Stardate 20030301.1605

(On Screen): Victimology has gone much further than I had realized. It's become very formalized; it's almost achieved the precision of a science.

For any given tragedy, the only people with moral standing to actually be outraged by it, or to express moral judgments about it, are those who are formally its victims. For anyone else to do so is, well, presumptuous. One might even say rude.

Victimhood is a form of empowerment. Officially-designated victims will be given extra points in the great transnational-progressivist utopia when the time comes. For a non-victim to presume to feel anger, or to advocate policies, or even to speak out about it, is a form of stealing. It devalues the victimization; it takes from the victims their special status; it denies the victims their entitled empowerment. It's usurpation. It's the worst kind of insensitivity, and there is no worse crime.

Only true victims have the moral standing to express judgment in such cases; for anyone else to do so is vile. No one except a victim can actually fully understand. Before expressing, or even thinking, such things one must therefore formally produce credentials to demonstrate membership in the official victim class. Otherwise the only thing one is permitted to do is to express sympathy and support for what the real members of the official victim class say. They are the only ones permitted to express judgments about it; anyone who is not a victim can only follow their lead.

Case in point: a couple of days ago I responded to a letter I received from someone in the UK who, among other things, seemed to imply that me and my nation should "get over" the September 11 attack. And in my response I made clear the outrage and determination felt by the majority of my fellow citizens, how we weren't going to forget about 9/11, and how we were going to make sure nothing like that happens again to us (let alone something much worse).

Well, imagine my chagrin, my deep mortification, when I discovered that I was completely out of line. I had no idea! They didn't teach these things in college back when I attended; all I had available to me to study were physics and zoology and mathematics and computer science and philosophy and psychology and political science. (And self defense.) So I really didn't understand that I am not actually permitted to be outraged by the 9/11 attack, let alone to publicly express such outrage. I'm not an official victim of it, because I was not myself in New York at the time, and I did not lose any close friends or family members. So that means I went over the line; what I said was improper. It was not allowed. I was breaking the rules. (I'm so ashamed!)

See, I thought that the fact that it was my nation which was attacked, and my fellow citizens who died, was enough. But, of course, that just won't do. Such things as national pride and feelings of loyalty and solidarity with fellow citizens are jingoistic atavisms. Nations are passé; they're obsolete artifacts of the europatriarchal system which must be deconstructed. Patriotism is politically incorrect and proves lack of sophistication (and quite possibly brain damage). We're not supposed to feel any kind of loyalty to our nations; it's vitally important that we instead adhere to our formal groups, which transcend national borders and which will eventually replace nations as the true source of political power. (My group is white middle-aged upper-middle-class professional males who speak English, otherwise known as the vile scum of the earth who are totally responsible for every evil act which has ever taken place in the history of the world. My officially-designated job in the new world order is to apologize and make reparations, and to be last in line for everything to make up for all the evil that my group has done, so that all the victims will have someone to stand in front of.)

In my insensitivity and ignorance, I thought that the sheer brutality of the attack, and the awesomely evil way in which it was carried out was enough to justify horror and outrage in any moral person no matter where they lived. I even felt that kind of outrage about the Bali attack, and that wasn't even aimed at America.

But I have now discovered that this is not the case. According to the Official Rules of Victimology, I have to have actually known som