The pernicious effects which arise from the unnatural distinctions in society

While we are finalizing a posting schedule and giving volunteers time to put their words in order, we are taking the opportunity to introduce posts from some distinguished guests whose thoughts deserve to be remembered, and discussed.

First up:  Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 - 1797)

From the respect paid to property flow, as from a poisoned fountain, most of the evils and vices which render this world such a dreary scene to the contemplative mind. For it is in the most polished society that noisome reptiles and venomous serpents lurk under the rank herbage; and there is voluptuousness pampered by the still sultry air, which relaxes every good disposition before it ripens into virtue.

One class presses on another; for all are aiming to procure respect on account of their property: and property, once gained, will procure the respect due only to talents and virtue. Men neglect the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like demigods, religion is also separated from morality by a ceremonial veil, yet men wonder that the world is almost literally speaking, a den of sharpers or oppressors.

There is a homely proverb, which speaks a shrewd truth, that whoever the devil finds idle he will employ. And what but habitual idleness can hereditary wealth and titles produce? For man is so constituted that he can only attain a proper use of his faculties by exercising them, and will not exercise them unless necessity, of some kind, first set the wheels in motion Virtue likewise can only be acquired by the discharge of relative duties; but the importance of these sacred duties will scarcely be felt by the being who is cajoled out of his humanity by the flattery of sycophants. There must be more equality established in society, or morality will never gain ground, and this virtuous equality will not rest firmly even when founded on a rock, if one half of mankind be chained to its bottom by fate, for they will be continually undermining it through ignorance or pride.

....

I mean, therefore, to infer that the society is not properly organized which does not compel men and women to discharge their respective duties, by making it the only way to acquire that countenance from their fellow- creatures, which every human being wishes some way to attain. The respect, consequently, which is paid to wealth and mere personal charms, is a true north-east blast, that blights the tender blossoms of affection and virtue. Nature has wisely attached affections to duties, to sweeten toil, and to give that vigour to the exertions of reason which only the heart can give. But, the affection which is put on merely because it is the appropriated insignia of a certain character, when its duties are not fulfilled, is one of the empty compliments which vice and folly are obliged to pay to virtue and the real nature of things.*  **

 

________________________________________________________

* Excerpted from Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (London: J. Johnson, 1792), CHAPTER IX: of the pernicious effects which arise from the unnatural distinctions established in society. 

** This edition is in the public domain. The spelling and grammar have been left unaltered from the original publication.

 

 The Board Administration Team

(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)

Comments

[Ruth (formerly alfgifu) (now alfgifu again over at the other place)]

Hah. I just came here from Robert Peston's blog post (at the BBC, here) where he talks about the bonuses paid to managers at the Royal Bank of Scotland (now largely owned by UK taxpayers). I was hoping there'd be something to cheer me up!

Back in Mary Wollstonecraft's day the idle rich were no doubt more idle than the 'key staff' who are taking away several million pounds in bonuses, but the same theme of vast rewards and respect totally out of proportion to the nature of their daily lives holds true.

Two generations ago half my ancestors were idle rich. My own mother consciously married out of her class because she believed that its day was over. She was right, in a way - many of the smaller old monied families were taken apart by high taxes on inheritance and income over the past half century, and most of the others only managed to hang on by their fingernails, - but there's a new monied group nowadays and they're every bit as pernicious as the old lot were. They don't even have the advantage of pride in a commitment to a local area, which tended to encourage charity/patronage back in the day (note: not saying that this was ideal, just that it was harder for the really wealthy families in the UK to insulate themselves entirely from ordinary mortals the way that the super rich can these days).

[Hyp]

It's a great quote.

Too bad the current elites of USA forgot they're responsible not only for their own wealth...

[Albanaeon]

It never ceases to amaze me when certain people espouse a "new" idea of just letting people acquire as much wealth as they can. They never seem to realize that the idea has been tried before and found lacking. You could almost say that the idea of concentrating the wealth and power in the very few has been a defining fact of history. Of course, I would guess that most envision themselves as the Pharoahs, the Lords, or the Robber Barons, of history if only the "burdens" of the lesser people around them were lifted. That they are far more likely to be the slaves, serfs, or workers seems to elude them. Or they already are the social equivalents of them today and would very much like to NOT give them any more power, thank you very much. But nope. We keep having to fight the same old battle over and over again.

[Dav]

I am not a fan of concentrated wealth, but I don't think the root evil is idleness. Learning to be idle has brought about some of the most positive developments in my life; the ability to be idle is indeed a kind of luxury, but one that everyone should have. Idleness without structure or expectation *can* lead to the sort of shenanigans that *some* very wealthy young people get up to*, but it can also give you the space to do things that are truly helpful.

I strongly suspect that Americans are extra panicky about perceptions of idleness and laziness because of some lingering Puritan ethic, where we feel like we have to demonstrate our awesomeness. It can lead to some incredibly self-destructive behaviors; one of my co-workers came back from H1N1 early because he didn't want to be idle, and managed to start a wave of illness that spread like wildfire.

There's certainly harmful idleness, but it's not intrinsically good anymore than working is intrinsically good; it's a balance, and people need both. (Actually, I'm completely convinced I don't need "working" in the job sense - but some sort of active endeavor. The thing about idleness is that it can lead to active endeavors that usually don't count as work but can contribute tremendously to the individual and/or common good.)

