What You Are Not Entitled To

“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.” - Harlan Ellison

My previous blog bemoaned the current state of affairs on college campuses, noting the extreme narcissism among student that have resulted from the extreme liberal views of their parents. While it is easy to understand extreme liberalism as a consequence of the extreme conservatism that proceeded it, such a backlash has resulted in a county-wide culture in which far too many Americans believe they’re entitled to whatever it is they want. But entitlement is never a given without some explicit written agreement such as a work contract. “Joe Smith and I agree and sign here that I will build a house for him and in exchange I am entitled to be paid by Joe Smith X-amount of dollars.” No appeal to any unwritten social contract can be made either as if such a thing actually existed, everyone would play by the same rules. It is clear not everyone does. So, for the sake of clarification, here is what you or anyone else is not entitled to:

You are not entitled to take up two spots in a busy parking lot. You are not entitled to park wherever you want because you have a nice car. You are not entitled to speeding because you left the house late. You are not entitled to reckless driving because you don’t know where you are going. Nor are you entitled to reckless driving because you want to answer an unimportant text. You are not entitled to other drivers being careful around you because you display a ‘Baby On Board’ sign. You are not entitled to play your car stereo way too loud at 3am because you have a small penis. You are not entitled to take up two seats on public transportation.

You are not entitled to act out because your parents didn’t get you a pony when you were seven. You are not entitled to an award or a grade for simply trying or showing up. You are not entitled to a corner office because you have a college degree. You are not entitled to take care of personal business on company time. You are not entitled to a tip for shitty service. You should be entitled to fair compensation for a job but unfortunately someone is always willing to do more for less pay.

You are not entitled to be a dick because you can’t handle your liquor. You are not entitled to riot whether your team wins or loses a big game. You are not entitled to be a bitch because it is your wedding day. You are not entitled to make someone else’s wedding day all about you. You are not entitled to leave trash wherever you want because you are too lazy to put trash where it belongs. You are not entitled to leave dog waste lying around because you ‘forgot’ a plastic bag when you left the house for a walk.

You are not entitled to believe whatever you want and force it upon other people. You are not entitled to have your beliefs go unchallenged. You are not entitled to your own facts. You are not entitled to make racist or sexist comments without expecting a backlash. You are not entitled to be a racist because you are a minority. You are not entitled to call all men pedophiles because you are a feminist.

You are not entitled to receive love from another person no matter how much you love them. You are not entitled to kiddie porn under the assumption it constitutes ‘free speech.’ You are not entitled to drug women who won’t sleep with you. You are not entitled to anyone else’s body. Ever. For any reason. You are not entitled to welfare because you cannot keep your legs closed.

You are not entitled to your privacy if you actively seek fame. You are not entitled to special treatment because you are famous. (Famous people receive special treatment because businesses want their money. This does not equal respect or admiration.) You are not entitled to special treatment when you say, “Do you know who I am?” If you think otherwise, you are entitled to a punch in the mouth.

You are not entitled to be happy. You are not entitled to anything. The world doesn’t owe you a living.

I am entitled to key your key if you park like a jackass.

A Thief In The Night

“Death never comes at the right time, despite what mortals believe. Death always comes like a thief.” Christopher Pike

I am in a bit of shock. I received word this morning that one of my employers passed away yesterday. It appears to have been an accident, meaning, this is all very sudden and unexpected. He leaves behind a beautiful wife and precious daughter.

Death rarely hits so close to home for me and as such, I rarely get to be reminded how fragile life is. With more than seven billion human beings on the planet and counting, the species hedges against this fragility by playing the numbers. But this doesn’t speak to any of us on a personal level. We tend to consider only our own lives. And this is a frightening prospect. Time waits for no man; when it is your time is up, your time is up as a friend likes to say.

“We must conquer life by living it to the full, and then we can go to meet death with a certain prestige.” Aleister Crowley

I had a dream (twice actually) a few years ago that I received a note that said, “In 2015 your dead.” My first reaction to the note in my dream was that whoever wrote the note misspelled ‘you’re.’ Beyond that I have been a little wary of this year, wondering if there is a specter lurking nearby. Yet I go about my business not so afraid that it keeps me from doing possibly dangerous activities. This aside, if I were to die this year, would I be satisfied with the totality of my life? “What if tomorrow never came? / Could I live with myself as I lie in my grave?” I once wrote in a song. This bothers me because I feel I haven’t gotten around to doing anything significant with my life.

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin, Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.” Emily Dickinson

I try to take a solace in Emily Dickinson’s poem. If the point of life were to help others, then I feel I have contributed much. Maybe not as much as I could possibly have, but a fair enough amount for me to be satisfied with. But I haven’t done much for myself. As I have complained before, despite being one of the greatest thinkers to ever live, if I died tomorrow the world would go on without the major contribution to the world I wish to make. (Not that any of us really matter when you consider how vast the universe is, but the universe has nothing to say about how we feel about ourselves.) So what if I did die tomorrow? I suppose I’d be happy I’d get some damn sleep. But I fear I’d leave a world of people behind who have no ambition to accomplish anything. I believe this default setting for human beings has been the bane of humanity’s existence.

