No Sinners Need Apply

On the politics of innocence and the paradox of victimhood

Everyone is created equal, deserving of equal rights and moral consideration. You, dear reader, believe that… right? Indeed, this seems a basic tenet of modern ethics; rejecting it would signal moral failure. But, in truth, we reject it all the time. In fact, there exists a constant clash between our ideal morals and the idealised images of who actually deserves moral consideration.

Consider our conception of the ideal victim: typically very young or old, physically weak, and completely blameless. Indeed, when the media wishes to paint a tragedy as especially horrific, it focuses on the casualties which best represent this ideal stereotype, unearthing from the rubble the names of newborns, the elderly, anyone it deems defenceless and entirely without blame. This stereotype is, then, further narrowed by cultural prejudices. In the West, the ideal victim is white, female, and blonde. They ‘had many friends,’ ‘were a kind person,’ and ‘achieved many great things.’ If they died young, ‘they had their whole life ahead of them.’ If they were the victim of sexual assault, ‘they wore modest clothing.’ If they were the victim of theft, they didn’t flaunt their possessions. 

The less a victim matches these preconceptions, the less likely they are to be memorialised sympathetically. Their victim-status may even be dropped altogether. Take George Floyd, for example. Despite being murdered in broad daylight by police, commentators were quick to emphasise that he had been arrested in connection with using counterfeit bills and had prior criminal convictions and a history of drug use. Of course, these extraneous factors should matter little to our moral consideration. Derek Chauvin, his murderer, should not have kneeled on his neck, let alone for that long, and Floyd had done nothing which should have condemned him to death. Alas, George Floyd was a Black Man. And black men, let alone those whose conduct we deem ‘objectionable,’ do not get to be victims — not perfect victims at least. This same principle is illustrated each time a victim of sexual assault is discredited because, as a ‘strong man,’ they ‘couldn’t possibly have been assaulted,’ or because, by acting a certain way, they were ‘asking for it.’

Of course, dear reader, you’re ‘woke’ and already wise to the paradox of perfect victimhood… or are you? Be honest. When conveying the calamity of a tragedy to friends or family, you focus largely on the women and children; when you find out a particular victim has done something which scores them lower on your own perfect victim checklist, you cringe. But, if you seriously don’t think you’re guilty of this hypocrisy at all, then might I present to you the last hurdle, the one at which even the wokest among us fail: resistance fighters. 

Whether in Northern Ireland or in Palestine, we are quick to single out resistors not as victims of the oppressive situation they are actively fighting against, but as participants in the chaos, undeserving of any particularly heartfelt moral consideration. Granted, many resistance groups may have committed heinous injustices themselves. But in contexts of oppression, there is often little choice in who resistors can be affiliated with, especially when oppressors have conspired to leave only those more ‘unsavoury’ organisations as viable options for active resistance. In any case, resistance, even violent resistance, is not just natural, it is oftentimes necessary — not just deeply human but truly heroic. And so, especially against the backdrop of those who have committed unjustifiable crimes — whether in the name of resistance or not — we should be all the more sympathetic to those whose chief ‘crimes’ are simply the act of resistance itself. 

Still, in the eyes of many, even the Gazan child who throws a rock at an Israeli tank is no longer a perfect victim — let alone the teenager who puts a bullet in between the eyes of an invading IDF commander. And yet, based on those descriptions alone, I see no reason why both shouldn’t deserve our deepest sympathy. In light of this, I implore you, dear reader, to right this injustice, to ‘lower’ your standards for victimhood so that it includes the martyr whose resistance is the only hope of ending the tragedies which affect even the most perfect of victims, so that the martyr’s name can be just as quickly and ceremoniously unearthed from the rubble, so that his life no longer goes unmourned.

Illustration from Wikimedia Commons