One distinctive aspect of our civilization is its concern for those who are vulnerable in society. Our culture has been marked by this trend ever since Moses, who gave special legal advantages to the weaker classes: widows, orphans, the poor, and the foreigners. This is the basis for many aspects of modern social structures, including welfare systems, and extends even to sports: American love to "root for the underdog" when a lesser-known team takes on a powerful opponent.
As Nietzsche pointed out, other cultures do not share this inclination: other cultures consider it appropriate to exploit the poor and weak, and to take advantage of those who are vulnerable. Outside of our civilization, it is considered an unusual thing to want to help those in need. Some varieties of Hinduism and Buddhism even reject the idea of relieving the suffering of others, because they have been fated to endure such suffering to pay off the sins of their previous lives. By helping them, you would be helping them to unjustly escape their punishments, and condemning them to suffer more in the next life because they didn't suffer enough in this one.
Although it is generally a good thing that our society wants to help those who are defenseless, there is one drawback: our society can be fooled into helping those who merely claim to be victims, but who in reality suffer no disadvantage.
To be sure, it is not really a big problem if a man takes a meal from a homeless shelter when he's actually not so poor. It may be immoral, but society isn't harmed by his deception. He has exploited our society's desire to help the weak, but the damage to society at large is not great.
Another example of this principle is the trend of faking "hate crimes". Desiring to help those who are oppressed by racism or cultural prejudice, our society wants to prevent crimes based on a person's skin color or nationality. But some individuals have seen a chance to exploit this system by filing reports of crimes which never took place, in order to gain sympathy for themselves and their political causes.
In U.S. News and World Report, the University of Georgia revealed that a resident assistant in a dormitory had filed nine police reports, claiming to have been the victim of nine separate attacks because he was a homosexual. When the police began to investigate the incidents, he confessed that he had faked them, because he wanted to create the impression that homosexuals were victims.
The French newspaper Le Groupe National carried the story of Edward Drago, a student at the College of New Jersey, sent death threats to himself, and to a homosexual student group to which he belonged. He confessed to faking the death threats, trying to get publicity for his student club.
At St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, a lesbian student used a razor blade to cut her own face; she reported to the police that she had been attacked. When the police discover that she had faked the attack, she told the U.S. News and World Report that she had done it in order to help raise funds for a pro-homosexual student group.
The same article revealed that a lesbian at Eastern New Mexico State University told the police that her name had been posted by an "anti-gay hate group", and that she had then later been physically attacked because her name was publicized. The police discovered that she had posted the list herself, that there was no "anti-gay hate group", and that she had faked the physical assalt as well.
In joint reporting between World magazine and AZcentral web news, it was revealed that a lebsian had hired a homosexual man to beat her, so then she could tell the police that she was the victim of a "hate crime".
In a California high school, a student faked a series of "gay-bashing" incidents, including grafiti on lockers and cars, and eggs being thrown at students and their houses. The Los Angeles Times discovered that these actions had actually been done by the school's Gay-Straight Alliance.
Because this tactic of gaining sympathy is based on our culture, it is found outside the U.S. in other countries which share our cultural roots. In England and Europe, the police have reported faked hate crimes.
One of our civilization's strengths is its conern for the down-trodden, and we should not give up this precious aspect of our society. But we must be aware that it can be exploited by political groups, who present themselves as vicitms in order to gain sympathy - and power.
