People have this weird belief that if you're critical of a system or tradition, then it must be because you failed to live up to that system or tradition. The idea of having a principled stance, regardless of whether or not *you* personally benefit from society accepting that stance, is foreign to so many people. And this belief is really fucking important for and beneficial to the elites of this country. If you can get the masses to equate criticizing you and the institutions you control with abject personal failure, congratulations, you've just made yourself immune to accountability
"I don't know how to explain that you should care about others"
Altruism aside, one can do well at something while also recognizing that excelling comes at too great a cost. Success often comes at the cost of personal relationships and health, so it follows that many who attain success wind up feeling empty. Achieving success offers opportunity to conduct a sober evaluation of society’s promises of success versus the reality of success, and that evaluation often invites a closer look at the system and its promises. Inevitably, introspective folks will note that something is awry—that the sacrifices we are being asked to make don’t have to be prerequisites to success...that the system doesn’t need to maintain the status quo...that there has got to be a better way.
“maybe the concept is to distinguish the ones like you from the capable ones”
interesting that this concept doesnt sound fucked up to ken in the first place. could be a schools’ job to actually give people some fucking education. but nah, separating the wheat from the chaff it is. “distinguishing” people into groups of “worthy” and “useless”. wonder what that reminds me of.
I struggle a lot within a “standard” learning environment. I think it is important to also remember that our standardized education systems discriminate against neuroatypical people. It is not a system that effectively teaches everyone, AND show their “capabilities” or “intelligence(etc)”- despite that being their intention and purpose.
Just want to add on, even if she was bottom of her class or dropped out or anything, her point would be equally valid. “you can only critique a system that fails most people if you’re one of the few it doesn’t fail” is a bad take. Not in opposition to anyone in the comments, just didn’t notice anyone harrumphing about that and wanted to harrumph.
I think the other thing I've noticed is that there are some people who can't seem to grasp why you would speak out against a system that benefits you. Why you'd want to speak against an unfair system when it gave you the advantage, even if it's actively harming others.
I'm honestly interested in how you develop such a lack of empathy or compassion for other human beings.
Yeah! I remember seeing a quote by Russell Brand circulating a while back wherein he addressed how people tried to dismiss his criticisms about capitalism when he was poor, and then again when he was rich. When he was poor, people said he was just bitter, but when he was rich ppl felt he should just shut up and be happy.
With any systemic criticism, people seek to impose that double bind. If you aren’t on the receiving end of a given privilege, they proclaim you jealous, and when you are on the receiving end of a given privilege, they want you to silently enjoy it without shedding light or shaking things up. The reason why is some people fear having their privileges taken away...their ultimate goal is to hush all critics so they can go on enjoying privilege .
