The Tragic Death of FEELING SHAME (a politics forum rant)
Society has a serious problem with what I will refer as "entitlement culture." We see it in the media, on the Internet, and our everyday lives. The United States was built and has prospered on the idea that anybody, not just the privileged nobles at the top, can make it, as long as a person is willing to devote time and effort to work, develop their talents, and do the right things. I graduated from high school twenty years ago, and that was certainly something that was taught back then, so it was not that long ago. Today, it seems like all we see and hear is the complete opposite.
There is an attitude that has infiltrated the American psyche (and probably outside of America as well) that you should not have to work hard. That people that do all the wrong things deserve the same things as the people that do all the right things. That the people that do the right things are only able to do so because of privilege, so there is no point in trying to do the right things, as it would be futile to do so for somebody that is (supposedly) lacking "privilege."
This attitude has led to what I will call THE LACK OF SHAME. There used to be a point, it was within all of our lifetimes, that people felt shame for doing traditionally shameful things. Begging for money on a street corner was once seen as shameful. Falling behind on your rent and being evicted was once seen as shameful. Being chronically unemployed was once seen as shameful. It seems to me that the opposite is the case today.
This idea has been percolating in my head for a while, but it boiled over a couple of nights ago when I saw a certain GoFundMe. This person is a government employee and was asking for money to buy a house. I don't want to link to the page, as I don't want to dox anybody, but the basic points were:
(1) She is a government employee, which is a low paying job.
(2) She has massive amounts of credit card debt. Like close to $50K.
(3) She is single.
(4) She had cancer a few years ago, for which she started another GoFundMe back then. She says she is doing okay now on the page.
(5) She is in her 50s, and the only way that she will ever be able to retire is if she buys a house. She can't buy a house because of her low pay and because she is single. She wants to retire when she is 62, and needs your help to do it.
I was particularly offended when I saw this GoFundMe, as you can look up her situation on the Internet almost instantly. Her salary is publicly available, and is over $125K a year. She has a Patreon, which gets her another $1,500 a month. She has publicly posted about having her student loans forgiven, thanks to the public service loan forgiveness program. If this the kind of person that should be publicly begging for money?
I don't know if the act of begging for money by itself is a huge problem for society. We constantly are asked to donate money every single time we check out at any retail store, as if the company can't donate their own money to a charity. I have seen a rise in requests for tips for things that have never been tip-worthy before; I have been given prompts to tip at a self-checkout kiosk. The constant and pervasive begging for money is a symptom of something larger: people just do not feel shame anymore. We were once expected to work for what we had, and we were allowed to feel proud for earning what we had. Nowadays it is the complete opposite: it is totally alright for somebody, even upper middle class people, to beg for money. On the other hand, if somebody worked for their lot in life, it is just because of blind luck, so that person should be guilted into giving away their money.
My purpose in typing this out is to see if I am the only that that feels this way. I have a feeling that this will get a lot of pushback on this forum, which would be great. I would really like to be convinced that I am wrong and overreacting to something that is not quite as serious as the amount of time this has been on my head suggests.
If you are making over $100K and are somehow still living paycheck to paycheck, whose fault is that? What point is it that you are trying to make, exactly? Do you even have a point?
i'm highly skeptical of this claim, given they show 60% of all americans are living paycheck to paycheck it doesn't make sense that >100k+ earners make up an equal proportion of that contingent. the cnbc article says "more than half of americans making over $100k..." and i'm suspecting they're looking at american households >100k, which is a very different story. the study they ultimately cite is paywalled and no way i'm wasting money on that, but pretty sure they're misrepresenting in some way. or they have a weird definition of paycheck to paycheck that doesn't include liquifiable assets.
also 100k is not what it used to be. 50k in 2010 feels like 100k today. official inflation figures would have you believe it's 70k, but they're clearly understated when you look at things that matter like food staples, home prices & rent, and cars. which reminds me of the brilliant atlantic headline "Inflation is Your Fault" which i'm pretty sure was meant to be rageclickbait but is also reflective of the general attitude toward inflation which seems to be "why is it happening? who knows! deal with it" when it's clearly a latent tax on every day folk in exchange for subsidies for connected financial & political folk. instead of getting outraged about this systemic unfairness, we all gawk in outrage at the individuals trying to get by in this weird, race-to-the-bottom system.
