhat justified.

Before Republicans take comfort in their lower number, the report authors offer a crucial caveat:

We caution that current differences in Democratic support for violence may serve as a response to loss of federal power, a claim buttressed by our models which show external locus of control as a key predictor. We also note that support for assassination still shows a concerning, if not as-large, prevalence among Republican respondents.

In other words, while political violence may currently be more prevalent on one side, we are all, as a nation, moving dangerously in the same direction.

Support for political violence poses a clear threat to democracy. A functioning democracy depends on a virtuous and morally grounded citizenry. As John Adams warned:

We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

If millions of Americans across the political spectrum genuinely believe that vigilante justice and political violence are justified, it’s difficult to envision how our political system can endure.

But perhaps more urgently, this glamorization of violence is a danger to ourselves. I’ve lived trapped in fear and anger so intense that I wanted someone to die—and trust me, that is no way to live. For the sake of our republic, and for the sake of our own souls, we must break this cycle.

So how do we begin to break free?

The first step is recognizing that we have a problem. When it comes to politics, many of us are scared. Ahead of the 2024 election, more than 80 percent of partisans on both sides believed that democracy itself would be in jeopardy if the opposing candidate won. And it’s not just elected officials we fear. A 2021 survey found that over three-quarters of both Republicans and of Democrats viewed the opposing party’s supporters as a “clear and present danger to the American way of life.”

When we’re scared, we often turn to anger as our sword and shield—a way to feel powerful and in control. As Dawson McAllister writes, “Ultimately, anger is a reaction to feeling hurt, weak, vulnerable, or belittled in some way by someone or something. We use anger to help us feel strong and in control, and to help mask our feelings of hurt and weakness.”

On some level, that response is understandable. In my own life, I’ve found that feeling powerful and in control beats feeling powerless and at the mercy of external forces. When faced with a choice between fear and anger, many of us choose anger.

But the power that comes from political anger is an illusion. Whatever we tell ourselves, most of us aren’t actually afraid of elected officials in Washington, D.C. We’re afraid of things much closer to home. I’m a little bit scared of Trump, but I’m far more afraid that his tariffs could trigger a recession, causing my clients to fire me and leaving my wife and me struggling to make ends meet. Often, we’re not so much afraid of a distant figure as we are of the effect that person might have on our lives.

Even when we’re truly scared of a politician in D.C., I believe the root of that fear is more personal than we realize. It’s not the politician themselves that terrifies us—it’s what their election might mean for our identity. As political scientist Lilliana Mason explains:

Each election becomes, not just, you know, ‘Well the Democrats lost, so what a bummer, you know, because my party lost'... Instead, it’s like, ‘Well, my party lost, so that means my racial group and my religious group and my cultural group, and all the people that I know and all the people that I watch on TV, everything that I know, everything that makes up who I think I am, it’s all gone. I lost it all. I have nothing left inside of my sense of who I am.

Put another way: our fear isn’t rooted in the election of Trump (or Biden, or any other elected official) so much as in what that election seems to imply about our place in the world and our sense of self.

This also means that our anger at elected officials can function as a kind of psychological smokescreen. As long as we fixate on politicians in Washington instead of addressing the deeper issues in our own lives, our fear—and the anger that stems from it—remains unresolved. No matter how many angry tweets I post or how many relatives I cut off for voting the "wrong" way, the underlying anxiety remains. I could spend all day calling for someone to take Trump out, but none of that would actually make me feel powerful—because what truly frightens me isn’t Trump himself, but the possibility of losing my income in a recession. I could rage against Biden, but that wouldn’t empower me either—because the deeper issue isn’t who holds office, but what I’ve allowed their election to mean for my identity.

In this way, our political anger can become the emotional equivalent of junk food: comforting in the short term, but ultimately hollow and harmful.

Worse still, all this anger is eating us alive. It’s making us miserable. As the old saying goes, resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.

If we want to stop being so consumed by partisan anger that political violence becomes thinkable, the second step is to cultivate an internal locus of control. According to the authors of the NCRI study, a strong external locus of control—believing that we’re at the mercy of outside forces—is closely correlated with support for political violence.

Many of us feel lost and adrift, battered by forces we didn’t choose and can’t control. But that feeling is a lie.

