August 25, 2025 • 18 mins
There is a proposal that there is a dichotomy in human activities (specifically the cognitive ones) that can be characterized as a "warrior" mentality or a "victim" mentality. Any dichotomy that attempts to clasffiy behavior this way is going to have substantial limitations. We suggest that this discinction can be helpful in some ways, but seems highly toxic in others.
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Links and References:
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/why-we-do-what-we-do--3419521/support.
Support us on Patreon.com/wwdwwdpodcast
Links and References:
- https://mwangijoyce82.medium.com/are-you-a-victim-or-warrior-your-mindset-is-the-only-arsenal-you-need-4c6852e38748
- https://thebipolarbattle.org/are-you-a-warrior-survivor-victim-fighter-or-something-different/
- https://medium.com/imagine-foundation/mindsets-warrior-mindset-vs-victim-mindset-imagine-special-edition-96c460544306
- https://www.proquest.com/openview/178c1e9f765fd3efb81f7145e8c0222f/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/why-we-do-what-we-do--3419521/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Why we Do what we Do. Welcome
to Why We Do what we Do Mini. I'm your
host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. We are a
psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans and
(00:24):
non human animals do and understand the contextual features about
why they do them. And this is a mini which
means we do a quick dive into a topic and
then get out of there. So I'm not going to
preamble a whole lot, but in this one, we're going
to be talking about an idea kind of that has
made its way into a sort of popular zeitgeist. I'll
(00:45):
get into that in a moment, but I will start
by saying, if you enjoy what you hear today, if
you're a returning person or you're here for the first time, welcome.
I hope that you enjoy what you hear today. And
if you'd like to support us, you can join us
on Patreon. You can pick up some merch leave us
a rating and a review, like subscribe to a friend,
and I'll talk more about those at the end of
this discussion. I think that's all I have to say
(01:06):
before we dive into our topic, because we kind of
got a decent amount to unpack here, and I'd like
to make sure we don't go too far over time.
We try and do these in like fifteen minutes ish
or less if we can, which we've accomplished several times,
but have also gone way over that at least a
couple of times. Yeah, we do our best. I forgetting
any preamble stuff. Are we ready to start?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
No, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Okay. There are some ideas that introduce an oversimplified idea
that sparks an emotional reaction and provokes action in many people.
That is the case here. This could potentially be a
full length episode, but I'm not really sure. I want
to give it that much time and attention, but I
also want to address it. So many feels like the
perfect place to address this. So we are going to
(01:48):
be talking about an idea that is this that there
is such a thing as a victim mindset and a
warrior mindset, and those are the two types of mindsets.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yes, yes, says yes, yes. So there's this general idea
that there are victim mindsets and warrior mindsets and that
these meaningfully influence your personality and behaviors. And I think
it's really important to point out this is actually fairly
complex and means different things to different people. It would
be helpful if we could come down as either in
support of or against an idea, but the reality is
(02:19):
that people are complicated and that trying to distill these
complexities into dichotomies is misleading in foolish. Yes, this is
us going to take potshots at the idea that there
is such a dichotomy as victim mindset or warrior mindset,
because everything is non binary. But we're going to unpack
that as we go in this short amount of time.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I also want to start with the fact that there
is basically little or no scholarly research on this, and
kind of I think, nor should they be, cause it's
kind of dumb. We do need to define our terms.
But what this does mean with this, because there's not
really much in the way of scholarly work, which again,
let's keep it that way. Yeah, it means that the
definition that we do have is more or less supplied
(02:58):
by bloggers with opinions and not by people who do
thinking professionally nor recreationally.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, fair, that's actually really I got not
that to that. It's so good, all right, let's.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Start by defining our terms.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So the victim mindset is generally characterized as failing to
take responsibility. It's blaming other people for your failings, making excuses,
failing to stand up for things that you believe in
or know to be right, not challenging people, and refusing
to admit your flaws.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
We also saw some characterization around this that includes victims
as being reactive, defensive, non assertive, highly sensitive, taking things personally,
accepting mediocrity, believing that they lack control, and believing that
everything is either a blessing or a curse. What's kind
of ironic about this in the space is you will
(03:48):
find that the vocal majority of the people who push
this idea. I think I didn't collect any data, but
it seems like where I hear this idea crop up
the most is in sort of conservative circles. This whole
victim versus warrior mindset thing comes up there. And what's
crazy or what's kind of funny and ironic about this?
