I get to some extent where you are coming from. But there’s a reason we register cars and pay taxes for roads and stuff like that. (Yes the wealthy exploit this. And that is wrong. That needs to be fixed. But the concept of being part of a society is that we all contribute.)
Oh yeah, I definitely agree with you on this — the answer to “society is being harmed by selfish people who are exploiting the system while not contributing back” isn’t “I will give up on society and instead try to become one of the selfish people who see themselves as exempt from the social contract”. My comment was just explaining why, as well as scoffing at SovCits, I also grieve for them, for lack of a better word; As silly and arrogant as they often are, I pity and even somewhat sympathise with them.
Certainly there have been many times in my life where I have bought into a lie because it was easier than acknowledging that some awful injustices could be allowed to happen. In particular, in recent years I have been grappling with negative self talk that arose after a severely traumatic period in my life, where it was more palatable to convince myself that I deserved what happened to me than to acknowledge the truth that no-one deserves that, that it shouldn’t ever happen in a just world, and yet it did. Those lies are less public than the ones that SovCits fall for, but buy-in comes from a similar place, I feel.
I get to some extent where you are coming from. But there’s a reason we register cars and pay taxes for roads and stuff like that. (Yes the wealthy exploit this. And that is wrong. That needs to be fixed. But the concept of being part of a society is that we all contribute.)
Oh yeah, I definitely agree with you on this — the answer to “society is being harmed by selfish people who are exploiting the system while not contributing back” isn’t “I will give up on society and instead try to become one of the selfish people who see themselves as exempt from the social contract”. My comment was just explaining why, as well as scoffing at SovCits, I also grieve for them, for lack of a better word; As silly and arrogant as they often are, I pity and even somewhat sympathise with them.
Certainly there have been many times in my life where I have bought into a lie because it was easier than acknowledging that some awful injustices could be allowed to happen. In particular, in recent years I have been grappling with negative self talk that arose after a severely traumatic period in my life, where it was more palatable to convince myself that I deserved what happened to me than to acknowledge the truth that no-one deserves that, that it shouldn’t ever happen in a just world, and yet it did. Those lies are less public than the ones that SovCits fall for, but buy-in comes from a similar place, I feel.