I don't think we should feel thankful for things that we consider basic human rights or basic elements of our standard of living. I think we should feel self-righteously entitled to them. Why? Because if we feel thankful for something, it seems less unreasonable if it's taken away. If we feel entitled, we generate an appropriate amount of outraged.
For example, I'm thankful that I have high-speed internet access, because I remember the days of dialup and even the days before the internet. Because of this, if suddenly I couldn't have high-speed internet, I would feel like I'm obligated to suck it up and make do. It would be difficult for me, but I'd feel like I don't have the right to complain, because I remember well life without high-speed internet, so it still strikes me as a luxury.
Now obviously it would be totally inappropriate to have that "suck it up and make do" attitude when it comes to basic human rights, or basic standard of living, so let's not be thankful! Let's feel entitled!
So I don't feel thankful that I have enough to eat; I feel entitled to having enough to eat, so I feel outraged that other people don't have enough to eat!
I don't feel thankful that I have freedom of speech; I feel entitled to freedom of speech, so I feel outraged that other people don't have freedom of speech!
I don't feel thankful that there are no bugs in my apartment; I feel entitled to a bug-free apartment, so I feel outraged that other people have to have bugs in their homes!
So don't feel thankful, feel entitled! Bring on a better world through judicious entitlement!
6 comments:
but don't you ever feel our society has gone too far? hasn't this sense of entitlement to everything made interaction with others, in a sense, gone wrong?
for example, the way that students treat substitute teachers and the way parents react to their children being disciplined? yes, education is a right...and you may be entitled to it, but this doesn't negate the responsibility. sometimes, i think, presented something more as a privilege than a right, because, let's be honest, even most rights CAN be revoked in cases of extreme necessity (like where is the right to citizenship that all the other human rights require to be enacted? it's missing), might enforce the reciprocal responsibility these "rights" are supposed to entail.
so, i will continue to feel thankful. i feel thankful that i live in a country that supports this rights and pledges to continue to maintain them as such. i hope these rights will some day spread to enforcement internationally, but even then (hypothetically), i will continue to be thankful because the balance of power is so easily disturbed.
The thing is though, you don't have to be thankful to have a sense of responsibility. To use a controversial example just because it's the first that springs to mind, I feel entitled to abortion on demand, but I still take my pill every day, abstain while on antibiotics, keep track of my periods, etc. I feel entitled to have my apartment promptly exterminated should I ever have a bug problem, but I still do my dishes and take out my food garbage before bed every night, keep my food in the fridge or in sealed containers, etc.
I'm afraid I can't identify either way with the examples you give because I'm not a parent, and I've never understood the way kids treated substitute teachers either. (I'd always try to play sick if I knew there would be a sub in order to avoid that chaotic classroom scene).
I thought of entitlement as a solution because in my experience with people with whom I've discussed this over the years and whose backgrounds je connais, the people who are thankful almost entirely have no particular desire to work to improve the lives of others. They came from difficult backgrounds and made their own way, and now feel no need to aspire to social justice. Their reasoning seems to be that they "made it" themselves with no help, so everyone else should be able to as well. However, the children of privilege, who have had, au minimum, the stereotypical white collar middle-class standard of living of their era are more easily outraged that other people are forced to live at lesser standards of living, and tend to focus their political attention on bringing the rest of the world up to their standard. As a specific example, if someone on welfare managed to scrounge up an air conditioner somewhere, my father would say that this is a sign that welfare benefits are too high. He didn't have air conditioning until well into his 30s and considers it a luxury. Meanwhile, I grew up with air conditioning for almost my entire life - I remember the day it was installed, but don't remember the summer before that - and I firmly believe it is inhuman to ask someone to live without air conditioning in 30-40 degree weather, and take political action accordingly.
see, i really don't think it's inhuman to think people should be able to live without air conditioning in 30-40 degree weather. not that i'm arguing that everyone shouldn't, ideally, be given a certain amount of "luxury" items, but i do think that we have reached a point of whereby we also seem to think that people should be just provided with life's necessities without contributing at all. have you read about the 180 manpower hours it took a road crew in montreal to repair three potholes? why were these people not sacked for wasting taxpayers' money? because it wouldn't be fair to their families.... i think if we demanded more from the people who have had some sort of chance (like unionized workers for example) then perhaps we would also have the resources to devote to the cases of dire need - like famine stricken countries, tsunami victims and earthquake survivors. i do believe the social welfare network is sufficient, currently, to give opportunities to those who need it. we should feel thankful to live in a country which permits this and recognize it is a perilous state. and i know i sound like a conservative saying that.i voted ndp and will continue to. i just don't think "entitlement" is the correct word - though i do think it's the one you seem to want to use. i don't want to go that far.