I think, or maybe just coincidental. No, it's ironic. It's good.
(04:12):
Is that if we were to describe someone who is
not accepting their failings, they're making excuses, they are not
challenging people. They refuse to admit their flaws. They're defensive,
their sensitive. They take thing's personality. That is describing Donald
Trump to a t ye like I have. Don't know
if I've ever seen a better profile character representation of
(04:36):
Donald Trump than that. So it's kind of funny that
people who run in conservative circles. I guess they have
this orientation to this as being a thing. Yeah, I'm like, wow,
that describes the leader you elected very very well, very
much a victim mindset there always.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So the warrior mindset then is taking responsibility, admitting fault,
working hard to overcome obstacles, always driving for perfection, focusing
on taking action, asserting dominance, calling people out, being aggressive,
and taking firm stances on things.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, that's the sort of general idea here. Now I
found we found a couple of sources that allude to
inspiration for this idea. I had trouble tracking down like
a primary starting point. But there are a couple of
books that were published in the late nineties early two thousands.
So one was called Unleash The Warrior Within Developed the
focus discipline, confidence, and courage, that's the title. It felt
(05:29):
like it was incomplete sentence, but that's the title. This
is originally published in two thousand by former Navy seal
Richard machiwiks Macawicks maybe, who was also a Buddhist apparently,
which I thought was really interesting. The other was called
The Four Agreements, A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom. This
(05:51):
was published in nineteen ninety seven my Mexican author Don
Miguel Ruiz, and it was inspired by the Toltec teachings
on how to improve one's life. I did not look
into those for the purposes of this. I wanted to
get into a topic. But his four agreements essentially boil
down to one, be impeccable with your word. Two, don't
take anything personally. Three don't make assumptions, and four always
(06:14):
do your best. As sort of the ideas here, and
I think you can hear those and feel like that's
got merit. I can appreciate that, and I would say
you're not wrong, and that's again why we sort of
get into the nuance here. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
It's interesting though that this book didn't talk about the
fifth agreement, which is adds. So we were just talking
about kind of these mindsets and we just finished up
with Don Miguel Ruiz's arguments, and I think we can
kind of talk about how this might be helpful or
(06:46):
and how this might not be helpful. So how's what
we're talking about helpful at all? Well, the general idea
of taking responsibility can be therapeutic and can be useful.
You get empower people to make choices that allow them
to live in line with their values, particularly when those
choices might be challenging or difficult.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, the warrior mindset this idea here. It's been employed
to help people with disabilities seek and achieve independence, find
opportunities to push themselves to not allow their disability to
prevent them from living the life that they want to have.
Actually read in one of these blogged places where I
was looking into this someone who was very inspired by
their brother who was born with the disability, who like
(07:22):
would not let that hold them down. This kid was
just like he was determined to work within the realm
of his disability to accomplish things and be successful and
all that, and he was really inspired by his drive
to his ambition to like go out in the world
and like really makes you know he was just he
wanted to live in line with his ambition that was
really great for him. And I think that's a cool
(07:45):
idea to help people just feel empowered to make those
kind of choices. And it's like, you don't have to
be an ambitious person to have your life mean something.