*All of my evidence of such young people is gained from insightful shows like Gossip Girl.

[Literata]

Dav, I read Wollstonecraft's argument as the other way around: that concentrated wealth and the respect paid to it are the root evil, and idleness is the result, with the final situation where people have respect who have done nothing to deserve it.

I wonder what she would make of the alternate proposal: that instead of making respect a hard-won commodity, we made respect common, even universal. You're respected whether or not you make a million dollars and drive a cool car. Even the homeless, the hungry, the poor, the uneducated are respected. That is the way I've seen society trying to go, what with more talk about rights and whatnot. Would she have seen that as congruent with "more equality established in society," or would she argue that unearned respect would produce idleness in rich and poor alike?

[wendy, last of the Eisenhower republicans]

I'm paraphrasing here, and can't remember where I gakked it from -- maybe somebody with stronger google-fu can track down the source:

"Money is like water; strong societies are built when it's kept moving. Where it's allowed to stagnate, nothing healthy will result."

[Kit Whitfield]

I wonder what she would make of the alternate proposal: that instead of making respect a hard-won commodity, we made respect common, even universal. You're respected whether or not you make a million dollars and drive a cool car. Even the homeless, the hungry, the poor, the uneducated are respected.

I think there are two different kinds of respect potentially at play here.

The first is the respect owed to someone just for being a person. You respect their right to self-determination and their need for a place in society, their right to think and feel independently and their need for connection with others. You don't dehumanise them, you don't 'other' them, you treat them with decency and, well, respect.

The second is personal respect. You believe someone to have qualities that are meritorious, you think highly of them as an individual. That kind of respect is unlikely to be an evenly distributed resource, because everyone has a scale of values and will consider some people to have more merit than others.

You can do the one without the other. It's easier to do both together because if you don't have the second the first can slip, but you can think someone's a total clot with no virtues and still think they should be treated with basic respect.

I think Wollstonecraft's point may be that people are inclined to give an extra helping of the second kind of respect to people because they have money, as if having money was meritorious in itself.

[Jarred]

@Literata: I wonder what she would make of the alternate proposal: that instead of making respect a hard-won commodity, we made respect common, even universal. You're respected whether or not you make a million dollars and drive a cool car. Even the homeless, the hungry, the poor, the uneducated are respected. That is the way I've seen society trying to go, what with more talk about rights and whatnot. Would she have seen that as congruent with "more equality established in society," or would she argue that unearned respect would produce idleness in rich and poor alike?

This is one of those tricky areas where I think the word "respect" is meaning two different things.

I respect (or try to) all people as deserving of basic human dignity and having worth.

However, I also respect notable accomplishments that some people have achieved that I consider admirable for some reason. I admire scientists who make incredible discoveries and people who go not only the extra mile, but around the world (sometimes literally) in the name of humanitarian aid. These people are doing incredible things, and I think that deserves recognition and respect.

I think the problem comes when we confuse the two, when we start assuming that one's basic human dignity and worth are predicated on accomplishment. That's when we start to value those of great accomplishment more than we do others, and end up denying the humanity of some of those others.

[Literata]

Kit and Jarred, I agree with you. I think that the confusion of the two kinds of respect is a problem with a lot of "But they haven't earned it!" whining that people use to justify slashing social safety nets.

[Kit Whitfield]

*waves at Jarred*

Great minds think alike, you reckon? :-)

[Jarred]

@Kit Whitfield: Great minds think alike, you reckon? :-)

If you think my mind is on par with yours, I can only say that I'm honored. ;)

[Kit Whitfield]

*blushes*

[anamardoll]

>> I don't think the root evil is idleness. Learning to be idle has brought about some of the most positive developments in my life; the ability to be idle is indeed a kind of luxury, but one that everyone should have.

I agree with this (although, as Literata pointed out, it's probably not in conflict with the text). I was raised by very "Puritan-minded" parents who drilled into me that idleness = lazy = bad, and it's taken a HUGE chunk of my life to understand that downtime is permissible and healthy and necessary.

Plus, I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, so downtime is also REQUIRED. And yet, it's still hard for me to not be "doing" something or "accomplishing" something. Funny thing is, I've talked with Mom about this, and she's frustrated because that wasn't what she was trying to convey at all to me as a child. :)

[Dav]

I'm having trouble reading "There is a homely proverb, which speaks a shrewd truth, that whoever the devil finds idle he will employ. And what but habitual idleness can hereditary wealth and titles produce? For man is so constituted that he can only attain a proper use of his faculties by exercising them, and will not exercise them unless necessity, of some kind, first set the wheels in motion" as anything but an outright condemnation of idleness; would someone explain what I might be missing?

[Froborr]

@Dav: I see the condemnation of idleness as well, but it is portraying it as a negative symptom of wealth, which would make wealth the *root* evil.

[Literata]

Oh, I should have said that I agree with Dav and anamardoll about the necessity of downtime. My disability makes it an absolute necessity for me too, and that was something I struggled with for a long time too.

