erinhill:

tonyzaret:

I feel like the Occupy protests are partly about the blowback from the incredible pile of self-help, “believe-in-yourself” crap that gets shoveled into Americans’ brain pits every day. We’re told constantly that we’re so special, everything we do is important and yet we still want more praise all the time. Suddenly it is dawning on an entire generation that nobody is that special, that you are affected by societal forces, that having a hundred people comment on how great you look in the pictures you posted on the internet does not translate into material success. Some people are just born with more money or talent or connections than other people, and having Oprah tell you how great you are or posting that Ira Glass quote I keep seeing a thousand times about “making creative work” is not going to make a difference. History is still going to be the outgrowth of large scale material relationships between social classes, and figuring out who moved your cheese is not going to change that - we need a government that can regulate those relationships in a way that benefits as many people as possible.

Truer words never spoken, tonyz. Also: there’s nothing wrong with not being special. not being special in some way that overrides these socio-economic forces doesn’t mean you’re not as important as someone who is. That you don’t get up and live a life every day just like someone rich or talented or creative or whatever else qualifies as special. Meritocracy is a cute idea. It’s comforting on all sides. It’s also grotesque. I am benefiting from it as much as I can, but I know it’s grotesque. People who don’t know this and want to kid themselves about deserving stuff more than a grocery checker: there’s a political party for you if you can stand a lot of rich jerks who think they’re even more special than you are.

Erin makes a point I was going to add to my gloomy politics blog! The way people are rewarded for their talent or position of birth or connections comes from those material relationships between classes, not from being “better people.” Right now a few people are being disproportionately rewarded because our government is mainly responsive to things like lobbying and campaign contributions. This is not a stable system and eventually there will not be enough money at the bottom (consumer) end to send back up to the top (producer) end. But I think people have been fed such a steady diet of hope and praise that maybe they haven’t thought this mattered for a long time.