My designation of 30-40 degrees as inhuman is based on the one summer I lived without air conditioning. I was unable to fall asleep for hours and hours, waking up from nightmares to the sound of my own screaming every night because my body reacts to heat by producing nightmares, seeing floaters in my tired eyes and mistaking them for insects and panicking (thereby spending four months with my physical condition constantly in "recent panic attack" mode), unable to wake up properly in the morning, and preserving my sanity only by going to my parents' to sleep in the air conditioning on weekends. It's a good thing I don't have kids, because the mood that left me in would certainly have led me to shake a crying baby. After that summer I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the high number of murders in Toronto last year was directly related to the fact that it was the hottest summer on record. I am aware that human beings did originate in tropical regions etc., but I personally cannot function without air conditioning, and therefore I would be a great dirty hypocrite if I didn't advocate its availability for everyone with the same vehemence I feel it's necessary for myself. You don't have to use it if you don't think it's necessary, but it's cruel to deny it to others just because you personally don't find it necessary
Re potholes, I honestly have no idea what is involved in fixing potholes. I have no idea whether 180 hours to fix a pothole is the equivalent of expensing a $2000 dinner (i.e. ridiculously expensive), or if it's like the people who complain that TTC drivers makes $20 an hour (i.e. perfectly reasonable, but widely cited as an example of unreasonable). But as someone who is going to have to be in the workforce for the foreseeable future, I'd rather err on the side of paying workers too much for too little work as opposed to making life too difficult for workers. Even though I'll never be fixing roads in Montreal, it seems like the sort of thing that might have a ripple effect throughout the whole economy - if no one is breathing down the necks of the pothole-fixing guys, we're less likely to be in a position where my boss has to walk by and nag me to get back to work when I'm staring at the ceiling trying to construct an English phrase that communicates the precise vague double meaning intended by the word accueil.
Re: social benefits, I see that you live in Quebec, so perhaps social benefits are reasonable where you are. I know Quebec in general tends to take a more reasonable attitude towards these things. Here in Toronto, an average one-person apartment costs like $7**-$8**, while welfare rates for a single person are in the $5** range. To give perspective, a room in university residences costs $4** per month. You cannot apply for welfare unless you have less that $200 assets, and someone who used to work in a social assistance office (although this was under the previous regime so it might have changed) tells me that it takes a month to process an application. Want social housing? 10 year waiting list. Roommates? They calculate the household income as a whole, and claw back your welfare benefit based on household income. Downsize to a smaller apartment? Landlords seem to work on a strict 1/3 rule, so they won't rent you an apartment unless you can prove that the rent they're charging would take up no more than 1/3 of your monthly income. I seriously cannot fathom how this is all workable, even for just paying one's rent. Not even considering standard of living yet, just the simple fact of making rent, before you even take into consideration other expenses. And all this with society in general telling you that you're spoiled and lazy and assuming that you're living in great piles of money and looking upon you in disdain and lobbying the government to come up with new and exciting ways to claw back money from you. I really hope it is better in Quebec - in Ontario it's like some weird sadistic mind game designed by a middle-school bully. I think if sterotypical so-called middle-class SUV-driving types took some of their inherent entitlement and projected it onto feeling entitled to having a reasonable social safety net for if they should ever fall into hard times, everyone would be better off.
Anyway, I didn't mean to get off the most giantest of all rants there, it's just a single uniform idea that happens to consist of a lot of words.
If you don't think entitlement is a good word, what do you think is a good word for this concept?
Completely separate from what Heather is saying, I want to feel grateful and thankful for basics because it reminds me I have privilege. Privilege has responsibility attached to it, and I never want to lose touch with that.
i feel thankful that i live in a country that supports this rights and pledges to continue to maintain them as such.
Where on earth is this country??? I want to live there, too!
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