Many to most people have an irrational need to falsely believe that the world and society is fair. That they earned what they have, and that those who aren’t getting their basic needs met did something to deserve their suffering. You can see this indignity up close in asking someone who came from economic stability if they paid for their own college. They’ll dance around and talk about the part time job they did for supplemental income to hilariously attempt equate their plight with those that had to take on indentured servitude student loans or simply couldn’t manage the expense and became understandably disillusioned.
Think of all the derogatory, punitive sentiments people say about our massive homeless and prison populations. As long as those people all deserve their suffering, the world makes sense to the weak minded. These are the same people who think billionaires are billionaires because of extraordinary work ethic, rather than social status, access to willing capital investment, and the willingness to exploit others for the value they generate.
Many to most people aren’t willing to admit that we only have control over ourselves, and that usually isn’t nearly enough to overcome the circumstances that the external world imposes on us. It allows us very occasional opportunities to influence/navigate branches within those circumstances, but the lotteries of birth, socioeconomic status, race, gender, location, etc very much limit practical trajectories. Using power over yourself might allow you to go up a class with concerted effort, from poverty to lower, lower to lower middle, etc, but our society and civilization in general is deeply unfair, and by the design of its architects. You don’t tend to start as a shelter orphan and end as someone society would consider a winner. In the same vein, children of said winners almost can’t fail being born into the little self-protecting owner club.
While it can’t be eliminated, addressing income inequity would mitigate these problems to some degree. We just refuse to because that would be unfaiiiir, right?
To privilege, equality feels like oppression. and sadly, as in most recorded history, privilege makes the rules.
Many to most people have an irrational need to falsely believe that the world and society is fair. That they earned what they have, and that those who aren’t getting their basic needs met did something to deserve their suffering. You can see this indignity up close in asking someone who came from economic stability if they paid for their own college. They’ll dance around and talk about the part time job they did for supplemental income to hilariously attempt equate their plight with those that had to take on indentured servitude student loans or simply couldn’t manage the expense and became understandably disillusioned.
Think of all the derogatory, punitive sentiments people say about our massive homeless and prison populations. As long as those people all deserve their suffering, the world makes sense to the weak minded. These are the same people who think billionaires are billionaires because of extraordinary work ethic, rather than social status, access to willing capital investment, and the willingness to exploit others for the value they generate.
Many to most people aren’t willing to admit that we only have control over ourselves, and that usually isn’t nearly enough to overcome the circumstances that the external world imposes on us. It allows us very occasional opportunities to influence/navigate branches within those circumstances, but the lotteries of birth, socioeconomic status, race, gender, location, etc very much limit practical trajectories. Using power over yourself might allow you to go up a class with concerted effort, from poverty to lower, lower to lower middle, etc, but our society and civilization in general is deeply unfair, and by the design of its architects. You don’t tend to start as a shelter orphan and end as someone society would consider a winner. In the same vein, children of said winners almost can’t fail being born into the little self-protecting owner club.
While it can’t be eliminated, addressing income inequity would mitigate these problems to some degree. We just refuse to because that would be unfaiiiir, right?
To privilege, equality feels like oppression. and sadly, as in most recorded history, privilege makes the rules.