Essentially what i mean is the mentality “i had to go through hell, why do they get it easy”
It’s something i’ve heard quite often from both sides of the aisle. I’ve heard things like:
“i immigrated here and spent years getting documented status, why should they get the easy option”
“i went to school and spent years afterwards paying my student loans, why should current students get them forgiven”
“I worked multiple jobs to make ends meet, why should they get government assistance
“i’ve kept my identity private, why should others get special recognition”
I disagree with them all, and personally i can’t imagine this belief is that common.
Has anyone else heard similar ideas like these? Is this mentality really that common with voters?
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Essentially what i mean is the mentality “i had to go through hell, why do they get it easy”
It’s something i’ve heard quite often from both sides of the aisle. I’ve heard things like:
“i immigrated here and spent years getting documented status, why should they get the easy option”
“i went to school and spent years afterwards paying my student loans, why should current students get them forgiven”
“I worked multiple jobs to make ends meet, why should they get government assistance
“i’ve kept my identity private, why should others get special recognition”
I disagree with them all, and personally i can’t imagine this belief is that common.
Has anyone else heard similar ideas like these? Is this mentality really that common with voters?
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It’s a Trolley Problem: Since the trolley ran over someone a mile ago, would it be unjust to prevent it from running over the next person on the track?
You say both sides but those all seem like right wing positions (well I don’t know what the context of the last one is but the others for sure).
I find that “pulling up the ladder” is one of these things people always misinterpret
Moving to the U.S. legally and then advocating against illegal migration isn’t “pulling up the ladder behind you.” An actual example of this would be your parents immigrating to the U.S., you being born with citizenship and then arguing against birthright citizenship for people born after a certain time to immigrants, or saying “we have a real problem of legal immigrants too!”
I think people are most guilty of this mentality on public services, where a Trump voter can recognise that the ACA literally saved their life, but then will be like “grr, Democrats want communism for healthcare” and will come up with all these reasons as to why public healthcare for me is fine but for everyone else it’s communism.
I think everyone probably has benefited from something that they either don’t recognise as being that important as adults or they want to take away.
But again… sometimes a system can actually need genuine reform. For example, I’m originally from the UK. While I lived there I benefited from the NHS. I also believe the NHS would be improved by some degree of privatisation so that it more closely resembles a German or Irish style system.
Is that pulling up a ladder behind me? Sorta? But I’d argue the overall system and overall outcomes would be better than they are right now, so I certainly wouldn’t see it that way. But I understand why some people would.
It’s slave morality.
Nietzsche differentiated between two types of morality: positive and negative, noble and slave morality.
What you’re describing is slave morality. You can best explain it with the example of envy:
Positive envy is if you covet thy neighbours house, wife etc. and think: How can I get the awesome life he has? How can I either improve myself or cause justice for myself, so I have the same thing as he does? This mentality makes you productive and creative and lets you leave the world a better place than you found it.
But if you think: I don’t have this awesome life, so neither should he, then that’s destructive and slavish. You leave the world a worse place than you found it. Nietzsche blames christianity for this type of mindset, but unfortunately we can actually find it across many cultures.
This type of mindset is actually increbidly common and most people aren’t really conscious about it, Nietzsche would argue, and I agree with him, that the vast majority of humanity exhibits slave morality, much more than the opposing, magnanimous fine morality, which remains the rare exception and that this might just be the main problem of humanity full stop.
It is much easier to shittalk others, than it is to build something yourself. It is much easier to exploit and cheat others, rather than to create justice. It is easier to revel in self-pity and to be risk-averse. It is easier to subtly deny others success than it is to openly acknowledge they might be better than you.
The individual slave has only a very slim chance to escape his predicament, hence he creates an entire, twisted morality system for himself that lets him cope with it. He can be okay with his situation as long as he has even poorer people below him. As long as the majority of the population remains enslaved with him, he won’t feel too bad about himself and can tolerate the unjustness of his station as it isn’t his fault.
I can recount so many stories, both private and public of this kind of behavior and I’m surprised how you can think this isn’t common. Most people aren’t thinking about this type of stuff and an incredibly small share of the population has any consistent moral belief system to begin with, so they will naturally just revert to slave morality because it is the way of least resistance.
I think this is a manifestation of a normal human tendency towards envy.
It’s really just the idea that if somebody else has something you should have it as well. It just violates the rules of linear time as well.
I’ve only heard it from the right.
The funny thing is it’s not true for most of the people who say it. I worked for a MAGAt back in Trump’s first term–straight white guy claiming to be a women-owned business, sending emails from an account with his wife’s name on it, his wife’s picture on the website and the wife has nothing to do with the business. And then these same people claim something is wrong with DEI, student loan forgiveness, helping women and POC start businesses, etc.
Trust me, Republicans are way better at scamming the system than we are and are okay with anything that benefits them as a person but not other people–especially not people who are viewed as taking from them to gain something, i.e. women and people of color vs men and white people. This is why you see so many immigrants and illegal immigrants making zero sense about supporting Trump/being Republicans. It’s okay for them and their family, but not for others.
I heard the student loan one from a lot of conservatives around me.
I remember some guy on reddit saying he doesn’t have kids and doesn’t believe in paying for other people’s maternity leave. I was like your mom would have probably appreciated it and then he did not respond. Lol.
You are right, we should not care if society decides to make it easier from some group or another though policy.
But I definitely care when society doesn’t also choose to make it easier for me at the same time.
Please pay off current students loans so that this group of people find life easier. But don’t forget about my mortgage. If you help me with that I would greatly appreciate it too.
Yes
Very much so and it’s some of why we lack empathy today. We’ll roll out a red carpet for those above us and then use said carpet to beat down those climbing below us.
Yes! I have a sister exactly like this.
She and her husband relied on Medicaid and SNAP for their entire adult lives. Sister and husband divorce, she moves in with our parents. Now that she lives off the charity of our parents, she doesn’t need Medicaid or SNAP anymore, so she votes Republican.
She suffered a tubal pregnancy that required a life-saving abortion. She got the abortion she needs. Unfortunately, the treatment rendered her sterile. She can’t get pregnant anymore. Which means she won’t ever need an abortion again, so she votes Republican.
She attended college on some government-funded “women’s higher education” grant. Now she’s got her degree, she thinks DEI is bad and the government shouldn’t give me people free money to go to college. So she votes Republican.
She’s not oblivious to her own hypocrisy. She judges herself by her intentions (she needed Medicaid. She needed college grants. She needed an abortion). But she judges everyone else by their actions (“why should I have to pay for someone else’s dumb choices?” “Why should I have to pay for someone else to go to school?” “Women who get abortions are just sl*ts who can’t keep their legs closed!”).
My wife used all her maternity leave at her large corporate job. Her boss tried to shame her saying that when she was her age she only got 2 weeks or so. “Do you really need 12 weeks?” , She asked.
Ive been pondering a bit about this lately. There do in fact seem to be plenty of cultures where suffering is viewed as noble, and modern practical solutions are weakness. Part of that may be religion.
What i thought about just this morning is if there are older LGBT people who oppose justice for today’s LGBT youth because they had to suffer through the bigotry and silencing when they grew up. I’m sure there may be a few, but probably less common than the immigrants who have that “crabs in a bucket” view. Could be wrong
Student loans. That’s not pulling up the ladder. That’s “you climb the same ladder that I did.”