When Victimhood Becomes Identity

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*Please note that the generational perspective shared in this post reflects my own observations and interpretations. It is, by nature, a generalization, and I fully recognize that individual experiences within any generation can vary widely. Not everyone will see themselves, their parents, or their children reflected in this framework, and that’s both expected and valid. This piece is not meant to define entire generations, but rather to explore patterns I’ve noticed while navigating my own experiences as a child, a parent, a student alongside a younger generation, and as someone observing broader conversations both in person and online. In many ways, this reflection is also part of my own processes, an attempt to better understand the challenges I’m currently facing in my relationships, and the cultural shifts I see unfolding around me. It is offered not as a definitive explanation, but as a perspective. One that I hope invites thought, conversation, and perhaps a deeper look inward for all of us.

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When Civility Fades

There’s been a quiet shift happening over the last few generations and we can’t deny it. For several years now, I’ve been hearing those my age (and older) say things like This younger generation just doesn’t get it, or These younger generations are soft, spoiled, entitled, etc. And while there may be some truth to some of it, what I’ve been asking for years is - where do you think they learned it from? 

Now, I’m not saying each generation has been soft, spoiled, and entitled, or whatever else. What I’m saying is that the younger generations were raised by the older generations so… I think it’s safe to say the younger generations, had to learn it from the ones before. Didn’t they? But how?

The shift over the last few generations hasn’t been loud enough to name easily. Not obvious enough to pinpoint a single cause. But you can feel it, in conversations, in conflict, in how we relate to one another. And let’s not forget, the world has been changing ever faster these last few generations, so that plays a huge role as well.

But something about how we live together has changed. Dramatically.

And I don’t think it’s just about information, economic factors, manners, or etiquette. I think it’s about what we value and what we’ve slowly let go of.

The Rise of Victimhood as Identity

Let’s start with the most uncomfortable part.

We live in a time where being a victim is no longer just something that happens to a person. It’s something people can begin to identify with, even build around.

Now, let me be clear: People experience real harm every day. Abuse, loss, betrayal, trauma… these things are real and deserve to be acknowledged with seriousness and care.

But somewhere along the way, we blurred an important line:

The line between experiencing harm… and becoming defined by it.

Not every painful experience makes someone a victim in a lasting or identity-shaping sense. And not every difficult moment needs to be elevated into something that grants moral authority, special status, or exemption from accountability.

Yet increasingly, it feels like hardship becomes identity. Identity becomes leverage. And leverage replaces responsibility.

There’s a subtle shift from, This happened to me, to, This is who I am and it explains everything.

And when that happens, something else quietly disappears: Agency.

Because if everything is something done to us, then very little is something we are responsible for.

When Suffering Becomes Meaning

Sometimes it feels as though the meaning, or at least the currency, of life has become suffering. Not all of the time. Not entirely. But enough to make us pause. Please, allow me to explain.

We are, in many ways, living increasingly comfortable lives, at least in the West.

We are safer, more resourced, and more connected than generations before us. And yet… something doesn’t quite add up.

We don’t seem more grounded. We don’t seem more resilient. If anything, we often seem more fragile, more reactive, more lost. And it raises a difficult question:

When purpose is no longer tied to survival, where do we go to find it?

For much of human history, meaning was built into life. It came from providing, enduring, contributing, surviving.

There was less room to question your place in the world, because your place was necessary. But now, with many of those external pressures erased, something has shifted. The struggle hasn’t disappeared. It’s just moved inward.

Instead of asking, How do we survive? We ask, Who am I? Do I matter? Am I enough?

And those questions can be just as heavy, if not heavier, than physical hardship. So we search for meaning elsewhere.

And sometimes, without even realizing it, we begin to find meaning in our suffering.

Pain becomes more than something we experience. It becomes something that defines us. Something that explains us. Something that, in a strange way, gives us weight in a world where everything else can feel uncertain.

But there’s a quiet danger in that. Because when suffering becomes the source of meaning, we don’t always move through it. Sometimes… we hold onto it.

Not out of weakness.

Not out of intention.

But because letting go can feel like losing a part of ourselves.

The Generational Pendulum

This didn’t come out of nowhere.

If we zoom out, it looks less like failure, and more like overcorrection.

The generation known as the Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) were raised by what’s often called the Silent Generation (born 1928-1945). A generation that rarely, if ever, talked about emotions, minimized suffering (of self and others), and valued endurance over expression. Very much shaped by the world they inherited, they were adhering to an unspoken social contract that emphasized restraint, duty, and a shared understanding of how one ought to behave. Their children, the Boomers, grew up in a changing world, a more abundant and comfort, and began pushing against those structured norms, seeking more freedom, individuality, and space for emotional expression. Wanting to give their children what they felt might have been missing, many Boomers leaned into compassion, emotional awareness, and validation as parents.

And there was nothing wrong with that. At all. But then something happened. 

Despite greater compassion, those raised by the Boomers - the Gen X’ers (born 1965-1976), Xennials (born 1977-1983), and Millenials (born 1984-1996) - still experienced emotional gaps or inconsistencies, leading them to feel misunderstood and more attuned to their inner world.

So, in turn, they attempted to raise their children, Gen Z’ers (born 1997-2012) and Gen Alpha (born 2013-2024), with even deeper emotional validation, protection from discomfort, and an emphasis on feeling seen and heard. Again, all good things and good intentions. Until they exist without their counterpart.

Because what often didn’t come with all those good things was responsibility, resilience, or clear expectations for behaviour. And now, we’re seeing results of that imbalance.

When Accountability Feels Like Judgment

I’ve felt this shift not just in theory, but in my own life.

In conversations with my own kids, and even with fellow students, I’ve found myself in a strange and unfamiliar position, being told that expecting accountability means I’m being judgmental. That by suggesting someone take responsibility for their actions, I’m somehow failing to empathize with their feelings or “side.”

