This goes along with something I read recently which also seems to ring true: feeling entitled to be socially superior to at least some others, ie without in anyway earning it.
I don't think people have to earn being socially equal, and can't earn being socially superior. Each person is 1 unit of human dignity, no seconds, but also no one left behind.
> I don't think people have to earn being socially equal […]
The GOP would probably agree with you, and that's why they're canceling all the DEI programs: everyone is already socially equal so the programs are not needed… right?
Come on, you know they wouldn't agree with the spirit of the full quote? They're cancelling DEI programs because they don't care about the disadvantaged; precisely because they think they are worth less, socially.
> All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. [..] Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
And to achieve that, because "entitlement" isn't enough for the end result of people actually enjoying those rights regardless of who they are, you have to sometimes help people out so they get equal footing.
It is a project that might take centuries even if everybody committed to it in earnest.
How is it overlooked that these people are simply both unhappy and helpless, as a result of the society they live in? The problem is they do not live in a democracy.
> These individuals are not idealists seeking to tear down the established order so that they can build a better society for everyone. Rather, they indiscriminately share hostile political rumors as a way to unleash chaos and mobilize individuals against the established order that fails to accord them the respect that they feel they personally deserve.
Some of these individuals also want to cause pain to others, and feel it is unjust if the pain comes to them:
> A federal prison here in Florida’s rural Panhandle lost much of its roof and fence during Hurricane Michael in October, forcing hundreds of inmates to relocate to a facility in Yazoo City, Miss., more than 400 miles away.
> Since then, corrections officers have had to commute there to work, a seven-hour drive, for two-week stints. As of this week, thanks to the partial federal government shutdown, they will be doing it without pay — no paychecks and no reimbursement for gas, meals and laundry, expenses that can run hundreds of dollars per trip.
[…]
> The shutdown on top of the hurricane has caused Ms. Minton to rethink a lot of things.
> “I voted for him, and he’s the one who’s doing this,” she said of Mr. Trump. “I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”
“He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”
As Adam Serwer observed, the cruelty is the point:
> We can hear the spectacle of cruel laughter throughout the Trump era. There were the border patrol agents cracking up at the crying immigrant children separated[1] from their families, and the Trump adviser who delighted white supremacists[2] when he mocked a child with down syndrome[3] who was separated from her mother. There were the police who laughed uproariously when the president encouraged them to abuse[4] suspects, and the Fox News hosts mocking a survivor of the Pulse Nightclub massacre[5] (and in the process inundating him with threats), the survivors of sexual assault protesting Senator Jeff Flake,[6] the women who said the president sexually assaulted them,[7] and the teen survivors of the Parkland school shooting.[8] There was the president mocking Puerto Rican accents[9] shortly after thousands were killed and tens of thousands displaced by Hurricane Maria, the black athletes protesting unjustified killings by police, the women of the #MeToo movement[10] who have come forward with stories of sexual abuse, and the disabled reporter whose crime was reporting on Trump truthfully. It is not just that they enjoy this cruelty, it is that they enjoy it with each other. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to each other, and to Trump.
[…]
> This isn’t incoherent. It reflects a clear principle: Only the president and his allies, his supporters, and their anointed are entitled to the rights and protections of the law, and if necessary, immunity from it. The rest of us are entitled only to cruelty, by their whim. This is how the powerful have ever kept the powerless divided and in their place, and enriched themselves in the process.
> A relatively small group of people with Need for Chaos traits can now inflict a lot of damage in society.
I'd say that's owed to the degree web discourse becomes dominant over people talking in the flesh. If you have a circle of friends, and 5% of the time one of them is hungry and in such a foul mood they find fault with everything, would that shift the opinions of the group towards hating everything over time, or would it hone their arguments for how they generally feel and see things? I'll just guess it's not a problem. And the same if 1 out of 20 friends is always contrarian and finds fault with everything.
The internet has extremely distorting effects, I think. Things hit different when we know who we're dealing with and how sincere they are. Body language, tone of voice, even pheromones can say so much. I'm not saying "the real world" isn't ever misleading; but it offers infinitely more signal to process, and we evolved over millions of years to process them.
But generally, many people don't have a stake in society, because it was stolen from them. Call it what you will but most have fuck all so very, very few can have most. And that's getting worse at increasing pace, still. That's fertile ground both for organic dissatisfaction and wanting to see the world burn, but also for interference and subversion. Healthy people who are part of a community that respects them and where their voice is heard don't go around salting the earth so nobody else gets to eat, either, and can't get seduced into it either.
I think of Ye from 3 body problem who, even after being warned by a trisoloran that they would concur earth, proceeded to willingly make it happen. And in fact a whole following emerged that wanted the earth to be concurred and worked tirelessly to that end - such was their dissatisfaction with the current state and their belief that only under trisoloran rule could things be made great again.
Then Ye was ditched by the Trisolorans and she felt again betrayed. They, of course, didn't care about her or any of the followers. They were just a means to getting the Earth for themselves.