But like what I would advocate is that people at
least feel empowered to live a life that they want
to have. Right.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Absolutely, I've known the people who always blame others for
their failings, who never take responsibility for their actions and mistakes,
who never seem willing to learn in these situations Donald Trump,
and it is frustrating to deal with and often we
don't prefer to be around these people that just can't
accept any sort of feedback whatsoever about anything at all.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, I've definitely known people like this personally, let alone
sending them run the office. But yeah, anyway, there is also,
of course, where this idea of the victim versus a
warrior mindset starts to fall apart. I sort of identified
three general holes in this idea. So first, there are
some basic logical problems with this idea, as we alluded
(08:38):
to it before in our intro here, Attempting to separate
all of the human experience into two ways of being
is useless. To put it very nicely, it's useless.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah, yeah, yea yeah. Now, some sources on that suggested
that there is a there is a survivor mindset and
a fighter mindset in addition to warrior and victims. So
that makes four mindsets instead of two mindset. So it's
so nice to humans are so simple that we only
need four mindsets. But this implicitly underscores the failings of
this idea, which is that there are a lot of
ways to be besides warrior and victim. So you've got warrior,
(09:11):
survivor fighter victim that could be additional folds to this
quote unquote theory or idea, if you.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Will, and many beyond that. And further, there are different
ways to be in different situations. Some situations might call
for one mindset, why others call for a different mindset,
again acknowledging that there are lots of ways to be,
not just those two, and most likely people oscillate through
different ways of being throughout their day, in different situations
and across different experiences. We must move on for time
(09:40):
from this, but I think the important point here is
that there is an infinite number of ways to be infinite,
not just too Yes, Like, there's a lot of a
lot of different ways that this shows up and try
to lump them into those two categories is very silly
and foolish. It's so silly. Now.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
The second issue here, the second hole, is that this
is conceptually derelic The basic argument proponents of this idea
build upon is that one mindset affects your thoughts and feelings.
Two thoughts and feelings shape your behaviors, and three your
actions circle back and affect your mindset. Essentially, in this view,
behavior originates from beliefs, and we know that to be untrue,
(10:18):
Like we know where behavior comes from.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, this whole thing is just incorrect thoughts. First of all,
thoughts and feelings are behavior behavior, and when we talk
about behavior, it is shaped by its interaction with the environment.
It's not linear. But if you wanted to try and
choose a catalyst starting point in the nonlinear, complicated network
of variables that affects behavior, the closest thing probably goes
(10:41):
something like this. The environment creates the opportunity for behavior. Two,
the behavior happens in that context. Three the outcomes of
those actions shape future actions. Four we start to form
a mindset loosely speaking, based on these experiences, which is
to say, basically completely backward from the proposed direction that
(11:02):
this is supposed to go, and that was like their
proposed direction. They're like, your arsenal is your mindset that
shapes who you are. I'm like, nope, you got it
backwards right exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And now we can loosely translate the idea of the
power of mindsets to correspond to the fact that our
language about who we are and what happens to us
becomes an important piece of our habitual behavior pattern and
that changing that language can facilitate a changing that pattern.
But changing ideas, the very fact that people choose to
write about this at all reveals that it doesn't start
with a mindset. It starts from external forces, the feedback loop,
(11:34):
that is, the interaction with the environment and other people,
not within ourselves. Like we start seeing that coming from outside,
external forces that act upon us and change and influence
the way that we think, which is again behavior.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And it's kind of ironic that they're like, it starts
with your mindset, and then they try and tell you
to start that way. I'm like, hold on, if you
think you can tell someone to start with their mindset
that you believe that their mindset can start externally with
you telling them that, which which means you admit inherently
that has to start from an external point exactly, not
an eternal one. So it is a contradictory position to
(12:08):
even be taking at all. Or else they're just accepting
that their willingness to preach this as masturbatory and that
it will have no effect, right, is kind of the
alternative there, So all right, So those are the first
two things. Third is that if you read the writings
on this long enough at least an theyse sort of
blog posts and places where this tends to show up
(12:29):
again in sort of these conservative circles. Sometimes even just
within the first paragraph, it becomes obvious there's really a
clear agenda here for these people, and it's a fairly
toxic one. Right.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
The warrior mentality reported in these spaces seems to focus
much more on the aggression and assertiveness pieces rather than
taking the responsibility pieces, because you know, many times people
who are like they enjoy being aggressive or like intimidating,
they don't really like taking responsibility for their actions, right, No,
and so most most or all of them refer to
combat and or as the natural state of the world
(13:02):
where everything is a zero sum game and you either
win or lose. And Greg Graffin, Doctor Greg Graffin already
talks about this. Competition for resources is a constant thing.
