
For someone living in the United States the systemic violence is more complicated. Here the mythology of “rugged individualism” (the self-made man) permeates the culture’s psyche and its value system encouraged by social authority in capital interests and supported by the government. When the system violates people in the States, their frames of mind are to blame themselves. To them, systemic (objective) violence is interpolated as subjective violence. On its surface the blaming may even appear narcissistic and arrogant to take on that pose. However, they blame themselves to such an extent as to often visit violence upon themselves as punishment, or using the values of the system that has told them that they are worthless on themselves, they unable to see the forest for the tree.
An example of how objective and subjective violence plays out can be seen in the movie “Spotlight.” The victims of the systemic abuse by priests go on to blame themselves for their shame and the damage done to them: Alcohol, drugs, suicide are subjective violence responding to objective violence. When Robby the editor at Spotlight recognizes his part in the objective violence and how systemic the cruelty is, he is humbled, has learned something late in life. He might have done something sooner, but through willed-ignorance and the encouragement from the system causing the objective violence, he went along.