Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks talks with former Austrailian Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson ...
To see yourself as a victim essentially means to see yourself as powerless. You’ve placed yourself at the hands of the victimizer, the oppressor. Now, you can’t do that. You’re giving away your life.
Freedom means accepting responsibility, and that’s a big leap.
Democracy means abiding by the rules even if you lose. And we’re forgetting that.
When bad things happen to a country or a culture, they can ask one of two questions, and the whole fate of that culture will depend on which of the two they ask. They can ask what did we do wrong, or they can ask who did this to us. If they ask what did we do wrong, then they go through the necessary business of repentance, remorse, whatever it is, putting things right again, and then they go on and they recover.
But when they ask who did this to us, they define themselves as a victim, and any victim must have a victimizer, an oppressor. And when any culture has suffered some kind of major confusion or humiliation, and they say, who did this to us, they are looking for a scapegoat to blame.
abide (v.)
Old English abidan, gebidan "remain, wait, wait for, delay, remain behind," from ge- completive prefix (denoting onward motion; see a- (1)) + bidan "bide, remain, wait, dwell" (see bide).
Originally intransitive (with genitive of the object: we abidon his "we waited for him"); transitive sense "endure, sustain, stay firm under," also "tolerate, bear, put up with" (now usually with a negative) is from c. 1200. Related: Abided; abiding. The historical conjugation was abide, abode, abidden, but in Modern English the formation generally is weak. Abide with "stay with (someone); live with; remain in the service of" is from c. 1300.
(From the Online Etymology Dictionary)
Thank you, Rachel.
To see yourself as a victim essentially means to see yourself as powerless. You’ve placed yourself at the hands of the victimizer, the oppressor. Now, you can’t do that. You’re giving away your life.
Freedom means accepting responsibility, and that’s a big leap.
Democracy means abiding by the rules even if you lose. And we’re forgetting that.
When bad things happen to a country or a culture, they can ask one of two questions, and the whole fate of that culture will depend on which of the two they ask. They can ask what did we do wrong, or they can ask who did this to us. If they ask what did we do wrong, then they go through the necessary business of repentance, remorse, whatever it is, putting things right again, and then they go on and they recover.
But when they ask who did this to us, they define themselves as a victim, and any victim must have a victimizer, an oppressor. And when any culture has suffered some kind of major confusion or humiliation, and they say, who did this to us, they are looking for a scapegoat to blame.
abide (v.)
Old English abidan, gebidan "remain, wait, wait for, delay, remain behind," from ge- completive prefix (denoting onward motion; see a- (1)) + bidan "bide, remain, wait, dwell" (see bide).
Originally intransitive (with genitive of the object: we abidon his "we waited for him"); transitive sense "endure, sustain, stay firm under," also "tolerate, bear, put up with" (now usually with a negative) is from c. 1200. Related: Abided; abiding. The historical conjugation was abide, abode, abidden, but in Modern English the formation generally is weak. Abide with "stay with (someone); live with; remain in the service of" is from c. 1300.
(From the Online Etymology Dictionary)
Thank you, Rachel.
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