But competition does not equal combat, and competition does not
equal war. Everybody should read Greg Graffin's books about this
very important.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Again, Ironically, they seem to preach responsibility while also blaming
others who present themselves as victims. So they're either sure,
they're like personal responsibility except for except for me, doesn't
apply to me because it's your fault, you.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Know, right, right or right.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
They also seem to see asking help as a failing
and a weakness, and honestly, asking for help is one
of humankind's greatest strengths. The reason that we are as
successful of a species as we are is because we
help each other, is because of collaboration. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Absolutely, And this approach seems to promote the idea of
bullying in lack of compassion. So one dissertation that we
found has a correlation between what they described as quote
warrior archetypes and domestic violence, So like there's actually like,
there's also another another study too that came out in
behavior analysis that talked about warrior culture and how warrior
culture actually is directly correlated with increasing rates of police brutality.
(14:17):
That makes sense, so it's it's all there, right, So
it reveals an implied analogy in their logic, which means
that warrior is the victim as masculinity is the femininity.
This has never stated explicitly, but it appears to be
kind of the general subtext that we find across all
these writings, and.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
They'd probably deny it, but honestly, like that is how
this appears, Like this is sort of how the dichotomy
is sort of made. So anyway, this is long, like
we're past time now for us to wrap this all up,
which means we need to get going. So in conclusion here,
I think there's there is some nuance the idea of
taking personal responsibility with im viewing a sense of integrity,
(14:54):
trying your best, being honest in your words, like this
can be legitimate guidance to help people pursue a life
in line with their own values. And so it's like
the ideas embedded in the originality of this I think
are good The problem is that people latching onto this
metaphor of warrior and having that then means something very
specific that seems like it's actually kind of outside of
(15:16):
what maybe was intended to mean.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Right, So the idea appears to have been co opted
to justify things like violence and bigotry. Right, it is nuanced,
and there is maybe some utility here, But maybe we
throw out the metaphor and try something else. If it's
effectively used to inspire aggression and prevents people from treating
one another with compassion, like, it doesn't seem to be
the value that the majority of people really want, and
(15:38):
not the value that would benefit a thriving society. So
I do think that it's valuable to kind of drop
the victim warrior mindset and just talk about like good
pro social behaviors that would benefit everybody at large.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
There we go, Yes, I like that. So yeah, I
think if you have people, if you find yourself using
this and you're talking about that victim warrior mindset, check
yourself and maybe be willing to challenge those people. I think,
first of all, trying to separate it into that dichotomy
very foolish. I think that's dumb. It's a very well
the first time I heard this is like, what a
weird way to try and separate like ways of slight
(16:14):
into that specific dichotomy. Also, like that feels like there's
an agenda, right, and there is, like it is fairly
clear that exists. So anyway, that's what I have to
say about that. It's not that it's inherently bad or good.
I think that there is potentially some utility there. I
don't particularly find the metaphor of warrior or victim to
be very helpful, and what they seem to be prescribing,
i'd probably just replace them with some better words, right,
(16:36):
But that's where we currently find ourselves, and that's how
I would conclude that.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I think that's perfect.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Great. If you like to support what we do, you
can join us on Patreon. There you'll get some bonus content,
behind the scenes content, add free episodes that sort of thing,
earlier episodes, and I will read your name in the
list of wonderful people who continue to support us over
on Patreon. Whenever we do our full length discussions, minis
they got to be short. We can't. We don't have
time for that thing. So I'm sorry for everyone, but
you know who you are, and you hear your name
(17:00):
every week on our full length episodes, so but many
as we don't do that. If you'd like to reach
out us, out to us and tell us your thoughts
on Warrior Versus Victim mindset, or anything else we've ever
talked about or something that we should talk about, you
can email us directly at infowwdwwdpodcast dot com or reach
us on the social media platforms. We definitely look forward
to hearing from people and hope that you will reach
out to us, particularly if you have constructive criticism or
(17:23):
you have wonderful kind like just complimentary things to say.
