Entitlement Issues

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Today, though, I have mostly been thinking about Entitlement. Why Entitlement Issues raise my hackles so much. Is that sense of Entitlement always such a bad thing? And ifso, why?

I mean, surely everyone has a sense of entitlement and in some cases rightly so? (If you work hard, you deserve rewards?)

But when it becomes over inflated... when people feel they are entitled to things that they do not necessarily deserve (whose opinion of their deservingness? My own?) - that knee-jerk hatred kicks in. Is the sense of injustice? Is it a twisted sense of jealousy? (that they believe they are entitled to things that I am not?)

And why is it the sense of entitlement with regards to wanting or thinking they *deserve* things that winds me up, rather than people *getting* things?

What do you think about entitlement? Does it make you grind your teeth, or just shrug, or is it something to aspire to?

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 10:49 (eighteen years ago)

it's v complicated, as it is influenced by so many other factors -- one's peer group, one's education, one's treatment by one's parents, one's affluence...

generally, right now I doubt very much if anyone finds my sense of entitlement irritating, but that certainly wasn't so in the past. I think this is coz there have been times in my life when I have done jobs which I felt were somehow beneath me. And that sense didn't kick in until uni, and was partly coz education broadened by mind and gave me more confidence and partly coz I suddenly found myself amongst ppl who were from more privileged backgrounds from me and had greater resultant self-confidence.

I think the fact that ppl do get upset by what they see as an over-inflated sense of entitlement has definitely tempered my behaviour in the office, but it is difficult to gauge exactly how much right now as my work is largely independen of other ppl's.

― Grandpont Genie, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:05 (eighteen years ago)

So are you saying that self-confidence is somehow bound up in one's sense of entitlement? Because I am possibly one of the most breathtakingly confident people around, yet I have absolutely zero sense of entitlement at all. To me, feeling entitled to something smacks of arrogance, and that's not an attractive trait in a person.

― C J, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:11 (eighteen years ago)

why is this even a thing? i've heard the phrase before, but never wondered what it means.

― Alan, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:12 (eighteen years ago)

depends what has made you self-confident I suppose.

also, that's you *now* tho, CJ, has it always been so?

― Grandpont Genie, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:13 (eighteen years ago)

No, I think that CJ is getting at something - it's not about confidence, it's about arrogance.

It's hard not to get into this without getting into class issues - though it does perhaps cut across class lines, it's perhaps uglier or more pronounced in the upper middle class. This idea that someone is *entitled* to something simply because of who they are, rather than what they have done or accomplished. Entitlement Issues are kind of the ugly opposite or accomplishment. It's like Aspiration gone too far.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:15 (eighteen years ago)

ugly opposite OF accomplishment.

I am clearly not accomplished in my tpying. :-(

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:16 (eighteen years ago)

I'm pretty certain I've always been this way. I've always been the first to walk into a crowded room and talk to strangers, or the first to get up on stage and show off, even as a little tiny kid. I can honestly say that I can't recall a time I have ever thought that i was entitled to anything though.

I mean, if I do a job for someone, or sell an item to someone, I'd expect to get paid. But I have never felt that I'm automatically entitled to something just because I went to the right school or I've been through tertiary education or know the right people or whatever.

― C J, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:20 (eighteen years ago)

'entitled to something because of who they are'

this seems very vague and such a disparate set of possible behaviours, that i'm a bit weirded by the idea of it as something to reify and focus on.

― Alan, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:27 (eighteen years ago)

i think some examples would help. is this to do with inheritance??

― Alan, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:29 (eighteen years ago)

I don't particularly want to get into the specific example that got me thinking about this.

I just wondered if anyone else had any experience of this behaviour, examples, thoughts, etc.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:29 (eighteen years ago)

It's like some old people. Just because they've lived through the second world war, they think they have a sense of entitlement which permits them to stand around clogging up the aisles in Sainbury's, or being rude to younger people.

Such an entitlement does not exist. Good manners are good manners, whatever your age and background.

― C J, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:30 (eighteen years ago)

It can be anything from 'Do youy know who I am?' on being refused entry to somewhere, to expecting the path to be smoothed for you, corners to be cut from procedure because you have had a certain upbringing or education, or are dressed in a certain way.

― Ed, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:32 (eighteen years ago)

why are your 'weirded' by it alan? i'm sure this has happened in threads about smugness. og ilx0rs really don't like the whole concept of smug.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:32 (eighteen years ago)

I'd imagine that these sorts of issues are those that most commonly lead to relationship problems. I'm thinking of a relationship in which the two people's sense of what each is entitled to in a loving relationship aren't equal. Or more often probably, when one person (or both) doesn't make clear what he/she thinks he/she deserves from the other person.

― G00blar, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:34 (eighteen years ago)

Do you know anyone who does like the concept of smug?

― 600, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:35 (eighteen years ago)

It's not about smugness.

It's the sort of thing that Ed is talking about - people who believe that they shouldn't be subjected to the same ... rules is a bad word, but same procedures as others. They should never have to wait in the metaphorical queue.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:36 (eighteen years ago)

It probably winds me up so much in one of those "you hate in other people what you fear most in yourself" sort of ways.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:41 (eighteen years ago)

ah! ok. if that's what we're talking about it, i'd say it might be unhelpful to talk about certain people having this as a set of issues. it sounds like something we all have to one degree or another. we're all unthinking, selfish, antisocial, un-selfaware in some dimension, to some degree. obviously i can see some people displaying this more than others.

"what you fear most in yourself " - quite! and the complement of that is that it would be bad to imagine 'only other people are like this'

― Alan, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:43 (eighteen years ago)

Not wanting to bring the debate onto a curmudgeonly 'young people today, pah' tip, but I think that kids often do have an overblown sense of entitlement. I'm guessing it stems from the middle ground where you're still getting stuff for free from your parents, but you've also developed to the stage where you have adult autonomy - so you are both entitled to have stuff and do what you want without anything impinging on that. Posh/spoilt kids tend to keep that throughout their lives, because daddy will still buy you whatever you want. Others lose it until, as CJ says, they become old bastards who have a sense of entitlement simply from having lived so long.

― emil.y, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:43 (eighteen years ago)

getting mad at ppl blocking the aisle/underground doors, CJ's example, is us going through 'surely if they knew what i knew, they would realise what twunts they are being doing X'. and we assume that they DO know it, and they are being twunts. when of course, they rarely do. not that i'm ruling out some ppl being deliberately arsey.

― Alan, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:45 (eighteen years ago)

now emily has confused me again :-(

― Alan, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:48 (eighteen years ago)

I don't imagine that I'm immune from it, though I try very hard not to trade on it. It's something I'm quite conscious of, someone I fight by being so accomplishment-oriented.

But it's not just getting things from *deserving* them rather than being entitled to them - it's also the sense of gratitude afterwards. Maybe gratitude is the wrong word, but the idea that you get things sometimes because you worked for them, sometimes because you were just bloody lucky, because you won the genetic lottery - not because you are somehow due them on account of who you are.

But I think G00blar is hitting on something, too. That some people are this way to such an extent that it can be almost impossible to have a relationship with them of any kind.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:49 (eighteen years ago)

No, getting mad at people blocking tube doors is a completely different thing - it's not entitlement, it's just selfishness. It's that whole sense of "if you just moved, then the 50 people behind you could get off the train in 2 minutes, 2 at a time, rather than in 5 minutes, 1 at a time."

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:52 (eighteen years ago)

xpost (sorta). sorry Kate, i certainly wasn't trying to imply you were! it is obvious you are quite reflective about this.

[i'm going to LURKMOAR here for a bit now]

― Alan, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:54 (eighteen years ago)

It's something I'm quite conscious of, someone I fight by being so accomplishment-oriented.

Ha ha, Freudian slip there. SomeTHING I fight. No issues here! Hah!

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:56 (eighteen years ago)

haha i think i've once said "yes the world DOES owe me a living"

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:57 (eighteen years ago)

The media seems to think that people should spend most of their time self-analysing (is your relationship healthy? are you getting the RIGHT kind of sex? is YOUR career fulfilling? do you have the right kind of shoes for this spring? is your partner a FAT BASTARD?) This has probably raised peoples' levels of 'intitlement expectation'. Not that these are necessarily questions that people shouldn't be asking themselves, but there seems to be a constant bombardment of this sort of stuff at the expense of you know, trying to be kind and helpful to others. It's all me me me!

Also the culture of compensation seeking plays a part.

I realise that I may sound like an angry old man here, so I will go off to find an aisle to block with my shopping trolley.