[Mmy]

At the tine Wollstonecraft was writing there was a really strong equation between idleness and the possibility of evil. The rich seldom saw themselves as being idle for they considered the things with which they filled their time (writing letters, visiting, needlework) to be valuable. There was a great disapproval of the not-wealthy being idle although one wonders exactly a poor person was to do without heating, lighting and even a roof over their head. The poor who went to work houses were often forced to do repetitive "work" which produced nothing except exhaustion.

It is amazing how clear the class distinctions were in attitudes about idleness. Rich women were seen as fragile and in need of much rest and middle class women (as much as the middle class even existed) were condemned if they weren't busy about their homes and working class women were considered sinful if they didn't work and unfeminine if they did.

[storiteller]

I think Wollstonecraft's point may be that people are inclined to give an extra helping of the second kind of respect to people because they have money, as if having money was meritorious in itself.

Rather like how Donald Trump just recently said, "Part of the beauty of me is that I'm very rich." Ugh. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/03/17/trump-on-2012-part-of-beauty-of-me-is-im-very-rich/ Just what we need, his millions mucking up the next U.S. presidential election.

[Skyknight]

I think the key word here is "habitual". The rich idleness in question was essentially impelled for them; titles and wealth were supposed to "free" you from laboring, and doing anything akin to laboring...perhaps it was seen as a monstrous slight against your title, and so your ancestors? Unfortunately, this tacit decree of idleness as a way of life, rather than occasional or even catalytic to work, stultified the nobility's willingness to do their part on behalf of commoners. If you're (even unofficially) forbidden to labor, it makes it rather difficult to empathize with those who MUST labor, since it tends to imply their innate unworthiness/inferiority/etc.

[Jamoche]

For man is so constituted that he can only attain a proper use of his faculties by exercising them, and will not exercise them unless necessity, of some kind, first set the wheels in motion

I know a lot of creative people who would disagree.

[thebewilderness]

There must be more equality established in society, or morality will never gain ground, and this virtuous equality will not rest firmly even when founded on a rock, if one half of mankind be chained to its bottom by fate, for they will be continually undermining it through ignorance or pride.

Half the population was by law the property of the other half of the population at the time of this writing.

"In English and American law, coverture refers to women's legal status after marriage: legally, upon marriage, the husband and wife were treated as one entity. In essence, the wife's separate legal existence disappeared as far as property rights were concerned."

[CZEdwards]

I've been mulling over this for several hours, noting down a line (or paragraph) as they came, and I just keep coming back to Jane Austen. Which is not entirely surprising -- JA and MW were near-contemporaries and social peers; they have similar economic and social backgrounds, and both witnessed massive economic and political turmoil that ultimately influenced why and what they wrote. JA was a particularist, while MW was more universalist in focus, but they both talked mostly about women, class and money.

The line above about hereditary wealth producing nothing more than habitual idleness and moral ineptitude? That describes most of the men in P&P and S&S. No matter what is *said* about the men and the heroines' reported perceptions, what is *shown* about them isn't flattering. (I'm playing with the idea of the S&S and P&P narrators being unreliable -- I noticed that on my last trip through S&S. All of the tells about Edward Ferrars extolled his virtues, but the shows? They're kinda... absent. Not so of Captain Brandon -- his shows are flattering.)

The other sticky point in my brain that this keeps catching on are the shameful similarities between contemporary USian economics and Georgian economics. Unsustainable wars chewing through GDP like tortilla chips? Check. Multiple investment bubbles, corporate sweetheart deals and government bailouts? Check. Globalization destroying local economies all along the supply chain? Check. Economic structures that encourage sub-subsistence wages and reliance on local social safety nets? Check. A culture in which poverty is a greater sin than viciousness?... Um... check? We don't have workhouses or debtor's prisons, but our "outdoor poor relief" is no more sufficient than the Speenhamland system, and given how punishing bankruptcy judgements can be, debtor's prison doesn't feel very far off. (Given our current bankruptcy laws, where credit card debt outranks child support, have we turned debtor's prison into house arrest?)

Well... at least I'm not property? (Except for my uterus, which is apparently the property of my highly improbable child...)

[Nick Kiddle]

//"For man is so constituted that he can only attain a proper use of his faculties by exercising them, and will not exercise them unless necessity, of some kind, first set the wheels in motion"

I know a lot of creative people who would disagree.//

It does depend how you read "of some kind". There's no economic or other external compulsion on me to write, but that doesn't mean I don't have a powerful internal compulsion to get my thoughts down in words. I don't know whether she intended "of some kind" to cover that, but it's possible to read it that way.

[Izzy]

Yeah, I read it as more "if you don't have something you're passionate about doing, life is gonna suck for you and everyone who has to deal with you". Or at least that's how I interpret it with any relevance re: modern life. That can be writing, painting, visiting friends, cooking dinners, or whatever, but I think everyone needs some kind of independent interest.

Came up in another way during a discussion of romance novel heroines elseboard: one of the things I absolutely need in a heroine is interests/goals/a life that have nothing to do with a man.

And now, perhaps ironically, I must dash to go to work!

[Amaryllis]

And I am also supposed to be working.

@CSHolocene, on Jane Austen:

You could not shock her more than she shocks me;
Besides her Joyce seems innocent as grass.
It makes me uncomfortable to see
An English spinster of the middle class
Describe the amorous effects of `brass',
Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety
The economic basis of society.

