STOP REWARDING “VICTIMS”
You Only Get More of What We Don’t Want
Long ago, I learned the power of incentives. If your methods are poorly thought out, you get people behaving to maximize their reward. Everywhere I go, people make decisions based on what is in their best interest, even if the people orchestrating things didn’t want that result.
As a grad student, I did some genetic testing/counseling in Detroit. In each family, there was a complete absence of adult males. Curious, I asked one of the women and discovered that they were able to get more welfare benefits as a single parent. So, they kicked the men out. That has unfortunate consequences for the children, but again, people do what makes the most sense to them. (Our government still hasn’t fixed this problem)
Illegal immigrants flock here for several reasons. First, the best of them come here because we have jobs, and even as they may not even make minimum wage, it is more than they can make in their home country. But many come now because we give amazing benefits, in some cases, so valuable are these rewards that people have “joked” about renouncing their citizenship to qualify for them. In Chinatown, there are booklets instructing elderly immigrants how to dump their assets on their kids to qualify for generous SSI benefits. These are unwanted consequences, as it forces hard-working Americans to support people who are here simply to “suck off the government teat.”
I thought we’d hit bottom until we started enshrining and rewarding victimhood. Now, all you have to do is claim foul and largess is heaped on you. Lawyers must be so happy. The more victimized you are, the more generosity we show. Sadly, the groups impacted the most are those who are actually handicapped and with a little help, could be successful and productive. Career victims will never get off the dole. They enjoy it too much.
These “victims” include people who are traumatized because (a) they experienced unwanted touching (not rape) a few times, (b) they picked a junk major at college and can’t pay off their debt, (c) someone said something to them and the pain of those words has destroyed their life or (d) someone did something to someone else and they can’t handle the thought of that action (see George Floyd and BLM).
Once someone becomes a victim, we aren’t allowed to challenge them in any way. In fact, we have gone so far out on a limb that stressed-out teens, contending with hormonal and emotional changes are being supported and encouraged to change their sex, rather than deal with the usual issues of being in puberty. I hated my teen years, but while therapy can help, a sex change is too radical to be a viable answer for all but the very few that truly have that issue.
Safe spaces, cancel culture, and more have all arisen in a desire not to upset anyone. But life and learning don’t work that way. We don’t grow to become our best selves by gliding along on a slick path of safety. Look at how we started as kids. We learned to walk the hard way, falling down, crying and getting up. Touching something hot and learning not to do it. While it might be nice to not have to learn painful lessons, in most cases, that’s how it works. You learn more about your ideas by being challenged. You hear hateful speech and learn to counter it and even, to possibly convert the speaker.
I knew things were going downhill when I first heard about helicopter parents who would go to college interviews with their child and intervene. Some even moved on to “help” their kid get a job. I wonder at any decision-maker giving a chance to a child who needed this “help.” But it has gone far beyond that to the point where people need written permission from another person to say or do anything. That’s insane, and we’re rewarding it.
A small pushback has started where some employers are not only rejecting Ivy League students as being too woke and imbued with critical race theory. Some are beginning to realize that for a lot of jobs, college isn’t necessary. Perhaps the kids aren’t as damaged if they skip that step. But we need to go farther. We need to stop rewarding people who don the mantel of victimhood.
Having done some volunteer work with quadriplegics at Cal, I learned that for most, the concept of being a victim isn’t part of their personality. They focus on what they can do, not what they can’t. They may need some help to achieve their goals, but they do the work. They push themselves. I remember a lawyer when I was growing up in Wilmette. He was blind and long before they had recorded material, studied with limited Braille books and people he hired who read to him. No excuses, no victimhood. Just perseverance leading to success.
Let’s stop rewarding failure. All it does is give us more failures.
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