― Dr.C, Thursday, 19 April 2007 11:59 (eighteen years ago)

Kate, I think selfishness is pretty tied to entitlement. It's the idea that 'I am entitled to play this annoying download at full volume, because I am an individual with the right to do what I want'. Its egoistic culture. (Which, on a tangent, I think stems from a basic misunderstanding of a good thing - namely, the right for individuals to live their lives without proscription e.g. freedom of religion, sexuality etc. Maybe.)

― emil.y, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:00 (eighteen years ago)

Credit card debt. People think they're entitled to the same things as Victoria Beckham NOW, without thinking about all the talent and hard work that she.... no, wait.

But seriously, credit allows you to reward yourself more easily, and that becomes an entitlement.

― Dr.C, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:02 (eighteen years ago)

i think dr c is otm -- i am deeply grouchy though. it kind of chimes in with 'the trap'; more and more i think people are unhappy because they expect the impossible and unrealistic.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:04 (eighteen years ago)

oh and...

yes, er yes probably, no, yes, no.

Actually not sure about the shoes.

― Dr.C, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:06 (eighteen years ago)

Credit cards are the work of Satan. I don't think anyone should be allowed to apply for a credit card until they are (a) at least 35, and (b) financially secure enough not to need one.

― C J, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:07 (eighteen years ago)

I read that as the work of Stan. But yes.

― Dr.C, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:10 (eighteen years ago)

Stan, Stan, The Lavatory Man

― C J, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:11 (eighteen years ago)

My friend Stan's got a funny old man
Oh yeh oh yeh
He makes him work all night
Till he can't do it right
Oh yeh aha

(N.Holder 1974)

― Dr.C, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:14 (eighteen years ago)

/returns from google

is the phrase 'entitlement issue' a phrase from the politics of american social security - or is it just used a lot in that context. (it does sound american in some sense)

― Alan, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:21 (eighteen years ago)

Well, "issues" as in "he's got issues" is a very American useage.

I think with regard to social security, it's more a legal term, i.e. are you legally entitled to benefits.

Legal entitlement is a different topic. This is more like perceived entitlement to social or economic things.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:23 (eighteen years ago)

"Entitlements" is a term of art in US policymaking, referring to things like Social Security, Medicare, etc. - things all US citizens are entitled to. The overlap with the other senses of this word -- pretty much all negative -- makes me wonder if the terminology was originally pushed by right-wingers.

In response to the thread question, I often feel that I am entitled to things, mainly because I am great.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:45 (eighteen years ago)

damn yankees

― blueski, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:46 (eighteen years ago)

true. you are great trace. in the uk i guess the politicians talk about "rights and responsibilities"

― Alan, Thursday, 19 April 2007 12:49 (eighteen years ago)

I like "rights and responsibilities", it just sounds somehow like one has more involvement in the process than "entitlements".

I suppose it comes down to ideas about what the World (or Society, if you believe in such a thing) Owes You. What are basic rights? Food? Shelter? Education? Health Care? Obviously these "right" change from culture to culture, Society to Society.

Also, do you have rights to Things Themselves, or do you have rights to Opportunities for Things?

Even if you agree you have the Right to a job, do you have the right to the job of your choice (or in the field of your choice?) or just A Job (and it is up to you to adjust your skillset as to what the market requires or will reward)?

If you have the Right to shelter, does that mean you have the right to live in the house of your choice in the area of your choice, or does that mean you have the right to a house you can afford (or an affordable house?)

In both those dichotomies, I'd say the latter is Rights and Responsibilities, the former is Entitlement - and in the fine tunings and the value judgements we place on those lies the rub of political alignments.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:03 (eighteen years ago)

God, my grammar is poor. I blame trying to eat curry and think at the same time.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:04 (eighteen years ago)

I had a big argument with a friend over this kind of thing. She's a big Tory and therefore will often moan about scoungers "thinking they're entitled" to whatever. Her parents gave her a massive wadge of cash towards buying a flat in London, but she doesn't seem to see that being from a rich family gives her opportunities that said scroungers don't have, we had a row about inheritance tax too, and I think that's kind of an entitlement issue - that she's entitled to that money even though she didn't do a thing to earn it, which isn't really any different to benefit scroungers!

Hmm, not sure that scans very well but sod it.

― Colonel Poo, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:13 (eighteen years ago)

Yes, see that's the kind of double edged sword about entitlement issues I'm trying to get at.

