The Entitlement Society
This grew out of my post on Detroit, and what happened to us our last eight years there. It was difficult to write; that short piece took me nearly all day, even though I’ve said many of the same things elsewhere, in different venues.
Even that was only a glimpse into the experience. I actually started a book on it some time ago, with a working title of “Government Cheese,” trying at the time to take a lighthearted look at life in the city, but it got so negative I abandoned the project.
Even so, I’ve developed some other ideas I’d like to share here. This is about much more than Detroit, though the city itself is what gave me the idea.
This is about entitlement.
When I talk about entitlement, what I mean is that people in this country, in this year, have a way of looking at life that seems to include a dependence on outside resources for something. This “something “ can be anything from the basic necessities of life to temporary/permanent disaster relief, to even personal happiness, in some cases.
Yes, believe it or not, a few years back I was part of a discussion online that was about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Some otherwise well-educated and sophisticated individuals insisted that the Federal Government was indeed, responsible for their happiness.
This was against everything I ever believed. Not only did the idea express an obvious lack of initiative and self-reliance on some people’s part, it demonstrated that some had such little sense of self they would accept anybody else doing what they should be doing on an intimate personal level. It was also a little frightening. I wondered for a long time how it was that some people could think any outside entity, be it an individual or a government, can even know what they need to be “happy.” But hey, it was only an e-mail exchange.
I think of the books I read in high school – 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451. All of them were about the resilience and tenacity of the human spirit. The peace and love stuff we were getting from people like the Beatles in the 1960s was nice, but most of the communes and other social experiments of the time failed miserably. That’s because you can imagine, and actually attain probably, any kind of sublime social state once the realities of having the hard cash and skilled management to do it are removed.
In other words, if you weren’t John Lennon, with his multiple millions, there was pretty much no point. I always thought it was kind of telling that none of the groups or singers of the time who promoted love and peace and all that actually did anything about it. Other than doing things that got them more publicity for their records, I mean.
George Harrison tried, with his concert for Bangladesh, but he was left with such a nasty taste in his mouth afterward he swore he’d never do it again. In more recent times, what actual, realistic benefits from LiveAid, or the many campaigns by Bono from U2 ever occurred?
These are still, external efforts. We don’t see the people of New Orleans, in fact, getting together and repairing the damage to their city on their own. They are, and the whole country is, apparently expecting the Federal Government to do it all. In California, I’m told of a group of residents that believes that somehow the Feds can make landslides stop, and are expecting that solution any day, not to mention full monetary compensation for those homes built on questionable land.
Somehow along the line, it seems people in general forgot that idea that stuff happens.
Now we’ve got an entire society that can’t deal with any problem, be it as small as domestic violence, or as large as Hurricane Katrina. I don’t know how we all got into the idea that when something awful happens, you hafta sit around and wait for help to come, but that’s where we are right now.
I don’t know why we let ourselves get to the point where we can’t even get through a minor disruption in services. The other day, I heard about an electrical blackout on the East Coast. In response, locals were frantically establishing shelters and all kinds of services.
In 1979 or maybe 1980, we had a serious ice storm that cut off power to most of Southeastern Lower Michigan. Some homes were without power for weeks. Nobody expected FEMA to deal with local problem. I went, with the baby, to stay with friends outside the affected area for the duration. Once my husband figured out a generator, we went home. This was the way everybody dealt with this problem. People used their fireplaces, got water from their lakes if they had to.
People dealt with the problem. Everyone took action in their own way.
If you look at history, you find that the federal government had little or no role in some well-known disasters.
http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/stfrancis.htm
http://www.seis.utah.edu/NEHRP_HTM/1959hebg/1959he1.htm
http://www.1900storm.com/rebuilding/index.lasso
Today, however, I guess we’re not supposed to deal with things on our own. I saw a documentary on Discovery/Times the other day that demonstrated clearly how some New Orleans residents are still sitting around and waiting for help to come, which I don’t get at all.
On a more-personal level, there are government programs to address everything from poverty to healthcare to illiteracy, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Most of these programs didn’t exist before about 1975, though a few date back to the Depression era. Few, if any of them, actually made any headway in addressing the problems they were intended to solve, and in some cases made matters worse, or created unexpected negative results. Even knowing this, we are still funding programs at unprecedented levels. In some cases, people are forced against their will to avail themselves of questionable services.
I know how most of these programs were created – a combination of societal guilt, with some opportunism and the merest whisper of altruism thrown in. Most of us want to feel we can do something to help the less fortunate. Sometimes, though, there’s nothing you can do. Solutions for some problems have to come from within individuals.
That’s where we’re running into trouble. I wonder if, by telling ourselves we’re “helping” by letting the government deal with some things, we’re not making it impossible for some to help themselves.