Privilege
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On a Saturday night in which ANTIFA was rioting in Atlanta, news broke about a 72-year-old Asian man killing 11 people and injuring many more during a Lunar New Year’s celebration in California. As this occurred, I found myself lying on my couch, watching a movie. The movie I decided to watch—or rather rewatch—was the 1993 Will Smith film Six Degrees of Separation.
This film is about a psychologically disturbed young man (Will Smith), who tries to interject himself into the lives of a handful of rich, successful, middle-aged New Yorkers. He concocts schemes that would get him invited into each of their homes individually on separate nights. He cooks for them, fills their wine glasses and recites rehearsed stories to them. He keeps them engaged. He wins them over with his charm and intellect, while appealing to their prideful sensibilities.
In just a day, all these rich New Yorkers are angered to discover the young man they let into their homes was a complete fraud, and even knowing this, they are still left enamored by him. While they are outraged by his lies, they can’t stop talking about him at high society events and parties. Everyone is fascinated by his story and waits with bated breath to hear updates on what is discovered about him.
This group of easily-grifted New Yorkers later go to their children’s Ivy League schools to ask if they know the young man, wondering if THEY might be the connection that brought the troubled young man into their homes. The interaction between these rich kids and their parents is appalling. To a person, they all treat their parents with the utmost distain, while the parents take the abuse as though it is an everyday occurrence.
Later in the story, the emotionally unstable hoaxer tries to get back into the lives of one of the New York couples, fully understanding he’s been exposed as a fraud, and a dangerous one at that. The man in this couple wants nothing to do with him, while the woman can’t let go, grasping for a reason to keep this unstable young man in her life.
Her reaction seems crazy, and maybe even unbelievable at first. Until you consider the idea that this brief evening spent with the young hoaxer might have represented a relationship that she wished they had with her own children. She knows it was fake. She knows he was a fraud, but she desires to be respected and appreciated by her children.
Privilege can mean living a life of luxury, but it can also mean living a life of ease. Living a life completely lacking the stress of survival. Being taken care of or knowing that whatever mistakes or choices you make in life, you will always be taken care of.
Parents have two main jobs in raising their children: the first is to love, provide for and protect them, and the second is to prepare them to become independent adults, able and expected to provide for themselves, while appreciating all that they have.
Some parents financially provide for their children—some excessively so—while failing at all the other responsibilities. They fail to show their children enough love and attention, and may protect them physically, but not emotionally. They may raise children that cannot function on their own at age 18, or 25, or 35 for that matter. When they realize they’ve created completely dependent, and in some cases warped human beings, they feel guilty and continue to enable their dependence, blaming themselves for what they’ve created.
I believe a lack of self-responsibility can eventually manifest itself into self hatred, and hatred of the people you believe made you this way, whether this is understood on a conscious or unconscious level.
I’m not going out on a limb by saying ‘spoiled’ children tend to hate their parents, and take what they have been given for granted. I believe this is a self hatred that comes from never having to work for anything. Never having to earn anything.
Some young adults can work hard in school, or have a job or even volunteer 10 hours per week at an animal shelter. But they do so knowing that if they drop out of school or quit their job, they will be provided for and that their lifestyle won’t change. They have no skin in the game. Everything they do is just a bonus; they never have to truly rely on themselves to survive.
In some cases, young adults have their apartments paid for by their parents, or they live in their parent’s palatial home far into adulthood, and in other cases they live in their mother’s basement. Room and board paid for—any income they bring in just representing extra spending cash.
As I mentioned earlier, privilege can be luxury, but it can also just mean ease. Living in your mother’s basement may not be a life of luxury, but if most everything in your life is provided for, it is a life of ease. A life without struggle.
A life without responsibilities is a breeding ground for developing a sense of entitlement, which, if left untreated can become a borderline mental disorder. A life without responsibilities can create cognitive dissonance—a state of mind where your thoughts and actions don’t line up, creating a distortion in your worldview as the act of being provided for battles the inherent, unconscious need to be self-sufficient. Self-hatred often follows, as well as a need to self-destruct and self-punish.
If you look at issues like climate change and Veganism, you might realize these are often lifestyles adopted by the wealthy. While there are exceptions, climate change demonstration is most popular in first-world countries, and it’s usually in these first-world countries where climate activists are spawned.
Climate change is supposed to affect the poor the most, so why does it seem that these people seem to care about it least?
I think Veganism mirrors climate change in its demographics. While it finds its roots in religion in other regions, in first-world countries, it’s usually the rich that partake in this lifestyle for the purpose of virtue signaling.