And I’ll be honest, that’s been hard to reconcile.

Because I don’t lack empathy. I understand that people are shaped by their experiences, that emotions are real, and that pain, big or small, deserves to be acknowledged.

But I also believe something else just as strongly:

That understanding someone’s feelings does not remove their responsibility.

What I’ve come to realize is that we’re often not just disagreeing, we’re operating from entirely different frameworks.

In many conversations today, feelings are treated as the primary truth. If someone feels hurt, wronged, or misunderstood, that experience becomes the central lens through which everything else is interpreted.

And while that instinct comes from a place of compassion, it can lead us somewhere unintended.

Because when feelings become the authority, accountability can start to feel like an attack. Reflection can feel like invalidation.

And responsibility can feel like blame.

But those things are not the same. There is a difference between dismissing someone’s experience and asking them to examine their role within it. There is a difference between condemning a person and holding them accountable for an action. 

And somewhere along the way, I think we’ve started to lose that distinction.

What I’ve been trying to express, often unsuccessfully, is this: Empathy is not the absence of judgment. It’s the presence of understanding alongside truth.

Because without accountability, empathy doesn’t lead to growth. It leads to stagnation. And without some shared understanding of responsibility, we begin to lose the very foundation that allows us to live well with one another.

The Missing Social Contract

Civility, real civility, was never just about politeness. It was a kind of unspoken agreement, an unwritten contract:

I will regulate myself, consider others, and take responsibility for my actions,

because we all share this space.

That agreement required restraint, humility, discretion, and accountability. 

Not because people didn’t have feelings, nor because they wanted to be rigid, but because they understood that living among others requires limits on the self.

I’ve been writing a series of blog posts dissecting the unwritten social contract and rules of civility, and I’ve come to understand that it wasn’t the rules themselves that were rigid and unfair, as so many youth (often no matter the generation) think or feel. It’s the method of teaching those rules that were perhaps… a little shortsighted, rigid, and seemingly restrictive. And so, for the last few generations, at least, we’ve been itching to be rid of them, ridiculing them, breaking them, and feeling unfairly judged by them. But in altering the unwritten social contract through our actions… it now feels thinner.

We’ve shifted toward prioritizing personal truth over shared standards. Expression over restraint. Validation over reflection. 

And without realizing it, we’ve created a culture where people demand compassion, but don’t always extend it. They make claims of harm, but resist accountability. And they expect understanding, but avoid self-examination.

It’s not that civility disappeared. It’s that we stopped agreeing on what it requires.

When Feelings Lead Everything

Emotional awareness is not the problem. In fact, it was a necessary correction. But when feelings become the primary authority, we run into trouble. 

Because feelings are real, but not always accurate. They’re valid, but not always fair. They’re important, but not always constructive. And they come and go.

If every interaction is filtered through How did this make me feel? without also asking What actually happened? What was my role? What do I owe others in this situation? then we lose our ability to live well with one another.

We become reactive instead of reflective. We become defensive instead of accountable. And we become expressive instead of considerate. And slowly, the shared space between us starts to erode.

Not Blame, Responsibility

This isn’t about blaming a generation. 

Every shift came from somewhere real. Silence led to expression. Seeming dismissal led to validation. And hardship led to protection.

These were attempts to do better.

But every correction carries the risk of overcorrection. And where we are now may simply be the result of that.

Finding the Balance Again

So where does that leave us?

Not in rejection of empathy. 

Not in a return to emotional suppression.

But in remembering something we seem to have misplaced:

That living well with others requires both compassion and restraint.

We need empathy, with boundaries. We need validation, with accountability. We need self-expression, with self-awareness.

We need to raise people who can say, That hurt me, and also, Here’s what I can own.

Because victimhood should never be the goal. And identity should never be built on suffering alone.

The Real Question

Maybe the question I’m asking isn’t Why have we lost civility? Maybe it’s What did civility understand about human nature that we’ve forgotten?

Because I don’t believe we’ve become worse people. As much as mainstream media and yes, social media, try to tell us otherwise. I don’t believe we care less.

If anything, we care more - about feelings, about experiences, about being seen and understood.

But somehow along the way, in trying to become more compassionate, we may have let go of something just as important.

We’ve become fluent in the language of emotion… but less practiced in the discipline of responsibility. And in some ways, we’ve also become more comfortable sitting in our suffering than moving through it.

Not because our lives are harder than those who came before us, but because without clear anchors of purpose and responsibility, suffering can begin to feel like one of the only ways to locate meaning.

And when that happens, it’s not something we’re always eager to release.

We’ve learned how to say, this hurt me.

But we struggle more to ask, what part did I play? What does it mean to live well with others, not just alongside them, but with them?

And maybe that’s the quiet cost. Not some dramatic collapse. Not some irreversible loss. But a slow erosion of the shared understanding that:

We are not the only ones in the room.

That our experiences matter, but so do others’.

That our feelings are valid, but not always the most important part - and not always decisive.

That compassion is powerful, but incomplete without accountability.

I see it in the world around me.

I hear it in conversations.

And if I’m being honest… I’ve had to catch it in myself, too.

Because it’s easy to point outward.

Much harder to pause and ask:

Where am I choosing comfort over responsibility?

Where am I asking for understanding without offering it in return?

Where have I made my feelings the center, instead of part of the whole?

Maybe civility was never about the rules at all. (Though I’ll keep writing about them).

Maybe it was about remembering that living well together requires something of us, not just emotionally, but behaviourally.

And maybe the work now isn’t to go backward… but to move forward with both: to hold onto the compassion we’ve gained, without losing the responsibility that keeps us connected.

Ⓒ April 2026. Beki Lantos. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author.