Blaming the Victim Quotes

“The main difference is that the enlightened believe that the poor criminal should be rehabilitated while the righteous believe that the immoral criminal should be locked up in jail. Since almost the only available system of rehabilitation in America is to be locked up in jail, the difference remains highly abstract.”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“In fact, the teenager's concept of "square" (f the term is still in use), when they talk about their parents, is almost identical to the concept of "cultural deprivation" as it is used by educational bureaucrats. In both cases it reflects an extremely self-centered and rigid way of looking at the world. Fortunately, with teenagers, it's a phase they grow out of.”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“The culturally deprived children of Roxbury need education, not transportation.”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“Many of these children have low aspirational levels, lack those out-of-school experiences which are so richly provided when parents are in more favorable circumstances.…”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“A victim of his environment, the ghetto child begins his school career, psychologically, socially, and physically disadvantaged.”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“Elsewhere I have proposed the dimension of exceptionalism-universalism as the ideological underpinning for these two contrasting approaches to the analysis and solution of social problems. The exceptionalist viewpoint is reflected in arrangements that are private, voluntary, remedial, special, local, and exclusive. Such arrangements imply that problems occur to specially-defined categories of persons in an unpredictable manner. The problems are unusual, even unique, they are exceptions to the rule, they occur as a result of individual defect, accident, or unfortunate circumstance and must be remedied by means that are particular and, as it were, tailored to the individual case. The universalistic viewpoint, on the other hand, is reflected in arrangements that are public, legislated, promotive or preventive, general, national, and inclusive. Inherent in such a viewpoint is the idea that social problems are a function of the social arrangements of the community or the society and that, since these social arrangements are quite imperfect and inequitable, such problems are both predictable and, more important, preventable through public action. They are not unique to the individual, and the fact that they encompass individual persons does not imply that those persons are themselves defective or abnormal.”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“The similarity between exceptionalism and what Mills called the “ideology of social pathologists” is readily apparent. Indeed, the ideological potential of the exceptionalist viewpoint is unusually great. If one is inclined to explain all instances of deviance, all social problems, all occasions on which help is provided to others as the result of unusual circumstances, defect, or accident, one is unlikely to inquire about social inequalities....The danger in the exceptionalistic viewpoint is in its impact on social policy when it becomes the dominant component in social analysis.”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“Blaming the Victim occurs exclusively within an exceptionalistic framework, and it consists of applying exceptionalistic explanations to universalistic problems. This represents an illogical departure from fact, a method, in Mannheim’s words, of systematically distorting reality, of developing an ideology. Blaming the Victim can take its place in a long series of American ideologies that have rationalized cruelty and injustice.”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“(In a society in which everyone is assumed and expected to be economically self-sufficient, as an example, doesn’t economic dependency almost automatically mean poverty? No attention is given to such issues.)”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“It is important not to delude ourselves into thinking that ideological monstrosities were constructed by monsters. They were not; they are not.”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“This is an example of applying an exceptionalistic solution to a universalistic problem. It is not accurate to say that lead poisoning results from the actions of individual neglectful mothers. Rather, lead poisoning is a social phenomenon supported by a number of social mechanisms, one of the most tragic by-products of the systematic toleration of slum housing.”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“We know poor and middle class children exhibit certain differences in styles of talking and thinking, but we do not know yet why or how these differences occur.”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“We do know, however, that these differences—really dfferences in style rather than ability—are not handicaps or disabilities (unlike such barriers to learning as poor vision, mild brain damage, emotional disturbance or orthopedic handicap).”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“The middle class child says a rock is a stone; a lower class child says a rock is hard, and you throw it.”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim

“Serious students of language (as it relates to social class) have dealt, not with simple-minded concepts like “verbal” and “nonverbal,” but rather with issues of style and of differing ways of using and relating to language.”
― William Ryan, Blaming the Victim