The slightly more complicated answer is that People in general are not only nice but want to be perceived as nice.
You build up nice points by being nice to the downtrodden.
If you declare yourself one of the downtrodden people rush to be nice to you. And they will also rush to defend you from the people who see you clearly as a nasty person who should be kicked soundly.
Now this is a Western Civilization thing. In the east if you are downtrodden they often consider it as punishment for being bad in a past life or that, also in a past life you decided you needed to be downtrodden to learn something. So being nice to you and defending you from others would be to interfere with your journey toward enlightenment. Which would, ironically, not be considered as being nice.
Humans. The lyrics change but the melody lingers.
“Check your tagline for the answer. :)”
Ah, you noticed! 😊
Yes, I believe that that’s a big part of why so many people get suckered by so called “victims” and their “advocates”. Many are what Stalin correctly labeled “useful idiots”.
The “advocates” guilt you and shame you, and as you say, people want to be perceived as being “nice” and “kind”, but in reality they’re being taken as suckers. And most likely called “suckers” behind their backs, and to be honest, they are.
That’s why I caution, DON’T LET THEM MAKE YOU “CARE” (about what THEY think you should care).
But there’s a deeper question, exactly who are “them/they”? Who are the ones that hand out the guilt trips? In my view, the thems are not the actual “victims”, the “victims” are just convenient “objects” TO BE USED BY the “thems” to extract “compassion payments” from the useful idiots.
So the “thems” in this game are the “advocates” and “activists” who get rich by convincing politicians to create dozens of programs that they run to “help” help the “victims” (just look at the dozens of programs set up to help the homeless (now, the “unhoused”). It’s become an industry! And of course the “thems” are also the politicians who want to come across as “compassionate” in order to get the useful-idiot vote, which is probably over half the population, with women making the largest portion.
So it’s a very well set up symbiotic relationship among the “victims”, their “advocates” (ie, exploiters), and the power seeking politicos.
It’s the old marxist “oppressor, oppressed” model. But what Marx conveniently left out, is the ultimate beneficiary of this charade - the power seeking politico (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Obama, etc), and their Svengalis, like Marx.
Why does he do it? Because, as Orwell pointed out in 1984, power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, the ultimate end. You have power, you have everything.
Orwell...
““Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.””
There was a time when kings and emperors gained power by beating the crap out of their adversary - physical battles. That was pre-democracy. With the advent of “democracy” and the right to vote, the battlefield has changed to winning the vote of the useful idiots (often called the “undecided”, which hold the balance of power. In essence they are the kingmakers.
And since they’re easily guilted the, guilting strategy and appeal to their pathological sense of compassion works like a charm. And the “victims” are simply useful tools for the seekers of power to use for guilting and eliciting compassion... and a vote for them.
What do you think?