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 Power and No Glory

"Nature, red in tooth and claw.” Lord Alfred Tennyson

There are many facets of human existence, yet none are as insidious as an individual’s hunger for power over other people. The hunger for power over others and the exercise thereof – the most obvious manifestations of Nietzsche’s Will to Power – has caused untold suffering throughout human existence. But the hunger for power is not unique to Homo sapiens; it extends back long before the birth of our species. Gorillas and chimpanzees, for example, in fighting over resources and mates routinely go so far as to kill their competitors (if not within, then outside of their group). This behavior is not unique to our closest genetic relatives either; such behavior can be observed in animals far older and removed from us, but who with whom we still share a common ancestor, such as lizards.  [Lizards share the same Phylum as Homo sapiens; Chordata.] The behavior of one human seeking power over another human has a long history. This raises some questions: What is any one individual getting out of it? What are we getting out of it collectively, as a species? Are the ramification for better or worse? Should we accept this aspect of our nature or seek to overcome it?

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” Abraham Lincoln

What does an individual get out of seeking power? The reasons for any one individual seeking power over others is pretty clear as it is the same reasons mentioned earlier – it is a battle for resources and/or mates. Seeking power may also be for the sake of securing one’s own safety or the safety of their group (though their own safety typically supersedes that of the group’s) or to inflate one’s sense of importance, from which other ventures requiring confidence can then take place. We can see these reasons manifested in examples such as an unscrupulous CEO that suppresses information concerning the safety of their product for the sake of making money, any clergyman or self-described mystic (or any person in general) who claims special knowledge, authors of self-help books who must first convince you that there is indeed something wrong with you, and we can see it in porn that typically treats women as objects. A March 2013 paper that appeared in Psychological Science concluded power makes people happy. Happy people are generally healthier than unhappy people, so there appears to be a biological benefit to having power on several levels, so long as you’re the one who has it.

What does a group get out of seeking power? Since groups consist of individuals, it stands to reason that groups of people would seek power for the same reasons individuals do. By extension, you get similar examples of this behavior as before; a CEO extends their power to a board which runs a company with a clear hierarchy and agenda, the mystic who creates a religion around themselves, a multibillion dollar sector of the book-selling industry, and institutionalized misogyny. Even capitalism, assumed by many to be a mere economic system with no inherent flaw, in practice ultimately becomes a system that sees people working in unison to gain power over each other through the accumulation of wealth. (If you’re going to argue that this is a stretch, I would counter with the need for reports on a country’s health in which economic growth is a heavily considered factor.) The social arrangement of groups that seek power form hierarchies where those closer to the top benefit more from the arrangement. Even those at the bottom get something from the arrangement, assuming they are not forced into the group by coercion or threats of violence. Individuals run great personal risk to their freedom (if not overall health and safety) by operating outside the confines of the dominant group. You need only to ask anyone in the U.S. who is not a Christian for confirmation. Even at a most basic level, social groups form some kind of hierarchy; there appears to be a need for some people to be more important or thought of as more important than others.

“What do men of power want? More power.” The Oracle to Neo in The Matrix Reloaded

Without doubt, there are benefits to seeking power whether as an individual or group, but it is clear that both individual and group survival and reproduction are the driving forces behind the behavior. But, what are or have been the ramifications on a scale beyond the individual or group? Generally speaking, death, suffering, repression and imprisonment for those of a lower or outsider status at the behest of those in a group fearing giving up whatever status they have attained. Those who have power don’t want to share resources or are reluctant to change their own ‘tried and true’ ways. Historically, groups seeking more and more power have formed tribes and tribes became nation states (though tribalism is still very much alive), with the leader of any given group easily leading their group to war with another group. What all this power-seeking does is legitimize the notion, through killing or some form of repression, is that some lives are more valuable than others. From an evolutionary standpoint, it is easy to understand why individuals or groups would think this way. If this is the way we really want to think or want to believe that it is perfectly okay to seek power though other people’s lives are the price, then we have to be able conclude – across the board and without question – that some people actually are more important than others and are therefore deserving of their lofty or privileged positions.

“Judge not, least ye be judged.” The Bible, Matthew 7:1

Traditionally, there are several ways to examine a person’s worth; it can be measured in terms of a person operating within a society or in terms of the individual itself, free from the constraints of a society. But to talk of a person’s importance free from the constraints of society is irrelevant; there’s no need to measure a person’s importance if they stand alone on a deserted island. A person’s importance is then measured by that individual. Again, irrelevant. Individual worth can only be measured by those outside of any given individual and in being given this power to judge another human being is to begin the process of power-seeking itself. Any judgment by one person upon another person is for the person doing the judging to effectively say, I am – in at least some way – better than you and should therefore have power over you. In Western societies at least, the rush to judgment is so quick, so automatic that it implies that collectively, we think that some people are in fact better than others. If some people are better than others, than to seek power over other people is perfectly acceptable.

“Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.” Alan Moore in V for Vendetta

Certainly, we draw arbitrary limits on exactly how much power one person should have over another. Murder and rape are generally illegal. So are many predatory economic practices. (Though, if you’ll notice, there is often a loophole regarding such things.) But, in general, it’s okay to seek power. Those, who when being judged angrily lash out with “Don’t judge me!” are saying so because they don’t like power being in the hands of others. Of course, those same people judge others all the time, though I suppose for people to be hypocrites is nothing new. Again, collectively, at least in Western cultures (and surely many others), we agree that power-seeking is okay and that the global impact it has is not so great that we regard the consequences as acceptable. Think about that – billions of lives lost since the beginning of recorded history alone – means there are lots of people who have existed that essentially deserved to be put to death or repressed for the greater good of others having power (or for anyone in general to seek power). If the consequences of power-seeking are not acceptable, the only recourse is to treat each person as equals with no regard for gender, ethnicity, personality or skills. Naturally, this is completely impossible, especially when it comes to personality and skills.

“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.” Mahatma Gandhi

It may be that we tend to seek power over others because the alternative is impossible. Yes, we can and do place limits on the amount of power one has over another, but those limits are always governed by the ones who have the most power and the will to use it. So what do we do? I suppose recognizing the behavior is a step towards dealing with it, like alcoholics who have to recognize they have a problem before they can get clean. (Where by “dealing with it” I mean start a dialogue towards finding a balance between power-seeking and treating people equally since the alternatives are either negative while the other is impossible.)

I do not offer any solutions here; this is merely a reflection on what I perceive as a problem for the human species. Do you think there is a problem? If so, you have passed judgment on the human race. It is not so easy to fight our nature.