One thought to add to my prior posts. There is probably something to be said here about the decline of community. In the past, when someone needed more help than their family could provide, they could turn to community memberships for assistance (think here, neighbors, religious group). For better or worse and for reasons we don't need to debate, we live in an increasingly individual/atomic society. So, when people need help, you can expect they are going to reach out to the only network they ha
Or they would just knuckle down and scrape by for a few years with minimal money or get a 2nd job while they deal with whatever health or other bills they have to pay. But nowadays people don't want to go through any hard times and would rather put their hand out to the public. Their once private lives and the family struggles they are going through are now often made public via social media making that public outcry for money all the more easier.
You have entire school districts dropping graduation requirements to mask the shitshow that has become education in certain American locales. Not only are these kids unashamed of being illiterate into their late teens, but they'll knock you the **** out if you make them ponder the consequences, and then when you call home to discuss it with the parent, you'll get another earful because said parent is unashamed and unconcerned with the product put out by their household.
The public education system where I come from has become for a large number of students basically a Monday to Friday detention centre to get a student up to the age of about 15 when they can legally leave school to get a job or start a trade. Until then it is every teacher for themselves in being able to control them and parents do not care because these children of theirs are out of their hair for about 6 hours of every day. Suspensions and exclusions are no longer a deterrent. Something seriously needs to change where both the parents and the child are ashamed of their performance/behaviour at school.
No. My friends wife is a teacher from 2 towns over and her school had to install litter boxes because the administration allows students to identify as cats.
that's so crazy, my maga godmother's friends husband must also teach at that same school..
The sad part is that no matter how thoroughly urban myths like these get debunked, there is a substantial portion of the population who will continue to believe it and spread it because it reinforces every extreme belief they have of the other side of the political spectrum.
Or they would just knuckle down and scrape by for a few years with minimal money or get a 2nd job while they deal with whatever health or other bills they have to pay. But nowadays people don't want to go through any hard times and would rather put their hand out to the public. Their once private lives and the family struggles they are going through are now often made public via social media making that public outcry for money all the more easier.
Do you have any evidence that people were more more likely to "knuckle down and scrape by" in the past?
You can't really have that argument without also acknowledging the reality that life nowadays gives FAR more opportunities to make poor financial decisions. Poverty isn't new, but easy credit and an endless array of shiny things to buy or worse, rent/license makes it easier than ever to dig yourself into a hole.
Plus, there's nobody left running a household who lived through the great depression. Most people are 3+ generations removed from that type of mentality, and the cracks are definitely starting to show.
At least your grandfather had something tangible left over when he made impulse purchases. All people have nowadays is another account for an app with too few vowels in its name, and maybe an electronic device that'll stop working the second their credit card gets rejected on next month's billing cycle.
Edit: I can't imagine trying to explain to my great grandmother that some people spend an entire month's wages on a juicer that requires proprietary consumables sold by one vendor, and won't make juice if it doesn't have line of sight to a specific satellite. She'd pull some manual metal device out of a cabinet and say, "Why not just use this?"
I'm just as guilty of being lazy as anyone else, though. I make money so I can pay people to do things I don't want to. Not everyone has that option, though, and they live their lives like they do anyway.
I love the logic of “I have health problems right now….so time to get a second job”.
The sad part is that no matter how thoroughly urban myths like these get debunked, there is a substantial portion of the population who will continue to believe it and spread it because it reinforces every extreme belief they have of the other side of the political spectrum.
When I was a kid several people told me Bon Jovi had to get a quart of semen pumped out of his stomach, and I refuse to believe otherwise. Not because it reinforces any political belief, but because I think it's funny.
You can keep one or two groupies silent, but definitely not 400 of them from the same backstage orgy. I'll call shenanigans on that one.
