the suffering olympics

The pointless endeavor of comparing different tragedies or histories of oppression to one another by attempting to quantify the suffering and/or injustice of each, so as to determine which tragedy was more tragic, or which oppressed peoples were more unjustly oppressed.

Jamie: Did you heard about the bombing in Boston?
Frank: The Arab world suffers violence like this every day as a result of US foreign policy.
Jamie: ...let's not play the Suffering Olympics.

--------

Alan: The fight for LGBT rights is this generation's great civil rights movement.
Rob: Their is no comparison between the struggles African-Americans faced and the struggle of the LGBT community.
Allison: Neither compare to the struggle women have faced.
Alan: Do we really need to play the Suffering Olympics?

42👍 2👎

Suffering Olympics

(1.) When someone tries to hold a contest on whose had it worse, as if suffering was a cereal box with a prize at the bottom.. And not in fact, a depressing reality with no winners.

(2.) Employing mental gymnastics to try and cement the message that your suffering is the only suffering that counts.

A suffering olympics can be held in either a one on one scenario (where the person directly compares their own suffering)...Or it could be a context where the person compares first world to third world problems, and individual vs. Systemic, (always as if one cancels out the other. )

People who try to turn other people's pain into the suffering olympics, usually have one of two goals:

(1.) They're purely seeking personal vindication, because they're too dumb to realize this isn't a contest anyone should want to win.

(2.) They're trying to police someone else's feelings, boundaries or expectations, after being called out for bad behavior. (I.E. I'm not that bad because I had it so much worse growing up. (Or) How dare you even suggest I modify my behavior in any way! Aren't you aware there are children in Africa dying of AIDS?!)