Assignment 16: Max Young

Well, he got what was coming to him. She probably deserved it. They were asking for it! All of us have heard those phrases, or something like them, throughout our lives. Maybe in something as simple as sports, or something as dismal as death. The explanation as to why people seem to default to these kinds of ideas is the psychological term the “Just-World Phenomenon”. Meaning that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. Without knowing any prior information about a person, we usually correlate what happened to them with their behavior rather than bad luck or a bad situation. Now, can this perspective be true? Is it possible that something happened to someone purely because of something that they did? Of course. If you watch sports, most games are, what we say in the sports world, self-policing. For example, a hockey player illegally smashes another guy’s head into the boards. The next time he's out on the ice, somebody knocks his lights out with a hard right hook. While yes, the reason behind that player getting knocked out was because he made an illegal play, that's a situation in which people watching knew the prior circumstances. But that isn’t really what the just-world phenomenon talks about. When we see these kinds of situations, ones where we know prior information, it has an impact on the situations we know nothing about.

What feels like a growing group in America and especially in Lexington is the homeless. The homeless are a prime example of the “just world phenomenon.” Observers regularly blame the homeless’ situation on that person’s qualities. They don't work hard. They spend all their money on drugs. They are messing up their own life, and I have to admit it, I’ve thought that too. But a while ago I spoke with a group of former homeless people at my temple, and I came to a realization. Is it possible that some homeless people are hooked on drugs? Sure. Is it possible that some homeless people don’t work hard? Sure. But when we see these homeless people it’s not a maybe. It’s the fundamental attribution error. With these pre-existent assumptions about the homeless, we don’t take into account what their entire life has been like, what it has consisted of. One of the women I spoke with told me that she was born into a homeless family, and she spent her whole life growing up alongside the homeless. She didn’t choose to be homeless, she never asked to be homeless. She talked to me about how she has tried to get a job many times, but due to the fact that she has minimal education, no home address, and no experience in any kind of employment, it’s a lot harder than it seems. The woman I talked to is not a bad person, she never had a drug problem, she was trying to get a job, but because of the life she was born into, it was extremely difficult to obtain those things. Now, she has a minimum wage job, but still lives in community housing. Why am I talking about this? With the idea that these people are homeless because they are a bad person, they get dehumanized, put into a category of  being below “normal people.” Max Keene from DBK News says that, “Fatal assaults against people experiencing homelessness outnumber hate-crimes against all protected classes combined. Between 1999 and 2015, at least 1,657 homeless individuals were violently attacked, in many cases because of their housing status, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless.”

But what about things that aren’t as easy to see? Recently lots and lots of sexual assault and rape accusations have come out against many large celebrities. Some of which has been met with arguments from defendants of the stars, and rapists in general. Victim blaming is prevalent in the defenses against rape. Saying that what happened took place because the victim was wearing provocative clothing, got too drunk, or didn’t say no. In their just world, the person got assaulted because of something that they did or initiated, not blaming the rapist for, well, being a rapist. As a result of this, women are scared when it comes to talking about being sexually assaulted, for fear of being ridiculed. That is exactly why large numbers of accusations come out around the same time, because once one person has stood up for themselves others follow. But we shouldn’t let it get to this point in the first place. We shouldn’t be blaming the victims of sexual assault and rape for something that someone did to them. We shouldn’t blame them for when they were attacked. That brings up the reason as to why people place blame on others for being bad people, a way of making themselves feel better. In a twisted kind of way, saying that bad things happen to bad people makes some feel safer.

Which brings me to my final point. Why does the “just-world phenomenon” exist in the first place? Why did we ever start thinking that the world is fair? I remember growing up and crying when my brother got something and I didn’t, I would say it wasn’t fair. In response, my mom would always say, “Well life isn’t fair.” I digress, parents want their kids to grow up and be a good person. They want their child to have good morals, be respectful, and be safe. And that is where it all begins. Whether it be in normal home life or at places like church, children are taught to be good people, so that good things will come to them in life. And granted, I’m not saying that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a good or bad person, but from a young age children are given the mindset that bad things will happen to them if they are bad. Now you’re thinking, well max, striving to be a good person isn’t a bad thing. You’re right! It’s fantastic to be a good person. When we base it on that bad things won’t happen to you, that is when we get more into victim blaming. Much like common school bullies, people blame the victims as a self defense mechanism to reassure them self that they won’t fall victim to crime or bad luck. Barbra Gillan, a social work professor at Widener University says that, “Holding victims responsible for their misfortune is partially a way to avoid admitting that something just as unthinkable could happen to you—even if you do everything ‘right.’” Gillan also talks about how we as a society would rather try and train people to not get themselves into those situations rather than teach the attacker to not do it.  

The world isn’t a fair, just place. Bad things happen to good people all the time, and good things happen to bad people just as often. So what am I trying to get out of this? As a society it is a necessity that we come together and put an end to this style of thinking. I know that sounds kind of cheesy, but it’s true. The more we prolong this idea that the world is just, the more split we become. Growing homelessness rates, mass amounts of sexual assault accusations, and tons of other situations where this is applied, if we continue to blame the wrong people, we are no better than who we see them as. If that makes sense. Be a good person, but be a good person for the right reasons. Help those who you see in trouble, rather than harassing them further.