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A Nation of Wimps by Illiad2006-11-19 12:55:59
  As somebody WITH a learning disability... by SnArL2006-07-31 17:55:28
    Nope. by Illiad2006-07-31 18:18:24
      Ahh...ok by SnArL2006-07-31 18:33:25
        Heh. by Illiad2006-07-31 18:38:19
          Culture of entitlement by SnArL2006-07-31 18:52:52
            Not socialism. by zelda 2006-07-31 22:05:09
What I see isn't "The government must help with everything," but rather "SOMEBODY should help me with everything." The government gets elected to be the somebody in a number of cases, but that's incidental.

I think this is the self-esteem myth gone wildly wrong. It's a parenting philosophy trend that seems to have come up some thirty or so years ago: The idea is that confident childdren are more successful socially and academically. (Bullies are nasty because they are insecure, right? So if you build up their self-esteem, they won't be nasty, right? Wrong; they'll be arrogant *and* nasty.)

Some of this is a good impulse, to fight internalized racism and sexism. When girls were told that they weren't supposed to be good at math because girls are dumb, surprise surprise, they gave up on math and *played* dumb to meet expectations. When black people were told that they weren't supposed to be successful business owners because they aren't as good as white people and don't deserve economic success, many of them got discouraged and gave up fighting the system. So telling people that they do too deserve good things is useful insofaras it's an antidote to that.

The trouble comes in when you overdo all this, and mistake "deserve" as in "are worthy of" for "deserve" as in "are entitled to." The attempt to build confidence and encourage people to go for want they want has somehow slid off into telling kids that they're perfect without striving to improve themselves, and that the world owes them everything they want.
[ Reply ]
              You're right by SnArL2006-07-31 23:52:38

 

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