Courts of law ought to be, and strive to be, fair. Everything else in life has at least the potential to be unfair. You’ve just got to deal with it.
Give 'em hell, John!:
Trump: “Well, the CMOH soldier that went way above the call of duty may have been shot or died. Looser. Much better a medal to someone that gives the GOP money”
I’d say that Trump is un-hinged but he has never in his entire life been hinged. This is simply how a narcissistic egomaniac ‘thinks’ (for different values of thinks)
There are two possible ways to take that. If it’s the larger world that’s being unfair, then I suppose you will have to learn to accept that. If it was your father that was being unfair, and what he said was a way to deflect responsibility from himself and put it on you, that’s a lesson I don’t agree with.
I’ve been thinking about what are the core axioms some people hold that lead them into a Republican or conservative world view, and your post kinda touched on it. I used a rather trivial example in another thread of the dad in A Christmas Story, when he says to one of his kids “stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about.” There seems to be a school of thought that the world, and the people in it, will always be rotten, and the kindest thiing you can do for anyone is to prepare them to accept the rottenness without complaining.
My thoughts exactly. The world is chaotic and you can’t prepare for everything, and bad things do happen to good people for reasons completely out of their control. But most of the people who use the “life isn’t fair” truism are using it to deflect their own responsibility. And, this is purely in my experience, if they’re saying this to a young child it’s most likely because they don’t have the foundation of knowledge to explain exactly why a certain thing is happening to a small child. It becomes a shorthand to dismiss another person’s experiences, much like “because I said so.”
Unfairness in the world is real. And, at least somewhat, created by other human beings. And change is also real. And is also created by human beings. When someone says to me “life isn’t fair”, my first thought is “yeah because people like you make it that way.” It’s a surprisingly effective way to try to remove a person’s sense of agency. Their ability to effect change. Especially if you start hitting them with it when they’re young.
I’ve heard this a lot since I was a kid. I still hate it.
This reminds me of a meme; unfortunately, I can’t remember it. Something along the lines of ‘If you think others should have a hard life because you had a hard life… something, something, something…’
“I got whacked around when I was a kid, and I turned out all right!”
“If you think that, you didn’t turn out all right.”
Aha! ‘If you think you had a hard life and turned out all right, you didn’t turn out all right’ sounds close to what I recall. Thanks.
I read something once about fraternity hazing. People hate it when they’re going through it, but those same people will, four years later, subject other people to that same hazing, or worse. The rationale seem to be “I had to go through this to earn my way into the fraternity, so everyone else should have to prove their worth to get in, too.” I think a similar process applies to other things, like immigration.
Much like “pressure makes diamonds.” Yes, but the fact is not everyone is a diamond, and diamonds are fragile.
The fact is nobody is a diamond. People are people and, frankly, it’s far past time for governments and organizations to stop pretending otherwise.
I definitely did not.
I think it’s fortunate for my family that I don’t in turn abuse them, because the thought of any of them going through what I did sickens me.
(Instead I’m just an asshole to myself, which I know isn’t healthy, but whatever, I know I’m fucked up.)
If only Trump also internalized that he’s a loser and left the rest of the world alone.
Same same. It’s a big reason I waited until later in life to become a parent. The downside is that I will be retired before my youngest kid graduates high school, but the big upside is that I took the time to unscrew and rescrew my head so I’m a healthier person mentally and emotionally and therefore (I hope) a better father than I had.
Jesus, you guys assume the worst.
My father was a very fair man. But he recognized the world isn’t fair, and wanted us to be prepared for that fact.
I look at it another way. The lesson is not “the world is not fair, so accept it,” it’s more that you make your own happiness in this world. Nobody else is going to help you out with that. Now, the key to happiness is learn to not let things you can’t change (or don’t want the responsibility for changing) bother you. If those things really bother you and your [pride, stubbornness, whatever] won’t allow you to ignore them, get off your ass and do something about it!
The people who believe that since they had to eat dirt when they were growing up (and believe they are better for it), so everyone ought to have to eat dirt believe everyone should be like them.
The people who hated eating dirt when they were growing up enough to do everything the can so nobody has to eat dirt ever again believe everyone to be different.
Nicely said.
Not to Godwinize (nor hijack) this thread, but I am reminded of Viktor Frankl’s approach to the ultimate unfairness:
I went to HS with someone that went to West Point the last year they allowed freshman/plebe hazing. He was not happy that he didn’t get to torment the next class. No more pinging, no more getting yelled at, etc.
It is odd.
This seems unreasonable to me. Who among us can explain this stuff to a small child? And of course a parent has to fall back sometimes, with a small child, on “because that’s just the way it is” or something similar. The point should be that you, the parent, don’t keep things at that level as the child continues to grow in understanding. Instead, you elaborate and explain and add nuance as they are able to understand it.
I spearheaded an attempt to eliminate hazing in in my fraternity. There was some resistance from the upperclassmen, but we succeeded in three years. The biggest hurdle was making everyone responsible for cleaning the house, not just the pledges.
We did keep some traditions, like being able recite the greek alphabet and memorizing everyone’s poop1.
The Poop Book was a little black notebook, where we recorded everyone’s names, majors, and hometown. The Poop Book was what you read while you pooped.
Yet another reason I don’t get greek life. I preferred living with 2 or 3 other friends in an apartment.
BTW, I bet that tradition died off once cell phones became ubiquitous.