We like hearing that as well. I think that is it.
Am I missing things? No?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I think that covers all of it.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah. Thank you to my team and people for helping
make this happen. Thank you for recording with me today, Shane.
Thank you everyone for listening. This is Abraham, This is Shane,
Why we do what we do? Mini is out.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
You've been listening to Why We Do what We Do.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
You can learn more about this and other episodes by
going to wwdwwdpodcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and we
hope you have an awesome day,
You're listening to Why we Do what we Do. Welcome
to Why We Do what we Do Mini. I'm your
host Abraham and I'm your host Shane. We are a
psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans and
(00:24):
non human animals do and understand the contextual features about
why they do them. And this is a mini which
means we do a quick dive into a topic and
then get out of there. So I'm not going to
preamble a whole lot, but in this one, we're going
to be talking about an idea kind of that has
made its way into a sort of popular zeitgeist. I'll
(00:45):
get into that in a moment, but I will start
by saying, if you enjoy what you hear today, if
you're a returning person or you're here for the first time, welcome.
I hope that you enjoy what you hear today. And
if you'd like to support us, you can join us
on Patreon. You can pick up some merch leave us
a rating and a review, like subscribe to a friend,
and I'll talk more about those at the end of
this discussion. I think that's all I have to say
(01:06):
before we dive into our topic, because we kind of
got a decent amount to unpack here, and I'd like
to make sure we don't go too far over time.
We try and do these in like fifteen minutes ish
or less if we can, which we've accomplished several times,
but have also gone way over that at least a
couple of times. Yeah, we do our best. I forgetting
any preamble stuff. Are we ready to start?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
No, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Okay. There are some ideas that introduce an oversimplified idea
that sparks an emotional reaction and provokes action in many people.
That is the case here. This could potentially be a
full length episode, but I'm not really sure. I want
to give it that much time and attention, but I
also want to address it. So many feels like the
perfect place to address this. So we are going to
(01:48):
be talking about an idea that is this that there
is such a thing as a victim mindset and a
warrior mindset, and those are the two types of mindsets.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yes, yes, says yes, yes. So there's this general idea
that there are victim mindsets and warrior mindsets and that
these meaningfully influence your personality and behaviors. And I think
it's really important to point out this is actually fairly
complex and means different things to different people. It would
be helpful if we could come down as either in
support of or against an idea, but the reality is
(02:19):
that people are complicated and that trying to distill these
complexities into dichotomies is misleading in foolish. Yes, this is
us going to take potshots at the idea that there
is such a dichotomy as victim mindset or warrior mindset,
because everything is non binary. But we're going to unpack
that as we go in this short amount of time.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I also want to start with the fact that there
is basically little or no scholarly research on this, and
kind of I think, nor should they be, cause it's
kind of dumb. We do need to define our terms.
But what this does mean with this, because there's not
really much in the way of scholarly work, which again,
let's keep it that way. Yeah, it means that the
definition that we do have is more or less supplied
(02:58):
by bloggers with opinions and not by people who do
thinking professionally nor recreationally.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, fair, that's actually really I got not
that to that. It's so good, all right, let's.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Start by defining our terms.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So the victim mindset is generally characterized as failing to
take responsibility. It's blaming other people for your failings, making excuses,
failing to stand up for things that you believe in
or know to be right, not challenging people, and refusing
to admit your flaws.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
We also saw some characterization around this that includes victims
as being reactive, defensive, non assertive, highly sensitive, taking things personally,
accepting mediocrity, believing that they lack control, and believing that
everything is either a blessing or a curse. What's kind
of ironic about this in the space is you will
(03:48):
find that the vocal majority of the people who push
this idea. I think I didn't collect any data, but
it seems like where I hear this idea crop up
the most is in sort of conservative circles. This whole
victim versus warrior mindset thing comes up there. And what's
crazy or what's kind of funny and ironic about this?
I think, or maybe just coincidental. No, it's ironic. It's good.