The truth is that we have far more power over our lives than we often realize. And if we’re feeling scared or uncertain, the answer isn’t to direct our time and energy toward railing at the outside world. It’s to redirect that time and energy toward becoming the captain of our own ship. I can’t control whether Trump’s tariffs plunge us into a recession—but I can go out and bring in new clients, so that my business is less exposed and my family has more savings in case the economy takes a hit. I can’t control what Democrats in office do—but I can choose to base my identity on something real, rather than on my political tribe, so that an election loss doesn’t feel like an existential threat. I can’t control what Elon Musk or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweets—but I can decide to log off social media and go to the gym, so I’ll have more energy and feel better in my own skin.

When we take control of the things that are within our power, we become far more resilient to the things that are not.

Along with this, we can take active steps to cultivate genuine human connection. Many of us are starved for a sense of real togetherness. As then–Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy wrote in 2023, we are in the midst of an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation.” Humans weren’t made to go it alone—and when we lack close relationships with friends and family, every challenge can feel more daunting. We feel lonely, adrift, and overwhelmed by storms we could otherwise manage with just a bit more support. Decades of psychological research support the link between friendship and mental health. As the Mental Health Foundation of Australia notes, “Research shows that genuine adult friendships that offer social support and companionship are a strong predictor of well-being and can protect against mental health conditions like anxiety and depression.”

The good news is that, like everything else we’ve discussed, cultivating human connection is within our control. Each of us can choose to log off X or BlueSky for an hour to call an old friend. We can plan a date with our spouse to reconnect, or cut short our doomscrolling and spend more time being present and active with our children. When we do that, we may find that some of the fear and anger we felt over politics simply melts away in the shared warmth of human intimacy.

Part of this effort involves building—or rebuilding—bridges with the people in our lives who voted for the other side. Many of us resist this step because we’re afraid of what we might encounter if we set foot in what we perceive as enemy territory. As Mónica Guzmán, a Senior Fellow at Braver Angels—a nonprofit dedicated to reducing fear and anger around politics—writes in I Never Thought of It That Way, “When the people I talk to get nervous about crossing the political divide, it’s usually because they fear or loathe what they expect to find there.” But, while the loudest voices on the other side may be extremists, most of our political opponents aren’t monsters; they’re decent, hardworking people who love their country and their children. When we engage with them directly, the imagined “monster” is often replaced by a real, flesh-and-blood person—someone we find far less frightening or infuriating. As Guzmán notes, “Research keeps showing us that the more you mingle with people in your ‘otherized’ out-groups, the less prejudice you’ll feel against them. In fact, a study of 515 other studies found that chatting in person with someone from an out-group cut down prejudice 94 percent of the time.”

Of course, a common objection arises: What if our opponents are literal Nazis or fascists? john powell [sic], director of the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, addressed this during a talk on depolarization, when a pastor interrupted to ask, “John, are you saying I should bridge with the devil?” Powell’s response, which always gets a laugh, was: “Maybe don’t start there.”

But he goes on to urge: once you begin building bridges with people across the aisle, “you may need to re-question, ‘Who are you calling the devil?’” Many of us avoid these conversations because we believe the people on the other side are behaving so badly that the only moral option is to cut them out of our lives. Following Trump’s reelection, for example, many progressives severed ties with friends or family members in solidarity with immigrants—legal or undocumented—and other minorities they feared would be harmed by the new administration.

But I think this cutting of ties is misguided. If being a moral person involves standing up to prejudice, it must also involve refusing to practice prejudice ourselves. Compassion requires that we give those who see the world differently from us an opportunity to reveal their humanity, rather than dismissing them as a monolithic group of undesirables. If we can recognize that those on the other side of the political divide are not Nazis or fascists, but rather decent human beings, we may find ourselves far less inclined toward political violence.

Those who are tempted to glamorize or justify political violence often place the blame entirely on the opposing side: If only they weren’t so terrible, we tell ourselves, our country wouldn’t be falling apart. But if we truly want to preserve this great nation, we’d be wiser to start by looking in the mirror rather than out the window.

--

About the author

Julian is a columnist for Reality’s Last Stand and a member of the Braver Angels media team. He’s also the founder of Heal the West, a substack movement dedicated to combating illiberalism via spiritual formation and rebuilding the American community.

==

By: Eva Kurilova

Published: Jan 13, 2024

Locus of control is a term used to describe an individual’s belief about what factors control their lives. Those with an internal locus of control have a strong sense of agency and believe that their lives are influenced by their own actions and abilities. Those with an external locus of control feel that they are subject to luck, environmental factors, and other people’s actions.