A conversation I once had with my brother, on a taxi ride through Manhattan. We were driving past Projects and he started muttering his usual stuff. Usual row, with him muttering his Tory crap, and me going "poor people are entitled to live, too" and him going "yes, poor people are entitled to live, but not in the centre of Manhattan!" to which I replied "but you're in favour of the rent control that keeps the rent on *your* Manhattan flat artificially low?"

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:17 (eighteen years ago)

"we had a row about inheritance tax too, and I think that's kind of an entitlement issue - that she's entitled to that money even though she didn't do a thing to earn it, which isn't really any different to benefit scroungers!"

with inheritance there's a legal document saying "i leave this property to...". benefit scrounging is claiming money under false pretences. but i guess when people say scroungers they just mean people on benefits generally.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:21 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, scroungers = anyone on benefits, really, cos to them they're all layabouts.

But inheritance is still money for nothing, anyway.

― Colonel Poo, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:23 (eighteen years ago)

Yes, "benefits scrounging" is a grey area. Because lots of people probably do believe that any and all people on benefits are scrounging. But then you see people *clearly* taking advantage of the system... it makes me doubly angry, because not only are they cheating, but they are taking trust away from people who are actually deserving (there's that word again) of the benefits system.

They lose twice - once because someone has taken the money/council flat/whatever intended for someone more deserving of it, and again because it makes other people lose faith in that system.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:25 (eighteen years ago)

No, I can't do it. I've just tried to write out twice the kind of situations that make my blood boil with regards to "entitlement" and I just don't want to get re-engaged with the emotions.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:32 (eighteen years ago)

there's only really one person/situation in my life which winds me up massively wrt this - kate i dunno if we're talking about the same one.

in that situation i think it's something to with the person believing they are entitled to something BETTER and MORE SPECIAL than everyone else because they believe they are BETTER and MORE SPECIAL than everyone else. everyone is entitled to food, water, shelter, healthcare. but you're not entitled to caviar, champagne, a pad on park lane and your teeth whitened next tuesday. you are not MORE SPECIAL (grr it is starting to make my blood boil now too :/)

― emsk, Thursday, 19 April 2007 13:47 (eighteen years ago)

Skipping 13 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

I'm in the UK

Wow, I knew you guys had some pretty good government benefits but didn't know about that. Maybe I should've thought of emigrating after all.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:35 (eighteen years ago)

TRY WORKING FOR A UNIVERSITY GUYS

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:36 (eighteen years ago)

Hooray!

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:39 (eighteen years ago)

It'll be interesting to see what turns this thread takes now the Merkins are awake.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:40 (eighteen years ago)

ENLIST IN THE MARINES

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:43 (eighteen years ago)

Entitlement: thinking you can ban people from threads you started because of a list of rules that you created

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:46 (eighteen years ago)

Entitlement: STUDENT ATHLETES

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:46 (eighteen years ago)

But I love our student athletes. They got us the national championship last year and we might have just given the world the next Michael Jordan.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:48 (eighteen years ago)

too bad no-one cares about basketball outside the US

― blueski, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:53 (eighteen years ago)

you're entitled to feel pride tho!

― blueski, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:53 (eighteen years ago)

xpost

Given the number of foriegn players in the NBA I really don't believe that's true.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:53 (eighteen years ago)

I'm not sure this is exactly on point, but it's resonating a bit with some stuff in my own life and a quote from an article in The New Yorker today (you don't have to read it, I just put the link there in case). The article mentions "the man who decreed that eighty per cent of France’s students would be eligible to go to college, when what the country needed was four thousand more butchers and at least as many new plumbers."

While I've always thought education was an absolutely good thing, or perhaps I should say "higher education" (ie., uni), for the last few years I haven't been able to wonder whether that is actually a mistake. To generalize a bit, you put someone through four years of school and they no longer want to be a plumber or a butcher. They seek either a) more "interesting" work or b) the status and income they feel they are entitled to on the basis of their education. (Yes, I guess you can say they've "earned" it, but in reality, there are only so many high-paying and satisfying jobs out there. It's a bit like a marathon, where probably everyone deserves a prize for finishing, but in the end, there are only medals for the winners.