(04:12):
Is that if we were to describe someone who is
not accepting their failings, they're making excuses, they are not
challenging people. They refuse to admit their flaws. They're defensive,
their sensitive. They take thing's personality. That is describing Donald
Trump to a t ye like I have. Don't know
if I've ever seen a better profile character representation of
(04:36):
Donald Trump than that. So it's kind of funny that
people who run in conservative circles. I guess they have
this orientation to this as being a thing. Yeah, I'm like, wow,
that describes the leader you elected very very well, very
much a victim mindset there always.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So the warrior mindset then is taking responsibility, admitting fault,
working hard to overcome obstacles, always driving for perfection, focusing
on taking action, asserting dominance, calling people out, being aggressive,
and taking firm stances on things.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, that's the sort of general idea here. Now I
found we found a couple of sources that allude to
inspiration for this idea. I had trouble tracking down like
a primary starting point. But there are a couple of
books that were published in the late nineties early two thousands.
So one was called Unleash The Warrior Within Developed the
focus discipline, confidence, and courage, that's the title. It felt
(05:29):
like it was incomplete sentence, but that's the title. This
is originally published in two thousand by former Navy seal
Richard machiwiks Macawicks maybe, who was also a Buddhist apparently,
which I thought was really interesting. The other was called
The Four Agreements, A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom. This
(05:51):
was published in nineteen ninety seven my Mexican author Don
Miguel Ruiz, and it was inspired by the Toltec teachings
on how to improve one's life. I did not look
into those for the purposes of this. I wanted to
get into a topic. But his four agreements essentially boil
down to one, be impeccable with your word. Two, don't
take anything personally. Three don't make assumptions, and four always
(06:14):
do your best. As sort of the ideas here, and
I think you can hear those and feel like that's
got merit. I can appreciate that, and I would say
you're not wrong, and that's again why we sort of
get into the nuance here. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
It's interesting though that this book didn't talk about the
fifth agreement, which is adds. So we were just talking
about kind of these mindsets and we just finished up
with Don Miguel Ruiz's arguments, and I think we can
kind of talk about how this might be helpful or
(06:46):
and how this might not be helpful. So how's what
we're talking about helpful at all? Well, the general idea
of taking responsibility can be therapeutic and can be useful.
You get empower people to make choices that allow them
to live in line with their values, particularly when those
choices might be challenging or difficult.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, the warrior mindset this idea here. It's been employed
to help people with disabilities seek and achieve independence, find
opportunities to push themselves to not allow their disability to
prevent them from living the life that they want to have.
Actually read in one of these blogged places where I
was looking into this someone who was very inspired by
their brother who was born with the disability, who like
(07:22):
would not let that hold them down. This kid was
just like he was determined to work within the realm
of his disability to accomplish things and be successful and
all that, and he was really inspired by his drive
to his ambition to like go out in the world
and like really makes you know he was just he
wanted to live in line with his ambition that was
really great for him. And I think that's a cool
(07:45):
idea to help people just feel empowered to make those
kind of choices. And it's like, you don't have to
be an ambitious person to have your life mean something.
But like what I would advocate is that people at
least feel empowered to live a life that they want
to have. Right.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Absolutely, I've known the people who always blame others for
their failings, who never take responsibility for their actions and mistakes,
who never seem willing to learn in these situations Donald Trump,
and it is frustrating to deal with and often we
don't prefer to be around these people that just can't
accept any sort of feedback whatsoever about anything at all.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Yeah, I've definitely known people like this personally, let alone
sending them run the office. But yeah, anyway, there is also,
of course, where this idea of the victim versus a
warrior mindset starts to fall apart. I sort of identified
three general holes in this idea. So first, there are
some basic logical problems with this idea, as we alluded
(08:38):
to it before in our intro here, Attempting to separate
all of the human experience into two ways of being
is useless. To put it very nicely, it's useless.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah, yeah, yea yeah. Now, some sources on that suggested
that there is a there is a survivor mindset and
a fighter mindset in addition to warrior and victims. So
that makes four mindsets instead of two mindset. So it's
so nice to humans are so simple that we only
need four mindsets. But this implicitly underscores the failings of
this idea, which is that there are a lot of
ways to be besides warrior and victim. So you've got warrior,
(09:11):
survivor fighter victim that could be additional folds to this
quote unquote theory or idea, if you.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Will, and many beyond that. And further, there are different
ways to be in different situations. Some situations might call
for one mindset, why others call for a different mindset,
again acknowledging that there are lots of ways to be,
not just those two, and most likely people oscillate through
different ways of being throughout their day, in different situations
and across different experiences. We must move on for time
(09:40):
from this, but I think the important point here is
that there is an infinite number of ways to be infinite,
not just too Yes, Like, there's a lot of a
lot of different ways that this shows up and try
to lump them into those two categories is very silly
and foolish. It's so silly. Now.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
The second issue here, the second hole, is that this
is conceptually derelic The basic argument proponents of this idea
build upon is that one mindset affects your thoughts and feelings.
