I think I just figured out what's wrong

[kengr]

I was watching the season finale of NCIs: New Orleans and at the end, there was this misogynist white male complaining at the person who'd exposed him as a major league jerk and cost him an important appointment.

He was ranting about all the effort and time he'd put in to get the job.

and that's when it clicked. He was equating effort with success.

and *that* is what's wrong. Not merely with his attitude, but with the way society views so many things.

Yes, effort is necessary for success most of the time (when success comes without much effort, people tend to get upset) but contrary to the beliefs of many, it is *not* a guarantee of success.

Thinking that effort ("hard work") guarantees success is why these same people insist that poor people and unemployed people are lazy or "not trying".

The so-called "Protestant work ethic" and related things (like the "you don't work, you don't eat" adopted in some of the Colonies to *survive*) have turned into the worst sort of victim blaming.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

The word you're looking for is "entitlement".

As in;
They put in a lot of effort so they think they're entitled to success.
They were born into a rich family so they are entitled to be all the benefits of that.
They're white, so they're entitled to the privileges that come with that.

and of course, the flip-side is that if you're not successful, privileged or white, then you're not entitled to any of those.


So, yeah.. fuck 'em.

[kengr]

Well, that's true in many cases, but there are also a lot of folks who just don't understand that the way things were for them aren't the way they are now.

They may still be privileged, but their "entitlement" is unconscious.

We need to break the hold of the mistaken beliefs that are the root cause of all this. Until we do, this will just keep resurfacing in different guises.

[siliconshaman]

Fair point... there's a lot of that in Southern slave-owning states.