defend the indefensible: use of the term "sense of entitlement"

The political one is that there are a lot of college-aged middle-class straight white men who seem to presume that their station in life is assured for them -- they've never had any reason to imagine that they won't live about the way their parents did. In a lot of ways, that's perfectly human and natural, but of course it has this huge classist current. I think the last time I thought about this one was on the thread here where some guy was helping his friend lie on his resume to get an office job. The notion seemed to be that he was a middle-class person and so of course he deserved an office job, since that's just what middle-class people do -- and presumably some guy mopping up in a fast-food joint shouldn't lie to get that same office job. So there's this reliance on class being heriditary, still, and no notion of being at all responsible for earning its maintenance, even to the point of cheating and/or "expecting" continued success.

Okay right but the more interesting one is the social part, which seems to have to do with the same kind of people -- except here the problem is that it almost seems like they have no notion that anything bad can ever happen to them. How could it? They're middle-class! They're "nice" and "normal" and "upstanding!" And so they seem to expect that a lot of really awful and/or annoying shit they do should fall under the banner of "good fun" or almost "boys will be boys" thinking, even though they'd never extend the same courtesy to anyone else. I have no idea how much they actually think this through, but they go around happy-go-lucky behaving in ways they probably wouldn't tolerate among lots of other classes of people. They have no sense of being "outside" anything, and that's problematic.

That second one isn't entitlement having to do with money or strictly class so much as it has to do with believing that you are the absolute mainstream of America, and that of course this country should be built to accommodate whatever you want. (There's plenty of political stuff that stems from that, too!)

I have about a third of a novel written that's actually kind of about that second sense of social entitlement. Part of why I started on it was that I felt like that kind of thing might be growing on us, hardcore. And demographically I imagine it'll keep growing, because we have a huge cohort of same-age folks growing up right now, and I get the feeling that being part of a birth-boom greatly enhances that sense that you're the absolute normal center of the universe and aren't expected to earn anything from the outside. I also worry that the forms of it we already have are finding creepy expressions -- this is me making a "trend" out of nothing, cable-news style, but I feel like I continually hear about serious crimes (beating up homeless guys, burning churches) committed by well-educated middle-class white teenagers who are basically just having a laugh.

yeah, I think we've talked about this before. It's like with charitable giving only when major disasters happen vs routinely supporting your local anti-poverty/homeless shelter efforts. i.e. the identification with the other person being the key to whether you extend help to them or not(e.g. financial, the resume-fixing, etc)

possibly the most OTM thing you've ever said.

Okay yes obv I am thinking of specific people, here.

oh nabisco, you just described my weekend. :(

actually, i think that narcissism is only a part of it. Yeah, they're narcisissistic, but to a point where a certain level of expectation is part of it, and loud mewling results when those expectations are not perceived as being met.

http://wizardishungry.com/no/gmail.jpg

For the record, in most varieties of this I don't really "blame" the people -- or at least I don't feel very moralistic or pissed-off about it. It usually seems clear where they're coming from -- it's just interesting, and not always a good thing.

I think most of what you're saying is extremely OTM, Nabisco, but I also think there's a danger of making assumptions there.

I remember once a friend of mine in college said something to me along the lines of "You seem like a guy who has everything worked out." I was really taken aback -- I felt terribly depressed at the time and had a low opinion of myself, but he seemed to be describing me exactly the way you're describing "those people." Truthfully he did come from worse circumstances than I did. His parents were somewhat abusive and had divorced, he had grown up in a more-or-less working class beach town and didn't have any financial help from his folks. On the other hand, here he was getting the same college education I was and having basically the same economic opportunities upon getting out.

Anyway, I WOULD describe myself as a person with some sense of entitlement, but it's counterbalanced by guilt and fear. And part of that fear is based on an inkling that I have that a sense of entitlement actually helps you succeed in life and if I let go of it I'll end up worse off in life.

for making copies and writing concert blurbs somehow puts them in the same boat with low wage workers.

HA! where's that webcomic somebody posted on the noize bored about a blue collar guy wondering why this hipster kid was drinking PBR...

here we go: I think we can all relate to this webcomic.

Well, they think they should get paid what they want to do what they want, which is pretty much the definition of "sense of entitlement."

Hurting, just a couple things: (a) I really want to be clear that I don't resent the people I'm describing here or really think they're terrible -- it's just a personality trait that's interesting to me and yes, occasionally annoying; and (b) I don't think it's just about "things working out" in one's life. Lots of people have lots of privileges, but manage to run into at least one or two experiences that sensitize them a little bit to what it might be like to the "outside" or "minority" or "non-privileged" in whatever sense. And by that I don't even mean political stuff -- I mean even just everyday social stuff! And so most of the people I meet who have had stuff work out for them don't necessarily have this kind of "entitlement" personality we're talking about. Not just about that. (Though I say that as someone who's been handed a good lot in life!)

I think the "entitled" term kind of implies more of the political side here. As for the social part, what's funny is that we have a name for children who act the way we're talking about, and it's "brat" and/or "spoiled brat." A lot of the behaviors that relate to the "entitled" personality seem like adult analogs of brattiness, overgrown Dennis-the-Menace "but I'm so sweet" stuff.

See also the etymological tie-ins we could create here -- "entitled" as in artistocracy and heriditary privilege!

Yeah but the kid in that comic 10 years down the road could have a law degree or a masters and the other guy will still be working construction. And Wal-Mart managers probably aren't earning 30,000 a year.

So they actually get to be quite psychologically healthy, really fun and confident and non-repressed [...]

well if you're psychologically healthy and confident you have nothing to repress innit

eisbar must be repressing his disappointment

(...oh, right...)