3 ms·

Many successful people will resent contributing to the welfare of the not-so-successful regardless of who is to blame for the misfortune of the latter. It's yet

by avz 12y ago

Many successful people will resent contributing to the welfare of the not-so-successful regardless of who is to blame for the misfortune of the latter. It's yet another instance of the tribal mentality dividing people into "us" and "them". We generally find it easier to empathize with those who are like us and perceived to belong to the same group. I used to think tribal divisions are characteristic of the earlier stages of human development. I don't think that's actually true. Humans everywhere live in tribes. In the developed countries people have simply found other characteristics than ethnicity to peek at in our tribal membership classifiers.

zo1 12y ago
"Many successful people will resent contributing to the welfare of the not-so-successful regardless of who is to blame for the misfortune of the latter. It's yet another instance of the tribal mentality dividing people into "us" and "them"." Yes, but you should take care to not attribute their definitions of "us" and "them", with the ones you imagine they do. It's all too-popular to assume that they mean "us, wealthy" and "them, lazy entitled leeches". It could just as well mean something a little more genuine such as "us, hardworking" and "them, mooching off the state/our hardwork". I'm not saying it's either. But I find that people regularly attribute very mean, hateful and prejudiced motivations to the rich, privileged or those they don't like. Most of the time, it's simply implied in the comments.
- qu4z-2 12y ago
  I like that the "them" in both cases is "lazy". The "us" group, on the other hand, nicely changes from "wealthy" to, essentially, "deservedly wealthy". I'm fairly certain they believe the latter, but is it so surprising that from the outside people see the former? Your point stands, though. I seriously doubt anyone's being deliberately mean or hateful. They just genuinely believe that they succeeded on their own merits. I also think that most definitions of "us" and "them" are usually after-the-fact justifications for including/excluding people from a group. The groups form, then the criteria arise, not vice versa. But I have nothing to back that up. It's just something worth considering when seeing the categorisations people discriminate based on.

by avz 12y ago

zo1 12y ago

"Many successful people will resent contributing to the welfare of the not-so-successful regardless of who is to blame for the misfortune of the latter. It's yet another instance of the tribal mentality dividing people into "us" and "them"." Yes, but you should take care to not attribute their definitions of "us" and "them", with the ones you imagine they do. It's all too-popular to assume that they mean "us, wealthy" and "them, lazy entitled leeches". It could just as well mean something a little more genuine such as "us, hardworking" and "them, mooching off the state/our hardwork". I'm not saying it's either. But I find that people regularly attribute very mean, hateful and prejudiced motivations to the rich, privileged or those they don't like. Most of the time, it's simply implied in the comments.

qu4z-2 12y ago
I like that the "them" in both cases is "lazy". The "us" group, on the other hand, nicely changes from "wealthy" to, essentially, "deservedly wealthy". I'm fairly certain they believe the latter, but is it so surprising that from the outside people see the former? Your point stands, though. I seriously doubt anyone's being deliberately mean or hateful. They just genuinely believe that they succeeded on their own merits. I also think that most definitions of "us" and "them" are usually after-the-fact justifications for including/excluding people from a group. The groups form, then the criteria arise, not vice versa. But I have nothing to back that up. It's just something worth considering when seeing the categorisations people discriminate based on.