- W. H. Auden, from "Letter to Lord Byron"

[Kit Whitfield]

And since we're sharing quotes about Jane Austen:

Jane Austen is to me the greatest wonder among novel writers. I do not mean that she is the greatest novel writer, but she seems to me the greatest wonder. Imagine, if you were to instruct an author or an authoress to write a novel under the limitations within which Jane Austen writes!

Suppose you were to say, "Now you must write a novel, but you must have no heroes or heroines in the accepted sense of the word. You may have naval officers, but they must always be on leave or on land, never on active service. You must have no striking villains; you may have a mild rake, but keep him well in the background, and if you are really going to produce something detestable, it must be so because of its small meannesses, as, for instance, the detestable Aunt Norris in 'Mansfield Park'; you must have no very exciting plots; you must have no thrilling adventures; a sprained ankle on a country walk is allowable, but you must no go much beyond this. You must have no moving descriptions of scenery; you must work without the help of all these; and as to passion, there must be none of it. You may, of course, have love, but it must be so carefully handled that it very often seems to get little above the temperature of liking. With all these limitations you are to write, not only one novel, but several, which, not merely by popular appreciation, but by the common consent of the greatest critics shall be classed amongst the first rank of the novels written in your language in your country."

- Lord Grey of Falloden - The Falloden Papers

[Mmy]

@The Falloden Papers: you must have no very exciting plots; you must have no thrilling adventures;

Of course Austen was writing about what was probably the most exciting, dangerous thing for a woman of her time and class--and that was the scary adventure of finding a husband. And finding a husband was not simply a matter of lust and love it was about not being beaten, not being betrayed, not being left without enough money, not being cast out from the society in which you were born.

A woman basically had to live where her husband bade her. She had limited rights to sign contracts and limited control of her money. She had no legal recourse if her husband was a drunk or a bankrupt. Marriage was hard to escape and could open the door to years of privation and hardship.

[Roland]

Oh I don't know about Edward Ferrars not showing his heroism in S&S (spoilers follow)

He sticks to his engagement with Lucy because it's the right thing to do - she would never be able to afford to sue him for breach of promise if he withdrew so he would suffer no ill consequences that way; and he is effectively disinherited for doing so. Although he doesn't rescue Elinor or do any such romantic thing, it's the sureness of his principles she loves - I don't think she would have married him if he had left Lucy dishonourably. So it's a wonderful Austenian irony that the very thing which shows his heroism is the thing that keeps him away from the woman he loves. I think that's a real tragedy and although everything ends happily the darkness of that situation colours the book for me.

And on the more general subject of Jane Austen - for me her characters are the closest thing to real people I've read in any writer. I love everything she wrote - even the juvenilia are in their own way perfect. Every time I read any of her novels I feel I know more about the world than I did before, even though I've read them hundreds of times. Just wow!

[Kit Whitfield]

Oh, I find Austen extremely exciting to read.

Carol Shields points out in her excellent biography of Jane Austen that marriage wasn't just a financial protection for women: it was the only time in her life that a woman could make a public avowal of any kind. Saying "I do" was saying "I am, I exist."

So yes, I think the plots are exciting. They take place on a very local, naturalistic and interpersonal scale, though, which is presumably what he means.

Which is your favourite? I love Pride and Prejudice, but somehow I always end up rereading Emma and Mansfield Park, particularly Emma. I'm rereading it at the moment and having a marvellous time.

You might know this: the critical view that Mansfield Park is founded on slavery (was it Edward Said's?) seems to have seeped into popular culture now, or at least I've seen it crop up in TV adaptations. I've heard it argued otherwise - J.A. Sutherland argues in Is Heathcliff A Murderer? that Fanny Price's religion has a strong evangelical, Clapham Sect flavour to it, which would make her an abolitionist (and it's hard to imagine her being so bold as to ask an abolitionist question of a slave-holding uncle). But have critics brought up Emma as a counter-example? It's fairly strongly hinted that Mrs Elton's wealth is at least partly founded on the slave trade, and she's a character entirely without virtue. (Except that she's brilliantly comic, that is.)

[Roland]

I don't know what my favourite Austen novel is. Every time I re-read one it becomes my favourite. I think Northanger Abbey is less profound than the others, having been brought to its finished state first - but then the humour is so barbed! And Persuasion is kind of unfinished and so some of the hinted-at developments are never brought to fruition - but the meditation on quiet loneliness is very deep, more so than in the other finished novels I think. S&S is glorious but perhaps a little broken-backed, not perfect in form. Which leaves Emma, P&P and Mansfield Park. While I love Emma, it doesn't quite speak to me as the other two do. So for me it's a tie between P&P and Mansfield Park, the one because it is so absolutely pitch-perfect, sparkling and beautifully constructed, the other because however much I sigh to myself about Fanny Price's apparent weakness at the beginning of the book, by a couple of chapters in I am mesmerised and by the end it's her strength that makes me sigh. For me it's the novel of Austen's with the longest reach - the clash of the worlds of the Bertrams and the Crawfords mirroring the encroaching of modernity on apparently ancient ways of life. It's so wonderful that Mary Crawford, whose faults we can so easily recognise and who in the end is a real villainess, is one of the most likeable and certainly the wittiest person in the book. Nothing is ever black and white in Austen.