Two thoughts and feelings shape your behaviors, and three your
actions circle back and affect your mindset. Essentially, in this view,
behavior originates from beliefs, and we know that to be untrue,
(10:18):
Like we know where behavior comes from.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, this whole thing is just incorrect thoughts. First of all,
thoughts and feelings are behavior behavior, and when we talk
about behavior, it is shaped by its interaction with the environment.
It's not linear. But if you wanted to try and
choose a catalyst starting point in the nonlinear, complicated network
of variables that affects behavior, the closest thing probably goes
(10:41):
something like this. The environment creates the opportunity for behavior. Two,
the behavior happens in that context. Three the outcomes of
those actions shape future actions. Four we start to form
a mindset loosely speaking, based on these experiences, which is
to say, basically completely backward from the proposed direction that
(11:02):
this is supposed to go, and that was like their
proposed direction. They're like, your arsenal is your mindset that
shapes who you are. I'm like, nope, you got it
backwards right exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And now we can loosely translate the idea of the
power of mindsets to correspond to the fact that our
language about who we are and what happens to us
becomes an important piece of our habitual behavior pattern and
that changing that language can facilitate a changing that pattern.
But changing ideas, the very fact that people choose to
write about this at all reveals that it doesn't start
with a mindset. It starts from external forces, the feedback loop,
(11:34):
that is, the interaction with the environment and other people,
not within ourselves. Like we start seeing that coming from outside,
external forces that act upon us and change and influence
the way that we think, which is again behavior.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And it's kind of ironic that they're like, it starts
with your mindset, and then they try and tell you
to start that way. I'm like, hold on, if you
think you can tell someone to start with their mindset
that you believe that their mindset can start externally with
you telling them that, which which means you admit inherently
that has to start from an external point exactly, not
an eternal one. So it is a contradictory position to
(12:08):
even be taking at all. Or else they're just accepting
that their willingness to preach this as masturbatory and that
it will have no effect, right, is kind of the
alternative there, So all right, So those are the first
two things. Third is that if you read the writings
on this long enough at least an theyse sort of
blog posts and places where this tends to show up
(12:29):
again in sort of these conservative circles. Sometimes even just
within the first paragraph, it becomes obvious there's really a
clear agenda here for these people, and it's a fairly
toxic one. Right.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
The warrior mentality reported in these spaces seems to focus
much more on the aggression and assertiveness pieces rather than
taking the responsibility pieces, because you know, many times people
who are like they enjoy being aggressive or like intimidating,
they don't really like taking responsibility for their actions, right, No,
and so most most or all of them refer to
combat and or as the natural state of the world
(13:02):
where everything is a zero sum game and you either
win or lose. And Greg Graffin, Doctor Greg Graffin already
talks about this. Competition for resources is a constant thing.
