aelf
Ashen One
"Wait, what?” you might ask. Isn't learned helplessness the domain of the left, of welfare queens, of people so dependent on government handouts that they can't seem to help themselves even when there are opportunities to do so (or, heck, why not create those opportunities, pulling yourself by the bootstraps and all, right? Why wait for businesses to hire when everyone can start their own business?)?
I've been reading debates on things like income inequality and mass shootings and there's one pattern I've noticed, which is that right-wingers never propose a solution in these debates except to offer the standard refrain of less government or public action (how that will help is rarely if ever explained, a lot of it seemingly based on purely ideological reasons - but we'll get to that).
Let me outline the pattern so you can see what I mean.
In the debate on income inequality, right-wingers like to say that income inequality doesn't matter if the poorer sections of society are better off in absolute terms. They maintain that this is the case because the economic pie is not finite but growing. So if your 10% share of the pie is bigger than your 20% share of the previous pie, then all is well.
But that's in theory. In reality, income needs to be looked at in conjunction with costs. Your smaller share of the pie is often smaller in absolute terms as well because it didn't grow by as much as you might've thought due to increased costs. Rising costs of crucial goods and services like health care and education is a big contributor to both income inequality and reduced economic well-being of those who are not among the economic elite. This is undeniable even to the right.
So is the solution then to help people cope with these cost pressures through measures like subsidies? No, they say, because increasing government spending has (they claim) never helped due to 'corruption' and inefficiency. And, of course, unions are baaad. So what's their solution? Deregulation, cutting taxes, cutting spending. How will that help? Well, increased competition because there will be more providers and, uh... So, basically, their position is that government can't do anything (beyond the very basics, because we still need military muscle to beat our enemies into submission), that the only solution is to consciously do even less and hope for the best. This is what I mean by learned helplessness.
In discussing mass shootings in the USA, right-wingers claim that gun control is not the solution. Their first line of defense is to argue that people can use other implements to kill other people, such as bombs and knives. Regarding, the recent shooting incident in the USA that killed 27 people, they bring up a similar incident in China with a knife that injured more than 20 people. The difference in outcomes between the two doesn't seem to be apparent to them (or is deliberately ignored). And all the statistics that I've seen point to the fact that the death rate in shooting incidents in the USA is higher than the death rates in bomb or knifing incidents in other developed countries.
This is an uncomfortable fact that is occasionally acknowledged by Second Amendment fanatics. But then they blame it on the proliferation of guns in the USA and on the culture of violence. On the proliferation of guns, they argue that it's impossible to do anything about it through regulation or any concerted government action, so the only thing you can do is to allow everyone to carry guns for self-defense and hope for the best. On solutions to the culture of violence, they say even fewer things of substance, advocating maybe that people attend church more or something along those lines. This is what I mean by learned helplessness.
So, basically, the right rarely has any solution except to let nature take its course (since the invisible hand of the market is, after all, treated like a natural law). I don't know about you, but this seems rather cynical. It denies that we as human beings can take collective action to solve problems that individuals can't seem or are unwilling to solve.
Do right-wingers know that this is what their positions on many things essentially amount to? Does this represent naive idealism or cynicism on their part?
Your thoughts, please.
I've been reading debates on things like income inequality and mass shootings and there's one pattern I've noticed, which is that right-wingers never propose a solution in these debates except to offer the standard refrain of less government or public action (how that will help is rarely if ever explained, a lot of it seemingly based on purely ideological reasons - but we'll get to that).
Let me outline the pattern so you can see what I mean.
In the debate on income inequality, right-wingers like to say that income inequality doesn't matter if the poorer sections of society are better off in absolute terms. They maintain that this is the case because the economic pie is not finite but growing. So if your 10% share of the pie is bigger than your 20% share of the previous pie, then all is well.
But that's in theory. In reality, income needs to be looked at in conjunction with costs. Your smaller share of the pie is often smaller in absolute terms as well because it didn't grow by as much as you might've thought due to increased costs. Rising costs of crucial goods and services like health care and education is a big contributor to both income inequality and reduced economic well-being of those who are not among the economic elite. This is undeniable even to the right.
So is the solution then to help people cope with these cost pressures through measures like subsidies? No, they say, because increasing government spending has (they claim) never helped due to 'corruption' and inefficiency. And, of course, unions are baaad. So what's their solution? Deregulation, cutting taxes, cutting spending. How will that help? Well, increased competition because there will be more providers and, uh... So, basically, their position is that government can't do anything (beyond the very basics, because we still need military muscle to beat our enemies into submission), that the only solution is to consciously do even less and hope for the best. This is what I mean by learned helplessness.
In discussing mass shootings in the USA, right-wingers claim that gun control is not the solution. Their first line of defense is to argue that people can use other implements to kill other people, such as bombs and knives. Regarding, the recent shooting incident in the USA that killed 27 people, they bring up a similar incident in China with a knife that injured more than 20 people. The difference in outcomes between the two doesn't seem to be apparent to them (or is deliberately ignored). And all the statistics that I've seen point to the fact that the death rate in shooting incidents in the USA is higher than the death rates in bomb or knifing incidents in other developed countries.
This is an uncomfortable fact that is occasionally acknowledged by Second Amendment fanatics. But then they blame it on the proliferation of guns in the USA and on the culture of violence. On the proliferation of guns, they argue that it's impossible to do anything about it through regulation or any concerted government action, so the only thing you can do is to allow everyone to carry guns for self-defense and hope for the best. On solutions to the culture of violence, they say even fewer things of substance, advocating maybe that people attend church more or something along those lines. This is what I mean by learned helplessness.
So, basically, the right rarely has any solution except to let nature take its course (since the invisible hand of the market is, after all, treated like a natural law). I don't know about you, but this seems rather cynical. It denies that we as human beings can take collective action to solve problems that individuals can't seem or are unwilling to solve.
Do right-wingers know that this is what their positions on many things essentially amount to? Does this represent naive idealism or cynicism on their part?
Your thoughts, please.