I think the slave economy side in Emma is hinted at and nothing more - I feel it doesn't merit the long arguments I've sometimes seen devoted to it. It adds another colour to the sheen of Mrs Elton's awfulness, but I think that's all. I think the critics are on slightly surer ground in Mansfield Park, but I think the point forms part of a larger issue about where Sir Thomas's wealth is from - which is why I call his way of life "apparently ancient". Though we seemingly see Fanny and Edmund at the end as the quietly victorious representatives of the old order, actually the ground beneath their feet is not as firm as we might like to believe, as the fortune which has enabled his family to give him a living derives at least in part from decidedly un-ancient agriculture in Antigua. I think of Fanny on the abolitionist side too - though there is no specific evidence in the book either way as I recall. That's a more modern position than I imagine Henry Crawford taking, for example.

[Ravanan]

@CSHolocene Re: Debtor's Prison
http://www.walletpop.com/2010/07/15/americas-new-debtor-prison-jail-time-being-given-to-those-who/
http://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights-racial-justice/aclu-and-brennan-center-reports-expose-resurgence-debtors-prisons

It's more likely than you think.

[Thalia]

OOOoooooh, Austen. I'd really love to contribute. I'm in the Wry Jane school (if I can coin a phrase), but i have to work. A lot. More. Now. Bye. :(

[hapax]

Favorite Austen? Isn't that like asking my favorite flavor of oxygen?

Ah, I guess a tie between the melancholy poignancy of PERSUASION (it seems to me to be her most intimate and personal novel) and daring of having the heroine of EMMA, for all her sparkle and charm, being so fundamentally shallow and unlikeable.

Which circles us back to the evil of enforced idleness.

[Kit Whitfield]

It's funny, somehow I could never get into Persuasion. Lots of people whose opinions I respect love it, but it just didn't click for me. Each time I tried it, it felt almost like reading a novel by someone who was skilled at pastiching Jane Austen rather than by Jane Austen herself. It's a shame, because I'd love to have another Austen novel to reread at intervals, but for some reason I just don't get on with it. Wonder why?

[Mmy]

@Kit Whitfield: It's funny, somehow I could never get into Persuasion.

When I first read Persuasion it liked it but I didn't love it. With each year I age I love the book a little more. I just recently reread it again (in the new annotated edition) and was transfixed by it.

But that is definitely a YMMV matter--I can certainly see why someone might not click with it.

[renniejoy]

It is amazing how clear the class distinctions were in attitudes about idleness. Rich women were seen as fragile and in need of much rest and middle class women (as much as the middle class even existed) were condemned if they weren't busy about their homes and working class women were considered sinful if they didn't work and unfeminine if they did.

I think this ties in with one of my "favorite" lines of "family values" BS. *hawk, spit*

Day care is eeeevil and all mothers must be at home to raise their children.
Unless they are poor, in which case, why don't you have a job or two, woman!?! And our taxes (my money) are more important than you and your children, lazy slut!*

*Not at all what I actually think.

[Mmy]

@Kit Whitfield: it felt almost like reading a novel by someone who was skilled at pastiching Jane Austen rather than by Jane Austen herself

I wonder if the fact that Austen didn't have a chance to edit it as much as usual and was probably conscious of the fact that she might not be able to write another book has anything to do with that overall feeling?

[Kit Whitfield]

I can certainly see why someone might not click with it.

Out of interest, what would you say you see in it that might be unclicky?

[The Board Administration Team]

The first guest (probably The) Slacktiverse article has been posted.

[CZEdwards]

@Ravanan: (redacted for long, crude stream of NSFW sputtering.) I am without words.

No, actually, I'm not. WTF is WRONG with us? We've done this before. Plutocracy. Does. Not. Work. It fails mightily, and when it does, we're lucky if it means merely a decade or so of blood and chaos. When we're not lucky, it's war and genocide and generations of the Long Night of Knives.

Also, I am getting very, very tired of the historian's curse.

[Jamoche]

I'm rewatching Babylon 5 and re-reading the Lurker's Guide commentary from JMS. Kind of sobering to see him respond to people making comments along the lines of "something like the Nightwatch isn't believable. That could never happen again, we've learned our lesson" in days when the Tea Party is spewing the same kind of rhetoric.

And then there are things like this:

Minnesota Republicans are pushing legislation that would make it a crime for people on public assistance to have more $20 in cash in their pockets any given month. This represents a change from their initial proposal, which banned them from having any money at all.

Earthgov ("Earth has no homeless people or poverty problem! Really! Don't ask what happened to them.") would love that one too.

[theKatriarch]

But... but how does that... what?

So, according to Republicans, being permanently dependent on "government handouts" is pretty much the Worst Thing A Person Can Do. So we should prevent people on public assistance from earning or saving any money, even trivial amounts, thus guaranteeing... permanent dependence on government handouts?

WHAT.

[Jamoche]

We must have 100% control over what they're allowed to spend the pittance we give them on - why, they might forget their place and spend it on something nice!