But competition does not equal combat, and competition does not
equal war. Everybody should read Greg Graffin's books about this
very important.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Again, Ironically, they seem to preach responsibility while also blaming
others who present themselves as victims. So they're either sure,
they're like personal responsibility except for except for me, doesn't
apply to me because it's your fault, you.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Know, right, right or right.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
They also seem to see asking help as a failing
and a weakness, and honestly, asking for help is one
of humankind's greatest strengths. The reason that we are as
successful of a species as we are is because we
help each other, is because of collaboration. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Absolutely, And this approach seems to promote the idea of
bullying in lack of compassion. So one dissertation that we
found has a correlation between what they described as quote
warrior archetypes and domestic violence, So like there's actually like,
there's also another another study too that came out in
behavior analysis that talked about warrior culture and how warrior
culture actually is directly correlated with increasing rates of police brutality.
(14:17):
That makes sense, so it's it's all there, right, So
it reveals an implied analogy in their logic, which means
that warrior is the victim as masculinity is the femininity.
This has never stated explicitly, but it appears to be
kind of the general subtext that we find across all
these writings, and.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
They'd probably deny it, but honestly, like that is how
this appears, Like this is sort of how the dichotomy
is sort of made. So anyway, this is long, like
we're past time now for us to wrap this all up,
which means we need to get going. So in conclusion here,
I think there's there is some nuance the idea of
taking personal responsibility with im viewing a sense of integrity,
(14:54):
trying your best, being honest in your words, like this
can be legitimate guidance to help people pursue a life
in line with their own values. And so it's like
the ideas embedded in the originality of this I think
are good The problem is that people latching onto this
metaphor of warrior and having that then means something very
specific that seems like it's actually kind of outside of
(15:16):
what maybe was intended to mean.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Right, So the idea appears to have been co opted
to justify things like violence and bigotry. Right, it is nuanced,
and there is maybe some utility here, But maybe we
throw out the metaphor and try something else. If it's
effectively used to inspire aggression and prevents people from treating
one another with compassion, like, it doesn't seem to be
the value that the majority of people really want, and
(15:38):
not the value that would benefit a thriving society. So
I do think that it's valuable to kind of drop
the victim warrior mindset and just talk about like good
pro social behaviors that would benefit everybody at large.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
There we go, Yes, I like that. So yeah, I
think if you have people, if you find yourself using
this and you're talking about that victim warrior mindset, check
yourself and maybe be willing to challenge those people. I think,
first of all, trying to separate it into that dichotomy
very foolish. I think that's dumb. It's a very well
the first time I heard this is like, what a
weird way to try and separate like ways of slight
(16:14):
into that specific dichotomy. Also, like that feels like there's
an agenda, right, and there is, like it is fairly
clear that exists. So anyway, that's what I have to
say about that. It's not that it's inherently bad or good.
I think that there is potentially some utility there. I
don't particularly find the metaphor of warrior or victim to
be very helpful, and what they seem to be prescribing,
i'd probably just replace them with some better words, right,
(16:36):
But that's where we currently find ourselves, and that's how
I would conclude that.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I think that's perfect.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Great. If you like to support what we do, you
can join us on Patreon. There you'll get some bonus content,
behind the scenes content, add free episodes that sort of thing,
earlier episodes, and I will read your name in the
list of wonderful people who continue to support us over
on Patreon. Whenever we do our full length discussions, minis
they got to be short. We can't. We don't have
time for that thing. So I'm sorry for everyone, but
you know who you are, and you hear your name
(17:00):
every week on our full length episodes, so but many
as we don't do that. If you'd like to reach
out us, out to us and tell us your thoughts
on Warrior Versus Victim mindset, or anything else we've ever
talked about or something that we should talk about, you
can email us directly at infowwdwwdpodcast dot com or reach
us on the social media platforms. We definitely look forward
to hearing from people and hope that you will reach
out to us, particularly if you have constructive criticism or
(17:23):
you have wonderful kind like just complimentary things to say.
We like hearing that as well. I think that is it.
Am I missing things? No?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I think that covers all of it.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah. Thank you to my team and people for helping
make this happen. Thank you for recording with me today, Shane.
Thank you everyone for listening. This is Abraham, This is Shane,
Why we do what we do? Mini is out.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
You've been listening to Why We Do what We Do.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
You can learn more about this and other episodes by
going to wwdwwdpodcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and we
hope you have an awesome day,
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