Does this make any sense? I guess part of the reason I see this fitting in is because of my own personal position: for the most part I've played by society's rules, gotten an education, done well, etc. and feel like I have "earned" a certain degree of... well, let's say material and moral satisfaction. Whereas someone who doesn't know me personally might just think, "Pfft! Another straight white male with a privileged education who thinks he's entitled to something."

― mitya, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:54 (eighteen years ago)

(Kate - ah, I get it, I only really read the first post)

― Matt DC, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:01 (eighteen years ago)

Why can't a butcher go to college?

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:15 (eighteen years ago)

My butcher(s) did.

― Jordan, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:17 (eighteen years ago)

Pat Butcher didn't.

― C J, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:17 (eighteen years ago)

"Does this make any sense? I guess part of the reason I see this fitting in is because of my own personal position: for the most part I've played by society's rules, gotten an education, done well, etc. and feel like I have "earned" a certain degree of... well, let's say material and moral satisfaction. Whereas someone who doesn't know me personally might just think, "Pfft! Another straight white male with a privileged education who thinks he's entitled to something."

-- mitya, Thursday, April 19, 2007 5:54 PM (24 minutes ago)"

even in the twenties in britain when only like 4% of the population went to university, employers were like 'what the fuck good are these airy-fairy head-in-the-clouds liberal arts grads?'

right now the uk govt wants 50% of everyone to go to uni; as in france, it does feel a bit undirected.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:22 (eighteen years ago)

solution: more muslim immigrants

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:27 (eighteen years ago)

Why can't a butcher go to college?

Friends of mine at the Rutgers Ag school took a class called "Meats" where the final involved slaughtering a hog!

― Hurting 2, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:29 (eighteen years ago)

(the handout for the final was titled "Hog Killin'")

― Hurting 2, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:29 (eighteen years ago)

why would a butcher want to amass five figures of debt when he doesn't have to?

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:56 (eighteen years ago)

My favourite example of this is the friend from a WASP background who wondered when, exactly, he would benefit from all this white male privilege he kept hearing about.

In my experience people who go on about 'scroungers' are freeloading in other areas. Always.

― suzy, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:58 (eighteen years ago)

why would a butcher want to amass five figures of debt when he doesn't have to?

I live in this fantasy la-la world where you go to school for the sake of education, not job training. Of course this is often not possible for people but if it is (e.g. they want to go to college but plan on being a butcher) and they want to do it, go for it. Anyone who thinks a 4yr degree = great job is obv. missing the point and maybe should consider vocational school.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:01 (eighteen years ago)

If you live in an industrialized society you probably have a sense of entitlement.

If you take anything for granted that other people don't you probably have a sense of entitlement.

― Hurting 2, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:19 (eighteen years ago)

Having the seemingly simple belief that you ought to be able to find some way to support yourself (and maybe even a family) at all is a sense of entitlement. Not often having it enter your mind that you could wind up living on the brink of starvation really comes from a sense of entitlement.

― Hurting 2, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:21 (eighteen years ago)

It's interesting in an age where more people are being encouraged to go to university, courses are getting more vocational and students are thinking about the salaries they will earn, education for education's sake is a dying ideal.

― Ed, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:24 (eighteen years ago)

Education for education's sake has ALWAYS been a luxury.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:25 (eighteen years ago)

This idea that tertiary or even secondary education is part of your basic rights as a citizen is something very recent - a hundred years old or so.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:26 (eighteen years ago)

Sometimes I think we need some sense of entitlement in order to avoid becoming completely paralyzed by guilt and fear.

― Hurting 2, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:28 (eighteen years ago)

Well, what you are saying is all very interesting, but I did try to make it clear that I wasn't talking about the ordinary sense of entitlement which makes you actually get off the sofa and go to job interviews - but more the exagerated sense of entitlement that makes some people think that they figuratively never have to get off the sofa and go to job interviews, and somehow the universe owes them a living simply for being them.

(Sorry for the extended metaphor.)

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:32 (eighteen years ago)

I mean, in a post-industrial first world society where most of us live, there are probably a lot of things we can take for granted as Rights or Entitlements, but I'm more interested in the disparity between these expectations that some have.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:33 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, but that's an arbitrary line to draw - someone a few rungs further down in a post-industrial society might see it as a sense of entitlement that a college educated person thinks they deserve a job just for looking at ads and going to interviews and having a degree.