[Andrew Glasgow]

I'm not convinced that PZ Myers is correctly characterizing the bill. It appears to prevent those on assistance from withdrawing more than $20 in cash from the EBT account, but I can see nothing that would prevent them from making more than $20 in cash from other sources of income. It's still a bad idea -- how would they be able to pay for rent, bills, or other necessities supplied by providers that do not use EBT terminals for purchases? I'm pretty sure you can't use an EBT card to purchase a money order from Walmart or pay your utility bill at a check-cashing store. However, it doesn't appear to do what PZ is suggesting that it does, i.e. criminalizing the carrying of cash by those who receive welfare.

However, like someone in the Pharyngula thread said (Rot13 for possible triggers):

"Bxnl, ng yrnfg vg'f abg GUNG onq. Ohg'f gung yvxr fnlvat orvat encrq vf abg nf onq nf orvat encrq NAQ fbqbzvmrq."

[Andrew Glasgow]

OK, it looks like part of his post was apparently satire. The 'not allowed to have more than $20' was being emphasized as a condition of if the welfare was their only income. (Of course, if you make other money, your assistance is supposed to be reduced by the same amount you made, giving you no way to work your way out of abject poverty unless you cheat.)

[kisekileia]

@Andrew Glasgow: That doesn't make it much better. People on welfare still need to be able to spend more than $20 at a time.

Wollstonecraft's ideas about respect for property contrast interestingly with libertarianism, wherein the right to property supersedes all other rights. She's stating that a person's property shouldn't determine whether they're seen as having value; that is, that property should be less socially important. But viewing the right to property as supreme seems to go along with the view that one's property determines one's value. It only makes sense to treat the right to property as supreme if having property is a large part of what gives oneself or one's life value.

[kisekileia]

What's standard Slacktivist etiquette for bringing up something that's off-topic? I found something that really disturbed me that I want to talk about here, but it doesn't really fit in with any of the current threads.

[Raj]

@kisekileia:

The "standard Slacktivist etiquette for bringing up something that's off-topic" is to plunge right in with it. If it's discussion-worthy, we will fall upon it like a school of piranhas. OTness happens all the time here.

[kisekileia]

@Raj: Awesome.

In that case, I saw something in a Christian community I'm part of on LiveJournal that freaked me out. I wondered what people's thoughts on it are. (Rot13ed for religious triggers.)

Gur cbfg jnf ol fbzrbar jub ybirf gur irefr Yhxr 8:48: 'Gura [Wrfhf] fnvq gb ure, "Qnhtugre, lbhe snvgu unf urnyrq lbh. Tb va crnpr."' Mvr yvxrf guvf irefr orpnhfr jura mve fvfgre qvrq, "orvat noyr gb cynpr gung irefr va ure pbssva jvgu ure jnf n jnl sbe zr gb erzvaq hf gung [fur] unq orra urnyrq va gur jnlf gung znggref." (Qverpg dhbgr sebz gur cbfg.)

I replied with, "...V jnf ernyyl qrongvat jurgure be abg gb cbfg guvf, ohg: Ubj pna lbh fnl gung fur jnf "urnyrq va gur jnlf gung znggre" jura fur qvrq? Gung frrzf pybfre gb qravny guna snvgu gb zr."

I just...ugh. THAT was triggering--not to the point of making me cry, but pretty much every muscle in my body is tense right now. That's just...that's not healthy faith, I don't think. It looks to me more like a refusal to wrestle with the difficult questions brought up by the fact that God (at least usually) doesn't heal people in the real world as is done in the Bible. It freaked me out. I hope my response wasn't too insensitive--the post was in a Christian community, and was asking about people's favourite Bible verses, after all.

[Mmy]

@kisekileia: What's standard Slacktivist etiquette for bringing up something that's off-topic

What Raj said.

Sometimes we remember to put OT on the top of the post and sometimes not.

But if something has really disturbed you, go ahead and post.

[kisekileia]

"Real world" meaning contemporary world. I'm willing to tentatively accept the Biblical miracles--I just don't think they really happen much anymore.

[Mmy]

@kisekileia: Well, I don't have the same triggers as might the people on that list since I am a 'comfortable atheist.' (BTW, that is a new definition I have developed to refer to people like me.)

By 'comfortable' I mean that I did not become an atheist out of anger and I am not tortured by my 'loss of faith.'

So, back to your question. While at my mother's deathbed last year I did find exactly that kind of verse (the one that you took exception to) to be very stressful/upsetting/not comforting.

a) It implied that my mother had required some spiritual healing. Since my mother had a serene and confident faith* and since she had lived, in the religious sense, a good life -- neither she nor any other religious member of my family needed assurance that god would be able to 'fix' or 'heal' her spiritually.

b) It got so wrong what was actually distressing her family. My father had no fears for my mother's spiritual health (my father is as sure that my mother is in heaven as he is sure that the sun will rise in the east.) His distress was over her pain and suffering. My mother's children are all atheists. Our distress arose from our knowledge that we would never be together with her again. We obviously had no fears about what would happen "afterwards."

c) It is actually nightmare fuel for me and some of my family. To reassure me that in the afterlife my mother would no longer be wracked with physical pain and no longer in fear of creeping dementia -- that is comforting. Telling me she would be "spiritually healed" seemed to imply that her basic nature would be rewritten. It was like saying "cheer up, in heaven your mother will be brainwiped and her personality will be reconstituted." Tell me again why that should be comforting.

