Good book, worth the read about our society.

During the tyranny of “feeling”, “logic” diminishes. When feeling is sufficient to be on the right side, one doesn’t need any persuasive argument. Instead, one rushes to provoke feelings by being a VICTIM.
The irony: deep down, he is happy to be a victim...!!!
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Humans are storyteller, and big substitution happens when the story replaces the fact. As it happens for victimization, which narrates a very compelling story.
And who dares to question well accepted taboos? The are our best stories.

Everyone needs to read this.

Although this is written by a republican and I disagree with MANY of the things he says, especially in the second half of the book. I DO agree with his premise in that we have created too much of a nation of victims that absolves people of any responsibility and we have given victimhood to much power. what ever happened to recovering from being a victim and moving onto to empowerment and being a survivor and thriver. And a victimhood stance creates too much litigation. I believe perpetrators should be held accountable, but when we dilute victimhood to EVERYTHING, we minimize the real egregious acts of violence and oppression. Like addiction. If we make EVERYTHING an addiction (shopping, sex, etc), then we can say we have no control over ourselves and are thereby absolved of any wrong doing. I think that's a cop-out.

Fascinating!

Charles Sykes may be the biggest victim of all. He preaches an ethic of responsibility and self-reliance, typical radio friendly Rush Limbaugh conservatism, but he cheated on his wife before leaving her and in 2016 joined the Never Trump train. Everything he said was a lie and the fact is he is a privileged little prep school boy who doesn't know what it means to work your way up from nothing. And today he is a sad little radio show host who is not in any way of even a little consequence.

Very much a text book, this could be hard to stay engaged with at times. The conversational tone and well placed commentary were appreciated and helped. It's very rare that I like cynical or efforts-to-be-funny in a book like this, but it was pretty well done here. The most interesting thing about the book was how far ahead of the curve Sykes was writing - if this book was published in 1992 and he was dismayed, my God had no idea what the new century was going to bring! But the concerns hold true, decades later!

Anything brought to its outer limits; way beyond the 10th standard deviation reaches absurdity. So true with tort cases. We've all heard about the fortunes awarded to folks burned by hot coffee, but how many of the millions of people whose lives were ruined or terminated by the ravages, the greed, of the chemical / fossil fuel / pharmaceutical / automobile companies have we heard about? Those who never saw a restorative penny?
Well this book is all about the hot coffee group. And anybody who complains, (ignoring any of the millions in the latter group, who never saw recompense for the damage done) are lazy, gratuitous "victims".
That's it. Now you don't have to read this.

I agree wth much of what Mr. Sykes wrote. This book was published in 1992. This nation is now a nation of victims on steroids.

It's not my fault! This is the cry of today's society. Our lawsuits reflect it. Our psychological therapies reflect it. Our talk shows reflect it. What has changed in our society, in our legal system, in our therapeutic practices? I've wanted to know why. I've wanted answers. This book was going to tell me why. The chapter titles and subtitles were exactly the topics I was interested in. Unfortunately, this was another book that was written way over my head. I slogged through the first five chapters before giving up. I did skim some informational cream off the top of it all.

Where it all began was the psychologists in the '70s coming up with the idea that proclaimed that anyone, no matter how normal, has some syndrome or condition. Among these, the "adult-child-of" conditions put blame squarely on Mom and Dad. This, whether intentional or not, led to people claiming that whatever they do wrong in their lives, be it legal, moral, or in their career, is not their fault. It's this (fill in the blank) condition.

The unfortunate thing is that I and others I have known have certain "conditions". I believe we all have different "quirks" that we get from parents, environment, and genetics. But unlike the excuse-makers, we acknowledge it and move on. We fix it if it becomes debilitating. We don't wallow in self-pity and throw ourselves to the mercy of society for them to feel sorry for us, and expect society to drag our wounded selves around with those that were lucky enough (successful) to not be affected by their affliction.

I will continue my search for a book that was written more to my level.

A fascinating study of our nations move toward attitudes of victimhood. The hilariousness of the examples alone made it worth the read. I loved it!

Oh, the good ol' times when the American Character could be admired by everyone. Now, somebody please bury this decay.