― Hurting 2, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:36 (eighteen years ago)

It's not economics where this nags at people, I don't think. Usually it's that some people feel such confident belonging in the mainstream or upper-middle class -- having never experienced situations where their status isn't respected -- that they seem weirdly appalled and indignant when circumstances place them anywhere else. It's a bit like the rich/famous person screaming "do you know who I am?!" at the restaurant hostess, only on a milder, subtler level.

Sometimes, professionally, this works to their benefit: I've known people who graduate from college and seem deeply offended that they, children of the upper middle class, get offered paltry entry-level jobs, instead of immediately being hired on as CEOS -- but those kinds of irrational expectations can be what drives you to sprint up the ladder faster. Where it tends not to help anyone at all is socially: you wind up with mean people who are shocked that anyone would be mean to them, people who whine about the horrible burden of not getting things there's no reason they should have yet, people whose expectations of what their lives should be like are just weirdly out of step with reality, based on some sense of specific status-derived personal entitlement. It's not hard to tell them apart from people who just have high ambitions and lots of drive -- they'll have the exact same skills / jobs / education / social position as you do, and yet they'll act like it's some great injustice that they're where they are, but perfectly reasonable for you to be there too.

― nabisco, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:44 (eighteen years ago)

All of this seems pretty clearly like holdovers of the old class system, where people grow up with high class status and then continue to think of that status as, like, inherent in who they are: that they are "meant" to have the same earnings and get the same social consideration that corresponds to their place in society. Economically speaking, people today largely do wind up getting those earnings -- but when you're young especially, the social part of it really nags, because someone drinking beer across the table seems to think he/she is too good for where you all are.

― nabisco, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:51 (eighteen years ago)

OK, the thread is over when Nabisco weighs in, all sensible-like.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 19 April 2007 17:05 (eighteen years ago)

Sometimes I think we need some sense of entitlement in order to avoid becoming completely paralyzed by guilt and fear.

-- Hurting 2, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:28 (32 minutes ago)

I think this is probably true. I have basically no sense of entitlement in my everyday life, which I am pretty sure is some sort of rebellion against my middle-class background, but is spectacularly unproductive and usually just leads to awful panic attacks and fits of paranoia.

― bernard snowy, Thursday, 19 April 2007 17:15 (eighteen years ago)

My favourite example of this is the friend from a WASP background who wondered when, exactly, he would benefit from all this white male privilege he kept hearing about.

sounds like he was "being silly"

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Thursday, 19 April 2007 17:45 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.tellmewhereonearth.com/Web%20Pages/Aliens/Alien%20photos/aliens%20Happy%20Birthday.jpg

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Thursday, 19 April 2007 17:49 (eighteen years ago)

I live in this fantasy la-la world where you go to school for the sake of education
education for education's sake is a dying ideal

A big part of this, at least in the countries where I've lived, comes from the fact that education is so frigging expensive. Before you even realize it, you've mortgaged away your future.

― mitya, Friday, 20 April 2007 09:14 (eighteen years ago)

This morning, I was thinking that both entitlement issues and the phobia of them may both be indirect results of the Protestant Work Ethic.

Protestant Work Ethic comes from the very basic Calvinist belief in predestination - that some people *are* chosen by god to be "BETTER and more SPECIAL" than others. The Work Ethic comes from the idea that material success is the earthly manifestation of God's special favour. It turns into "God helps those that help themselves".

The PWE has been written so deeply into the myth that is "The American Dream" (work hard, and you will be a success) that it has been bizarrely stripped from the original religious philosophy that produced it. Hence the American preoccupation with material success and the display of it, totally divorced from the other aspects of Protestantism that accompanied it.

Entitlement Issues = people who are raised believing that they are part of (a possibly secularised version of) "God's Elect" and should just be afforded those material signs of success.

Phobia of Entitlement Issues = people seeing others expecting the rewards of being "God's Elect" without investment in the PWE, and well, the work part of the equation. Expecting "god" to help them without "helping themselves" (or perhaps helping themselves in the negative sense of the phrase).

Never mind that the whole idea of "The American Dream" and the Protestant Work Ethic are deeply, deeply flawed - and have ended up creating some of the worst excesses of American culture. The Bush Family and their ethos being the absolute incarnation of everything that is flawed about the philosophy of the PWE.

Mind you, I am writing all of this without my first coffee, so it may contain some apalling leaps of logic.