*Have you ever seen a mother cat curled around her kittens so they are sleeping in a cocoon of safety? My mother's relationship with her god was like the kitten's relationship with the mother cat.

[Ross]

Minnesota Republicans are pushing legislation that would make it a crime for people on public assistance to have more $20 in cash in their pockets any given month. This represents a change from their initial proposal, which banned them from having any money at all.

Turns out that this is a mischaracterization. The whole text of the bill is here: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H0171.1.html&session=ls87

All it seems to say is that you can only get $20 a month off of the card in cash.

Still kind of an asshole thing to do, but radically mischaracterizing their position is the sort of shit that their side pulls.

[Mmy]

@Ross: All it seems to say is that you can only get $20 a month off of the card in cash.

Not only does any mischaracterization play into their hands but it also distracts from what seems to be one of their actual goals -- which is to oversee and control every aspect of the life of anyone on public assistance. By moving to debit cards and limiting how much cash can be withdrawn the government/agencies will have a record of every single thing each individual buys.

This will be followed almost immediately by people arguing that public assistance is "too generous" and "prove it" by compiling lists of everything from "how much toilet paper" each person used [yes, I have actually seen that done] to "how much money they wasted on books" and "do you want your taxes to go to pay for someone else's cat?"

You know those people who would like to deny the poor access to cell phones? They are going to be hunting people down for getting a hamburger, going to a movie, buying a book, using the tv set they bought before they lost their jobs, using too many light bulbs, having their houses "too hot" or "too cold" and going through too many clothes in a year.

[Mmy]

I meant to add this to my original comment to Ross.

It looks more and more in the United States that privacy is class/money based privilege.

If you are wealthy you live in a gated community and can purchase privacy.

If you are not-wealthy you live in a town which has laid off police and firefighters and your privacy is protected only by poorly enforced government regulations. See articles about how IRS audits might be used to 'ferret out' whether the federally underwritten health benefits were spent on an abortion due to rape. If a woman was not able to prove to an IRS agent that her abortion was "allowed" then the medical deduction would be disallowed.

If you are poor you live in a poorly policed, poorly serviced community with almost no access to mass transit or groceries stores. As to privacy? Welcome to the panopticon.

[Amaryllis]

I'm going to try not to be too graceless here, I don't mean to minimize your perfectly understandable reactions. "All the ways that matter" is kind of sweeping: it implies that what happens to us in this life, what we feel here and now, isn't important. And it is.

But I can understand how that verse can be comforting. Mark's gospel has that line as "Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." If there is a heaven ( a subject on which I'm agnostic) I'd like to think that my grandmother is there (whatever "there" means), healed of the Alzheimer's disease that ate her mind. And my mother-in-law is there, freed of the Parkinson's Disease that made the last years of her life a misery to her. And my father, without the diabetes and the weak heart and the depression. And maybe even me, someday, without the various ills that are creeping up on me.

I guess I don't interpret "your faith has saved you" as "you needed to be spiritually healed," that there's something fundamentally wrong with you that only God can fix, like a programmer rewriting buggy code. For me, it's more like, "be comforted in your faith, for all will be well."

If, on the other hand, the verse is used to imply that anyone who is not healed in this life just didn't have enough faith, just didn't believe enough, just didn't have the right kind of faithh or say the right words or mean them in the right way, and there's just something wrong with them, and being healed in heaven is the consolation prize...well, that leads to rage, all right.

Though that's a tendency not limited to the religious types.

Poetry warning (I know I've been quoting again lately, feel free to skip) --

Here's Mark Doty on "positive thinking," written after his partner was diagnosed with AIDS:

I know the current wisdom:
bright hope, the power of wishing you're well.
He's just so tired, though nothing

shows in any tests, Nothing,
the doctor says, detectable;
the doctor doesn't hear what I do,

that trickling, steadily rising nothing
that makes him sleep all day,
vanish into fever's tranced afternoons,

and I swear sometimes
when I put my head to his chest
I can hear the virus humming

like a refrigerator.
Which is what makes me think
you can take your positive attitude

and go straight to hell.
We don't have a future,
we have a dog.

from "Atlantis"

[Ross]

You know, this minnesota thin greminds me of the anecdote I told some itme back about a thread on the amazon.com discussion boards. SOmeone was up in arms and very upset because they'd switched from food stamps to a food stamp debit card, and he was Deeply Concerned (tm) that a poor person might be able to use this card to pay for food without the people around him in line knowing that he was using food stamps -- without the public shaming of havign everyone see that you're on public assistance, he reasoned, no one would have an incentive to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

[hapax]

@kisekileia -- I don't want to downplay your reaction. And I certainly think that people who try to comfort OTHERS with THEIR OWN (possibly antithetical) spiritual beliefs -- such as mmy described -- are are being callous and insensitive.

(Lord have mercy, there is nothing like confronting grief to make ostensibly well=meaning people say the stupidest and cruellest things!)

But when people describing the comfort that they themselves derive from their religion, I'd argue that's a whole different situation. And I don't think "healed in all the ways that matters" implies what you think it does, at least to most Christians.