Fortunately my employer did accomplish much. He founded two schools so that people could receive the education needed to serve people in a meaningful way. Running a school increases and spreads knowledge exponentially. I am glad to be around people trying to accomplish something. As an educator myself, I hope I am doing a good job of helping people achieve their goals. It should inspire me to achieve my own. Everyone else may bide their time until death but perhaps there has been enough of that throughout history. While there may not be enough of celebrating life, there is even less celebration of achievement.

I will raise a glass to my departed employer. Then I will raise a glass to my own life. Then I will get to work.

…I leave you with these words from Plato’s Socrates, “To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.” Perhaps we should not mourn the dead, but it seems we have all mourned living too much. In the immortal words of the pop-duo Wham, choose life!...

The Nietzsche Blues

For those of you who don’t know, I flippin’ hate Nietzsche. It’s not because he didn’t provide some interesting insights, but because 1) he was a master of superfluous bullshit and not getting to the point and 2) his insights weren’t anything I hadn’t thought of long before ever reading him, meaning either I am a genius or he was not. For humility’s sake, I’m betting on the latter. At any rate, a few days ago someone brought up Nietzsche’s hypothetical motivation for living the best kind of life, the idea of Eternal Recurrence. I haven’t revisited this idea since my highly annoying Nietzsche class several years ago, so why not go once more into the fray?

Nietzsche’s formulation of Eternal Occurrence appears most clearly in The Gay Science, asking each of us what we would think if some demon were to say to us that the life we currently live we are going to live an infinite number of times over again. Would we (as individuals) be crushed by such an utterance or would we “long for nothing more fervently,” meaning we have truly lived a life worth living over again? Would such news be transformative?

Nietzsche writes in The Gay Science an opinion on how to live one’s life, “the secret [for] the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously!” What is moral for Nietzsche is to live our individual lives to the fullest, to make choices that bring us excitement and energy. If we have lived an exciting life and are faced with the prospect of having to live the same life over again, we would be given great mental strength over any possibility of death, particularly (as far as Nietzsche thinks) if there is no God to afford Heaven. [Curiously, if there is no god in Nietzsche’s eyes, why use a demon in your thought experiment? But, whatever.] So, one’s life would be affirmed. In Nietzsche’s otherwise existentialist universe, death sort of becomes irrelevant. Indeed, in Section 318 of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he writes, “Was that life? Well then! Once more!”

Nietzsche presents the concept of Eternal Recurrence in Thus Spoke Zarathustra through the section entitled “On the Vision and the Riddle.” Here, Zarathustra recants an encounter with a Spirit of Gravity (dwarf) who has paralyzed him. In building courage with which to confront the dwarf, Zarathustra contemplates Eternal Recurrence. Would Zarathustra spend countless lifetimes laid low by this spirit? He thinks not! His assent to courage, to overcome this dwarf, Zarathustra ultimately overcomes death.

The argument in the second section of “On the Vision and the Riddle” appears to presents an attempt to explain Eternal Recurrence’s usefulness in reality. Whether or not Nietzsche actually believed the doctrine may be unclear, but so much is beside the point. The concept of Eternal Recurrence is supposed to be useful enough as a thought-experiment in its own right. To Nietzsche, the thought experiment is useful not solely in pursuit of a recurring life of excitement, but to give us the kind of courage presented in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The doctrine of Eternal Recurrence gives us power over fear. “To live dangerously,” may appear unsound advice for the timid or frightful, but without an appeal to an Eternal Recurrence, could one ever know the kind of exhilarating life that living dangerously could bring? Even if the consequences of our actions would be grim, the survival of a dangerous scenario would leave us better off, having immersed us in more of the experiences life has to offer.

There are reasons to regard this doctrine as both important and superfluous. Certainly, if Nietzsche is right about an eternal recurrence, what better reward could we give ourselves than a fulfilling life? If he’s wrong and we still adhere to the doctrine, a question arises as to whether or not we’ve lost anything. And therein lies the catch. Paging Pascal’s Wager. Will Mr. Pascal please pick up the white courtesy phone?

What if the choices we make in pursuit of a rewarding life land us in prison for the rest of our life? How then do we live fully? Is living dangerously always worth the risk? We may be inclined to say not always, but rather, circumstances permitting. [One might argue it is exactly this fear the concept of living in light of an eternal recurrence seeks to overcome, but this doesn’t solve there being consequences for ‘living dangerously.’]

There is also a sense of temporal remoteness that might incline us to think of any eternal recurrence as inconsequential. If we have no attachment, no feelings towards our past or future selves, what does Eternal Recurrence matter? We’re not trying to save our past or future selves; if the point is to live now, what difference does Eternal Recurrence make versus the view that we only have one life to live? This latter philosophy of living is of equal merit, which is in part what makes Nietzsche so laughable. I’m not going to bow down before some dwarf if all I have is my one life and will never experience it again. Nor will I bow before the dwarf if I’m going to live life over again, so really, why wouldn’t any of us just pick which way of looking at the situation suits us?

Having heard the demonic scenario Nietzsche proposes, how would you feel about it? Certainly, I think it could be alarming for those who haven’t thought about it. On the other hand, for me, I would tell them demon I’m pretty much living life on my terms already because I was under the assumption I only had one life I would never experience again, but thanks for the heads up anyway. Whether or not Eternal Recurrence is the actual situation, I’m never going to pick up another Nietzsche book again. For Christ’s sake, there’s only so much masochism one life, or eternity, can take.