― Masonic Boom, Friday, 20 April 2007 09:21 (eighteen years ago)

interesting stuff, what about this tho....

we have discussed how ppl of high social class might give ppl an over-inflated sense of entitlement and, although I may have misssed the gist of the thread somewhat initially, I did say how being around those kind of ppl at uni meant that some of that rubbed off on me and I had to unlearn it in the workplace to make me less obnoxious. I wonder how a person being creative and talented might have that effect too? If somebody is creative and talented and they know it, they might feel that *this* should be a pass for them, or a get out of jail free card if you will. Now obviously being rich comes into this too, coz the poor quite often don't have the opportunity to reach their creative potential, e.g. not being able to afford a guitar or piano lessons.

Now obviously, this does not apply to all or even most creative and taleneted ppl and it is somewhat dependent on the personalities of the ppl concerned. But it could at least explain why Kate comes into contact with ppl like this quite often, as she has been in bands for quite a few years.

― Grandpont Genie, Friday, 20 April 2007 09:24 (eighteen years ago)

x-post cheap education was an abberation of the 20th Century. At no other time in history was tertiary education so cheap or so widely available.

Before that, education for the sake of education was a diletant occupation of the second or third sons of the idle rich - what you did with the extra heirs that weren't killed off in wars or dedicated to the Church.

― Masonic Boom, Friday, 20 April 2007 09:25 (eighteen years ago)

I wonder how a person being creative and talented might have that effect too? If somebody is creative and talented and they know it, they might feel that *this* should be a pass for them, or a get out of jail free card if you will.

Abso-fucking-lutely.

The creative world is riddled with people who have this mindset of "I am a genius, I should not have to be subjected to the same rules as everyone else!"

9 times out of 10, these are the same people who whinge about entitlement issues in others - they rage away against the priviliges of wealth and class, when really what they would like to do is claim those entitlements for themselves.

And you know what? It is easier to be a misunderstood genius when yes, you come from a background of wealth and privilige so you can afford to be misunderstood in your own lifetime.

But the flipside is, sorry, not everyone *GETS* to be a rock star/novelist/painter/sound artist. There just aren't enough of those jobs to go round. It's a lottery, and it's a lottery that may be loaded for some. But at the end of the day, if you leap for the brass ring and miss, it's not *society's* fault, it's your own for not having a backup plan.

Argh! You can tell how much this winds me up. How many people I've known like this.

― Masonic Boom, Friday, 20 April 2007 09:32 (eighteen years ago)

And this is *definitely* a "hate in other people what you fear most in yourself" situation. Or maybe an ex smoker hating on smoking situation.

ISSUES!!!!

― Masonic Boom, Friday, 20 April 2007 09:36 (eighteen years ago)

My extreme beauty has given me expectations of entitlement that would be ridiculous in others so I have to "unlearn" my cavalier attitude and pretend to be just normal-looking, like everyone else. Don't know if anyone else here has had this problem.

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 20 April 2007 10:24 (eighteen years ago)

I don't know if you're making a funny or a point, but the unfortunate truth is that extreme beauty does actually serve the function of entitling people - that's the way that human nature works. Pretty babies get picked up first and all that.

― Masonic Boom, Friday, 20 April 2007 10:41 (eighteen years ago)

pretty babies? b-but all babies look the same!

― Grandpont Genie, Friday, 20 April 2007 10:46 (eighteen years ago)

> But the flipside is, sorry, not everyone *GETS* to be a rock star / novelist / painter / sound artist.

anybody CAN be any one of those things.

making a living from it / getting anywhere with it is a different matter though.

what was that vonnegut quote from the other day? "be careful who you pretend to be because you are who you pretend to be".

― koogs, Friday, 20 April 2007 10:51 (eighteen years ago)

Sorry, I thought that was implicit in my statement - not everybody gets to have a *career*/living as a rock star, writer, artist, etc.

― Masonic Boom, Friday, 20 April 2007 10:53 (eighteen years ago)

"The creative world is riddled with people who have this mindset of "I am a genius, I should not have to be subjected to the same rules as everyone else!"

I've seen a lot of this recently. Lots of self-declared artists have been moaning about the level of funding they receive, as if they should be automatically entitled to a big pile of cash to do what they enjoy.

Hell, there are plenty of things I'd rather be doing that what i get paid for, but I don't assume that someone else should have to pay for it.

― Hello Sunshine, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 09:22 (eighteen years ago)

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