Why does it seem climate change activists and Vegans generally come from privileged societies—from privileged homes? How is it that these lifestyles seem to generally stay within socioeconomic boundaries? Why don’t the working class seem to care as much about these issues, when they are ostensibly most affected by them?
I believe ideas like climate change are used by the Elite Cabal to create power and control over the masses, and I believe they prey off of people’s fears and unconscious self-hatred in order to do so. I think Veganism stems from self-hatred and a need to self-punish. This doesn’t mean I think climate change activists and Vegans are bad people, just that they are being manipulated into believing what they believe, and that guilt lies at the heart of all the world’s problems.
I don’t believe the emotional need and desire to support these causes occurs on a conscious level, but rather an unconscious level.
ANTIFA members seem to generally come from middle to upper middle-class homes, but there are upper-class supporters of ANTIFA as well. There are sons of Minnesota Attorney Generals and transgender daughters of Congresswomen. But, generally speaking, I think most ANTIFA come from middle-class families. Middle-class families that may not spoil their children with money and opportunities, but rather enable them to live lives of ease, free from responsibilities.
When middle-class parents refuse to challenge their children, we end up getting ANTIFA members and their ilk, who must aim their own self-hatred at others. Viewing others as ‘fascist’ puts the enemy a rung below them on society’s ladder, and fighting these perceived ‘fascists’ gives them a purpose otherwise lacking in their day-to-day lives.
It’s not their fault they live in their mother’s basement; it’s the fascists who created this system. Why would they go out and get a job supporting a fascist company?
Self-hating people are preyed upon by the creators and perpetuators of ideas such as climate change.
“It’s my fault the world is dying.”
In getting back to the concept of the movie I referenced, if, as parents we raise our children without expressing enough love and attention to them, and at the same time don’t have high enough expectations of them, we sow the seeds of self-hatred within them, which may manifest in destructive ways—even societally.
Privilege—a life of ease—can only lead to delusion.
Love your children. Give them attention. Provide for them financially and emotionally, if you can. Set expectations and enforce them. Set responsibilities and require that they be met. Demand respect and be worthy of it.
Maybe if more parents set expectations early on—expectations that their children can’t live with them past age 21 if they aren’t still in school full-time, that they need to pay their own rent and be on their own phone plan once they are out of the house, that they have to take responsibility for their choices—fewer young people would find themselves joining groups like ANTIFA.
Maybe these young adults would have more self-respect and less self-hatred.
Maybe fewer parents would have to see their children’s mugshots on CNN.
Badlands Media articles and features represent the opinions of the contributing authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Badlands Media itself.
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My oldest was 13 when obummer was in office. With that being said he saw first hand the consequences of his policies. I lost my business and all my holdings and had to go back and work a union job to try and keep what was left. All my kids saw it then. I was hard on them to see and understand, no money for college. They saw hard work will get you ahead but you have to make decisions, and I taught them the lesson that ALL decisions have consequences. I was called an asshole for teaching them these important life lessons through out their teens anyway. But now they are grateful for the TOUGH LOVE they were shown...They ALL stand on their own 2 feet and are somewhat smart and savvy. THEY know they have to learn from THEIR mistakes and decisions and even choices! People have to OWN IT! No one wants to take ownership...It's a life lesson that isn't taught anymore....OWN IT and move on!!
As a special Ed teacher for 30 years working with blue collar parents and hard working parental examples to make ends meet I have to say many times their children were neglected because no one was home watching out for them and sharing the seemingly insignificant moments that bind families because everyone was working.
I live in an affluent area and as a parent with child in school with those people I found the parents were themselves not involved or completely hovering over their child blaming others when their child might need the push back from teachers or peers and not be “rescued” by mom or dad. Mostly because they wanted complete control over everything regardless of what is moral or good examples. Many parents had “other” secret lives going on and cared about their own needs above their family .
In both cases children suffered but in different ways.
Raising children in the cultural world connected by a false reality called the social media of the really disconnected reality of the internet leads all into the black pit of despair and believing that a child’s picking their own sexual identity is really a wonderful thing😢
The entire family unit everywhere is almost beyond hope because basic family life is ridiculed and not considered important anymore. Having two moms or two dads is an example of child abuse sanctified by the country.
Moms should stay home and be the guiding force behind their family. Dads should set example of showing their kids the importance of responsibility and sacrifice.
But women and men are misguided thanks to the media false messages and lack of religion or God in their lives.
It’s the connection to a power greater than yourself and understanding what is important to make a child know they are special and on earth because they are here to help the world in a good way that no one else on the planet can do.
That lived reality leads only to kindness charity and forgiveness and self respect .