Entitlement
Yesterday, my colleague stated the following: “Rather than working the ‘poor’ and the ‘disadvantaged’ to improve their state, they turn to the Government, demand that it’s the place of the Government to do this, and demanding that the Government throw money at the problem.” He opined that perhaps the cause of some individuals preferring the latter to the former was ignorance. Perhaps folks were blindly following the party line they were taught as children, he said, or perhaps to dodge the natural consequences of their purposefully deficient actions.
On September 13th, Bill O’Reilly from FoxNews had this to say on “The Radio Factor”:
Now, what’s the real story? The real story is this: Ten percent of Americans, and 10 percent of any society, simply are so chaotic for whatever reason that they’re never, ever going to be able to fend for themselves and make a living. They are either substance abusers, they’re mentally ill, they’re screwed up emotionally beyond — they can’t carry on a conversation, they’re catatonic, schizophrenic, whatever it may be. No matter how much money you pour in, they’re always going to be in that condition. It’s not massive neglect, it’s not; it’s human nature.
Now, our government has a duty to provide a safety net so these people aren’t living under bridges. But some of them are anyway, because all the entitlement money they get they spend on heroin or crack or alcohol. So they can’t pay their rent because the money that they’re given they spend on drugs and alcohol. So what do you do? Give them more money? They’re not going to pay their rent, they’re going to spend it on drugs and alcohol. And therefore, they’re going to be out on the street with their hand out.
Both speak to our society’s underclass, both with seemingly punitive, paternalistic overtones. And both speak from a place of great privilege. Privilege is a funny thing – when you have it, it is so easy not to notice it. When your everyday existence is the standard and your qualities are the measuring stick, how, really, can you fully comprehend anything else? There are people, people with privilege usually, who like to talk a lot about the problem our society has with entitlement. They’re usually speaking, of course, about our society’s poor; they describe them with two hands – one outstretched for a donation and the other on the street frivilously blowing the fruits of someone else’s labor. If “these people” did not feel so entitled, they would not be so careless. Along these lines, it is entitlement that causes people to have more children than their current resources might dictate.
I think sometimes privileged folks fail to see that their lives, too, are run with a sense of entitlement. Aren’t they? People who grow up in middle- and upper middle-class families grow up with middle class values, which are the norm in our society. We expect to be treated a certain way by others. We expect others to behave a certain way. We expect certain things to happen to us or for us, if we’ve worked hard, if we’ve earned it. And, let’s face it, sometimes we just plain expect things because we’re used to getting things.
In my current employment, I have the privilege (HA!) of working with families across all social and economic classes. I provide the same services to families regardless of background and situation. Which do you think is the most challenging? It is, by and large, the wealthier families, the middle-class (and above) families, the families with privilege bestowed upon them with no effort on their parts due to silly factors outside of their control like race, ethnicity, and family of origin. My wealthier families expect more services in less time, offer less flexibility with more expected compliance, and they expect said services to a certain standard regardless of reality or circumstance. If you are thinking, “Well, what’s wrong with that?” then it’s time to take a deep breath and admit that you, too, have such a feeling of entitlement. And why not? Entitlement, in some ways, is a part of life, the universe, and a healthy sense of self-advocacy.
In contrast, most lower- and underclass families in my experience operate with a “we’ll take what we can get” attitude when it comes to assistance and services. Have you been in a welfare office in an inner city area? Have you tried to navigate the social services system? Have you dealt with burned-out and overburdened government caseworkers? It’s hard work – hard, exhausting, demeaning work with little payout, high stress, and low morale. These families are handed the bottom of society’s barrel and then told to be thankful for it, and not just thankful but properly thankful. They’re told not to have a sense of entitlement, that entitlement is bad, when in reality, entitlement is just fine as long as one is more privileged. Somehow, entitlement and welfare don’t seem so bad when we talk about one of the largest public aid programs in the United States – tax breaks afforded to homeowners in the form of deducting mortgage interest paid from yearly Federal income tax.
While O’Reilly claims that it is human nature to have an underclass, I believe instead that it is human nature to have some sense of entitlement. As children, we’re hopefully fortunate enough to be raised in an environment where at least some of our needs are met on a regular basis. We learn our entitlement from a secure and protected childhood. Do only wealthier children deserve this?