Status and “Entitlement”!
Considering the Expectation that Government Can “Fix”
Everything!
Ascribed status:
positions that an individual either inherits at birth or
receives involuntarily later in life (Ex: 1. Royal family in
England; 2. Son/daughter of wealthy/powerful person who is given
status due to their parents etc, etc, etc)
1.
Achieved Status:
positions that are either earned, accomplished, or involve at
least some effort or activity on the individuals’ part. (Ex:
good old American hard work ethic)
As stated
above, we often think of ascribed status as being royalty (per
Europe/England etc) or the son and daughter of a wealthy
businessman, or wealthy politician who did not have to work hard
(or work at all) to gain their money or success (such as being
the child of Bill Gates, or Ted Kennedy etc). – NOTE: some
children of the wealthy work VERY hard for their positions – but
those who do not, but rather depend on the money earned by their
families would fall into this category.
Surprisingly, we also have a whole new group of Americans who
live and act as “ascribed status – as though they are royalty –
who are they? Those who depend on the government for direction,
care, sustenance, direction in life and wisdom for living.
Generally, these are the welfare recipients - i.e. those who
have lower educational skills, and have not developed strong
vocational skills and feel entitled to be given a "life" and a
living by those who run the government.
There is
also a subset of this ascribed category –and they are not
welfare recipients: They are those who live out a welfare
worldview even if they are NOT on welfare – i.e., those who
actually have good jobs and money BUT feel as though the
government owes it to the population to “care” and provide for
them – the classic political liberal fits this description – for
instance, Ted Kennedy, and most of the Hollywood elite. They
work for their money but still believe that it’s the
government’s job to provide “FULL” provisions for the “little
people” of the world.
Think
about the oddity of it all. Prince Charles of England (as well
as a Ted Kennedy type politician, or a George Clooney and/or
Steven Spielberg Hollywood type elite) and your basic
non-working, welfare dependant American are both in the ascribed
status. Prince Charles might view himself as “above” the day to
day hum-drum of the working masses – wealthy enough to do little
more than make political appearances for charity. And the
American welfare recipient, while not wealthy also sees no need
to work, and EXPECTS the government to care for their needs, and
gets down-right ticked off if they don’t get everything they are
supposed to get. The American welfare recipient lives very low
in quality yet depends so much on the government (again, a sort
of odd ascribes status) that they doom themselves to waiting
around for the government rather than to use every opportunity
to make something better for themselves.
Do not
misunderstand, this is not a class conflict (struggle between
proletariat [those who did not own property] and bourgeoisie
[wealthy property owners] – rich vs poor. While there are rich
and poor in this issue, they are on both sides of the coin.
Meaning that there are those in the ascribed status who are
wealthy due to their parent’s hard work or some other ascribed
wealth position and there are the poor who see themselves in an
ascribed position (entitled) to the government. Then there are
those in the achieved status who are wealthy and who EARNED
every penny, as well as those who are still poor but work very
hard and have every expectation of earning their own way and
making a better life for both themselves and their families.
So with
this as a general backdrop, Hurricane Katrina hits America and
the worldview of the ascribed status and the worldviews of the
achieved status become readily visible in their differences.
Read the article below, and answer the questions in the
assignment area.
Professor/Editor’s note:
The article below
was written shortly after the Katrina Hurricane.
Unquenchable appetite
The false god of government cannot satisfy in times of plenty or
want | by Joel Belz
Why did we ever think it would work? Whatever possessed us to
look for the ultimate in disaster relief from a governmental
system that had dreamed up public education, the agricultural
subsidy program, Medicare, and Social Security? Why did we think
they would get this one right?
Truth be told, all the whining about the supposedly insensitive
and slow response to Hurricane Katrina is off the mark.
When anything comes along that is bigger and badder than
anything that has come before—and maybe bigger and badder by a
factor of two or three—it's pretty hard to look around and say
that somebody should have been ready for this.
Sometimes, even in the midst of tragedy and horror, we have to
suck it in and collectively plead for mercy. There might be a
time for prudent second-guessing down the road, but not quite
yet. Finger pointing while corpses are still bobbing in the
murky waters is unseemly. There will almost certainly be enough
guilt to go around when the time comes.
But let's grant, for the moment, that President George Bush,
FEMA, Homeland Security, and all the rest of the federal
apparatus should have taken a few hours off three weeks ago to
rehearse several times over just what they might do in the
specific event that any one of dozens of possible permutations
began to unfold as Katrina approached from the Gulf of Mexico.
Then let's assume as well that all these plans had been carried
out perfectly. What on earth prompts us to suppose Americans
would have been happier with the results?
Happiness with the results of any big government effort, of
course, is almost an oxymoron. The reason is simply that when
people start putting their trust in big government, they've
attached themselves to a false god. And false gods can't produce
the goods.
What we saw in New Orleans last week was the pathetic picture of
people whose expectations in a false god had been so enhanced
that when the false god stumbled for a day or two, some of his
worshippers flew into a rage. They'd been betrayed, they said.
Not only had their god failed to tend to their obvious physical
needs in prompt style; he had made them look weak and foolish in
the process.
Note this well: A people who cannot, even while in dire
distress, minister to the weakest and the dying among them; a
people who do not, even while waiting hungrily for help they
desperately need, respectfully and reverently take care of the
bodies of those who do die; such a people will be known to
history as frighteningly farther down the road to decadence than
most of us want to admit.
And then remember this: That such a people will in the days to
come develop a bigger and bigger appetite for gods who promise
them everything. And then they will show a lower and lower
tolerance for gods who do not perform.
The smug pretense—exhibited over the last few days by
politicians, by media writers and broadcasters, by religious
leaders, and by entertainers—claimed repeatedly that if
government had just been prepared, much of the horror left by
Hurricane Katrina might have been precluded. But the suggestion
is false on its face, for it is difficult to conceive of any
organization of human capacities that might have tended to the
needs of half a million people much better than what you've
watched since Aug. 30. News reports have suggested repeatedly
that even in the Third World, things would have gone faster than
they did in the Gulf states. Don't believe it. In the Third
World, hunger is perpetual. What you saw for a week or two was
painful, but exceptional. What you see so many other places is
chronic.
According to the Bible, deliberately shortchanging the poor, or
even carelessly ignoring their needs, is wicked behavior. But
raising false expectations is also a cruel game. And that
includes constantly dividing the people and feeding the illusion
that if we'd just had some other president, or some other
governor, or some other mayor, we could all be content. If
government can't make us all happy even when there isn't an
emergency, why should we make it our god when the next Katrina
comes blowing through?
Copyright
© 2005 WORLD Magazine
September 17, 2005, Vol. 20, No. 36
