People are like script or screenplay writers. They’re writing their own life stories — according to the themes and values they uphold (even subconsciously).

Probably most people write their scripts with themselves as victims. They see others — other people, or perhaps social or metaphysical/supernatural forces — as against them. They write themselves as the victims of interpersonal or financial scenarios in which they had no say, or no part. We talk about how drug abuse is a form of self-medication. Creating a narrative throughout life with oneself as the victim is the biggest (and most common) form of self-medication there is.

It’s frankly one of the reasons why political freedom has been the overwhelming exception, and not the norm, throughout human history. The self-responsibility of freedom clashes with the individual victim self-narrative of most people. If you want the chief psychological reason for why freedom (after a fabulous run for a couple of centuries) is on the decline, this is it.

I am coming to understand, better and better, that the masses who embrace some form of socialism (without calling it socialism) are not just stupid and ignorant. Stupidity and ignorance are not, in fact, the biggest problems. The biggest problem is that people like to be victims; and victims WANT to be sheep, and to be taken care of. Free societies cannot survive where that’s the dominant psychological trend.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason