That’s the metaphor that I like to use for society. We are all living in society together when it comes down to it, and society is a holistic organism. It seems that so few people recognize and acknowledge this, especially when we talk about things like Universal Healthcare or lopsided socioeconomic stratification, which IMHO (but don’t move the thread there!) is the overriding issue that’s responsible for most of society’s ills.
It seems that people that oppose Universal Healthcare, especially because they already have health care, don’t recognize that they’re living in the same fish tank as the people that need healthcare but can’t get it. It’s like they really believe that people are only responsible for themselves and only affected by their own actions and own situations. They don’t recognize that we’re all swimming in the same water, and if some of us are sick, it makes the rest of us sick.
Why is this?
When part of society is sick, it trickles down, up, and sideways to the rest of us that aren’t. The crackhead that can’t get treatment for his addiction is the same crackhead that’s breaking into your car or apartment to steal your shit. The untreated schizophrenic is the same guy that’s holding a knife to an innocent person’s throat in the middle of my lunch hour (my conjecture). People who are sick and dying bring down the quality of life for everyone else. Having a certain degree of misery among us is a bad thing for all of us, not just the miserable. Just because you’re fine, or you’re wealthy, or you’re healthy and comfortable, it doesn’t mean that your qualify if life won’t be affected by the other people living among you that are not.
Why does it seem like nobody ever acknowledges this? It’s never a point of argument in favor of welfare, or health care, or anything else, and it never seems to be even a consideration for the people that oppose such things.
I think your premise is flawed. At the very least, you can make the same argument to make capital punishment the standard for lots of stuff - and I would imagine most of the arguments for capital punishments are motivated by exactly that reasoning. But that’s just an example and anyway I think most people really do realize they live in the same society and a we’re relying on each other for our well being. The question is, how do we deal with each other, especially when (not if) shit happens?
Societal secondary effects are a lot less obvious than when the Big Government sticks his hands into your pockets and starts taking your fishfood. Also, there are alternate solutions they like better - possibly something involving copfish snapping up the crackfish.
And most other minnows seem to prefer to argue directly from altruism rather than from the from the selfish perspective that “We help our fellow sardine because it helps us”.
Because need does not equal entitlement. Individuals are responsible for their own well being. Some of them will fail. The slowest antelope feeds the lion. Such is the nature of life.
I’ve noticed that defenders of the Status Quo never think that they could ever possibly fail, just those irresponsible other people. With the system as it is, there are many people who have a nice job and nice health insurance but then get seriously ill and lose their coverage (either through very high co-pays or the insurance company finding an excuse to cancel.)
Not in obamaland, the happiest place on Earth! Making wise life choices, working and being frugal are for suckers. Do nothing and you still get it all (courtesy of the suckers) – car, food, health care, nice housing, the works.
And if the suckers complain about wanting to keep that which they earned, call them selfish, mean and, above all, racist.
So why even have a society? What’s the point of the Military, Police, and Fire Departments? Why can I be drafted in a war? Why am I paying taxes instead of going off to the wilderness and being a hermitic hunterer-gatherer?
In brutalistic terms, no. But you could build a society that does so, or at least does so better than the status quo. You just choose not to, and to apply social Darwinism beyond that which is necessary.
That is so old. The only people who call those who are looking out for their own self interests are people who have nothing to lose.
Otherwise you are mean, selfish and racist because you are using a computer that you probably own. Sell all your goods and give them to the poor, or admit you are a hypocrite.
Or you are just poor and are doing this from a library somewhere, which means your desire for people not to work in their own self interest is because that means it will benefit you.
Either way your statement is hypocritical in the extreme – bordering on sociopathic.
There has never been a better help to the poor than a strong Capitalistic meritocracy. A rising tide raises all boats. Wealth redistribution only drags everyone down.
I think the OP is suggesting that if we don’t pull the slowest antelope forward, that antelople will pull the faster antelopes backwards.
Athough, thinking about that (rather than the fascinating discussion about how people who pay taxes are “suckers”), I have to wonder if it’s actually true? I mean, some diseases are contagious, sure, but not most of the ones that will eat your entire savings account and then chew on you until you die. It may (or may not?) actually be plausibly argued that those sick poor people? They should DIE. Die NOW. SUFFER! -And they deserve it because they weren’t prudent enough to get rich. Let the lion have 'em; it’s the law of the jungle, therefore it’s the ethical and civilized thing to do.
I think people have the attitude of which you speak because it’s the easy way out. The idea of helping everyone overwhelms them so they immediately go into a defensive position of fending for themselves.
When people feel threatened they withdraw and try to group with those like them. “You got a job, an education, good health care you’re like me. When push comes to shove I only want what’s good for me and people like me.”
It’s a simple minded trap to fall into.
The thought of valuing diversity or helping people that aren’t like them, don’t think like them, don’t hold the same beliefs or values as them becomes a foreign concept.
You’re uneducated, your fault. You’re sick, your fault. You’re poor, your fault.
As long as they know they will be the ones surving they have no problem with survival of the fittest.
The whole “I got mine, everyone else can go fuck themselves” attitude is pretty gross.
If pure Laissez-faire capitalism is the best model for a society to follow, could you point out a country that has less taxes and less regulation, less of a social safety net than the U.S, where the poor and middle class are better off than we are?
Oh my, you’re so full of …err …straw I’m surprised it isn’t coming out of your ears. Firstly I haven’t excluded myself from being a human, and therefore myopic and self-interested, or a hypocrite for that matter. Yes I am using a computer, which I own, and that your powers of deduction are overwhelmingly impressive. Note in my posts I did not offer communism as a better system than we have currently or in any way advocate it, and clearly has been shown in history to be demonstrably worse. I am however suggesting that capitalism needn’t be quite as individualistic as the system you are so keen on. Capitalism with a social conscience, if you like. It has been shown to work effectively in Scandinavia, and in my own country’s UHC system. I hope if I become rich I don’t take pleasure in castigating poor people for their failings, as much as you do. I’m not entirely sure how you came to the conclusion that I’m a sociopath in trying to consider other people beyond myself, but then you do like straw-men.
All three of these work to stop people inflicting negative externalities on innocent bystanders. An invading army, criminal or fire is already my problem, so I have no problem with paying the government to eradicate them now, when they are at their weakest, instead of letting them fester and grow more dangerous.
On the other hand, the suggestion that I should be forced to pay protection money to people so that they don’t rob my house goes against everything I believe in.
Ego. Self indulgence. Right wing propaganda. They are either predators, think they can become predators, or have bought what the predators are saying. Or they are just foolhardy or arrogant. They don’t think that THEY will ever be on the short end of the stick; or they are, and they have bought into right wing propaganda blaming “them” for why they aren’t rich. It can’t be that the system doesn’t really reward people according to hard work or merit; it most be the welfare mothers or illegal aliens or Jews or Communists or whatever.
Ah. And with such an amoral view of life, what would be wrong with the less wealthy simply rounding up the rich, killing them and taking everything they own? After all, such is the nature of life, right? Or is ruthlessness only OK when it’s the common people getting “eaten”?
The funny thing about Social Darwinists is that they depend on their victims being nicer people than they are.
Somehow if you were the one who needed help I expect your attitude would change. If you were drowning and people just stood on the shore pointing and laughing at you instead of throwing a rope, I doubt you’d be so fond of Social Darwinism.
We are either all together in this society, or we are not. If you owe nothing to them, then they owe nothing to you. If their needs don’t count then neither do yours.