After all, Christianity (unless you stick to some sort of weird Rapture-theology) doesn't promise to cure death. We're all still going to die. And it doesn't promise to eliminate suffering, and pain, and humiliation.

All it promises is that Death and Suffering don't get the last word; that "Death and Hades will be thrown into the lake of fire" at the end.

I don't know what that means. I'm comfortable not knowing what that means. I don't think that's "denial", any more than not being able to precisely map out the thermochemical reactions that power my car means that I'm in denial every time I turn the key and trust the thing to move.

So "your faith has made you well" doesn't translate to me as "because of your intellectual assent to the propositions of Christianity, you will spiritually re-written after your physical death, rendering the latter moot."

To me, it translates as something more like, "Your trust that [as Julian of Norwich wrote] in God's own time and manner 'all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well' will not be betrayed; so you may be at peace. Act in the Now as you trust things shall be Then."

Does that make things a little less repellent for you?

[Jamoche]

By moving to debit cards and limiting how much cash can be withdrawn the government/agencies will have a record of every single thing each individual buys.

That's the point most of the commenters I saw took from it, regardless of whether it was an actual crime or not. And limiting the withdrawals to $20 a month is even worse than limiting the amount of cash they can have at any given time; $20 won't even fill up a gas tank.

[Mmy]

@Jamoche: $20 won't even fill up a gas tank

And since most charity/thrift stores won't take anything but cash it will prevent people on public assistance from shopping at the best places to get real bargains.

[Amaryllis]

And once again hapax says what I meant to say.

As for thrift stores, the ones that I shop at take plastic now, like everybody else. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll see the end of cash in my lifetime.

[Mmy]

@Amaryllis: As for thrift stores, the ones that I shop at take plastic now

Sigh, why is it that doesn't make me happy?

BTW, I had heard/read that the public assistance debit cards had a lot of issues about "where they could be used" to prevent the unworthy from spending the money at places/on things unapproved. Does anyone know how that works?

[Amaryllis]

Sigh, why is it that doesn't make me happy?

Probably for the same reasons that I wasn't happy when McDonald's started accepting credit cards?

BTW, I had heard/read that the public assistance debit cards had a lot of issues about "where they could be used" to prevent the unworthy from spending the money at places/on things unapproved.
Ugh.

[kisekileia]

My issue with "healed in all the ways that matter" is that it implies that the person not being physically healed doesn't matter. I was shocked and horrified at how the poster could essentially deny the significance of her own current pain by treating her sister's physical, this-worldly death as unimportant--and find comfort in that.

[hapax]

kisekileia, are you also shocked at the fundamental Buddhist doctrine that all suffering -- indeed, the self that suffers -- is but illusion?

I mean, it doesn't work for me; indeed, I find it personally utterly repellent.

But I don't have any problem with other people finding meaning and comfort in these teachings. Quite the opposite; I'm glad that they have found a worldview that brings them peace.

[kisekileia]

I find that Buddhist doctrine repellent as well.

I guess it's not really any of my business if other people find comfort in such things. It just tripped my triggers in this particular case.

[kisekileia]

Okay, the OP has come back and explained herself (thought not after I got a mod warning for actually daring to ask difficult questions about something that didn't make logical sense *eye roll*). Apparently the sister's situation had improved before her death to a point greater than anyone could reasonably have expected, and the fact that she did die was expected and presumably paled in significance compared to the other improvements that happened before her death.

[Literata]

Kisekileia, I understand how that can be triggering. I can kind of see both sides on this; certainly, the short-form way it sounds like it was presented originally can be a kind of faith that creates very real this-world problems. But it can also be comforting and part of the faith of a healthy, functional, ethical person.

Rot13 for triggers of family members dying: Jura zl tenaqzbgure qvrq, vg jnf pyrneyl orggre guna jung unq orra unccravat sbe ure, fb vg jnf n tbbq bhgpbzr, va n fgenatr jnl. Va snpg, jr jvguqerj fbzr zrqvpny vagreiragvbaf gb yrg ure qvr zber dhvpxyl jvgubhg fhssrevat. Vg jnf nf "jryy" nf guvatf jrer tbvat gb ghea bhg. Va n jnl, gung vf n xvaq bs pbzsbeg.

[Mmy]

@kisekileia: thought not after I got a mod warning for actually daring to ask difficult questions about something that didn't make logical sense *eye roll*)

Am I reading this wrong? Are you saying that there was a moderator's warning on this thread?

[Mmy]

@kisekileia: please ignore my previous question -- I realize now that I missed the fact you were talking about the other list -- I was afraid that a "faux moderator" had turned up here.

[kisekileia]

@Literata: Yeah. The original post looked to me like the poster was trying to pretend that her sister's death from this life didn't matter by rejoicing in scriptures about healing even though she WASN'T healed, which struck me as potentially really unhealthy. The later clarification by the OP explained that her sister had actually gotten better in some very important ways prior to dying, which put my mind more at ease.

I'm debating whether to stay in that community, though. Part of it is that I'm worried that the people got a negative impression of me for my questioning the post I talked about here. The other part is that I thought it was going to be a community for theological discussion, but it's starting to look like the tone of the conversation is going to be more devotional than academic, which tends to trigger me. I'll have to see what happens.

[Lila]

Re the $20 cash thing: on a mildly related note, I really like