Most people fall somewhere on the spectrum between an internal and an external locus of control, as this is reflective of life itself. There is a lot that we can control but a lot that we can’t as well. However, regardless of what is objectively true in any given situation, our preference for one view or the other has a major impact on our lives.

Those with an internal locus of control are more resilient, motivated, and independent, have a higher capacity for self-control, are better able to manage stress, and enjoy overall higher levels of mental and physical health. Those with an external locus of control, on the other hand, lack self-confidence and self-efficacy, blame others for their shortcomings, are less likely to take accountability, and experience worse mental and physical health outcomes. They are also more likely to have a mindset of victimhood.

Research abounds expounding the positive associations between an internal locus of control and factors like academic success and favorable work outcomes, as well as between an external locus of control and negative outcomes, like criminal offending. Helping people develop a greater internal locus of control has long been a goal of psychotherapy.

And yet, when it comes to the concept of gender identity, all of this knowledge and research is thrown out the window. After all, what is gender identity but just another term for an external locus of control?

Those who claim to have a gender identity that conflicts with their sex require participation from others. Their gender identity depends entirely on other people’s perceptions and on the way people treat them. They cannot concretize their identity simply by going about their lives, doing their job, practicing their hobbies, and fulfilling their roles as friends and family members—which is what an identity really is.

Instead, trans-identified individuals often try to artificially manifest a fantasy in their heads by forcing others to call them by a different name and pronouns and to pretend they see them as anything other than their sex. Some aren’t even satisfied knowing that others are merely playing along—they go further and demand others actually brainwash themselves into perceiving them as they wish to be perceived.

Furthermore, when someone is trying to manifest a gender identity, their locus of control sits not just in other people but in the rest of the world at large. They rely on external accouterments like clothing and makeup to signal what “gender” they are trying to appear as. They may go as far as to rely on external hormones to try and change how their body looks and even rely on surgeons to physically alter their body parts.

Obviously, all of us rely on the external world. None of us are entirely self-sufficient, and even if we have a strong internal locus of control, there is still much that is out of our control. But this is not the same as relying solely on the external world to recognize and manifest your identity for you.

I should also add that not all trans-identified people are like this. I think the locus of control is one of the main differences people implicitly note between trans-identified people who cause problems and those who don’t. This then gets clumsily translated into speaking about trans people with an internal locus of control as “real” or “actual” or “good” trans people.

I don’t believe there is any such thing as “true” trans. But I do believe there is a big difference between people who decide to transition and consider the onus to be on themselves to pass and be treated as the opposite sex and those who think the onus is on the rest of the world to make them feel like the opposite sex. I think this is the split that people pick up on when differentiating between the trans-identified people who really do just want to live their lives and those who want to tear the world down while paradoxically relying on it for their entire sense of identity.

(It is also my experience that trans-identified people in the former camp are less likely to insist that they have a “gender identity” and more likely to view themselves as having a mental disorder—gender dysphoria—that they are managing as best as they can).

Unfortunately, trans activists, doctors, teachers, counselors, politicians, and “experts” of all stripes are encouraging all trans-identified people to take on the latter mindset. They encourage an entirely external locus of control which then invariably develops into a victimhood mentality. Trans-identified people with an external locus of control come to believe that because they have no power to improve anything for themselves the world owes it to them.

This is what makes it all the more pernicious that this ideology is being pushed on children. Introducing the concept of gender identity to kids is the same as showing approval for an external locus of control. Where children should be taught self-efficacy and resilience, they are instead being taught that their very sense of self requires others to act a certain way and the world to comport itself to their whims. It’s a disaster that isn’t just waiting to happen but that is already well in progress.

There is no way to continue teaching the concept of gender identity to children and spreading it throughout society while encouraging people to develop an internal locus of control at the same time. The two pathways are mutually exclusive. If we want to encourage good health and happy lives, we need to drop the concept of gender identity entirely.

==

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if your "gender" can be invalidated by others not participating, like gods, it was never real in the first place. You can't claim "an internal sense of self," and then also claim it requires external validation. That's "I have a personal relationship with Jesus" and "I want to pass laws based on what Jesus wants." It's either a private personal matter, or a matter of public interest. You can't have both.

Nobody owes you “validation” for your identity. Nobody is obliged to “respect” your beliefs, religion or ideology.