Thursday, July 29, 2010

Sowell's insights: Envy of achievement is worse than class warfare

Thomas Sowell on Resenting Achievement
“These are poisonous and self-destructive consequences of a steady drumbeat of ideological hype — differences are translated into ‘disparities’ and ‘inequities,’ provoking envy and resentments under the more prettied-up name of “social justice.”
Economist, author, and columnist Thomas Sowell weighs in on the story about black students at South Philadelphia High School beating up students of Asian descent. He attributes the attacks to achievement resentment.
Mainstream media and liberal types play up this very human emotion. They subtly imply that achievers are keeping down the non-achievers, that the successful are unfairly preventing others from succeeding.
“Those who explain racial antagonisms on rational bases will have a hard time demonstrating how Asian Americans have made blacks worse off,” Sowell writes. “Certainly none of the historic wrongs done to blacks was done by the small Asian-American population; for most of their history in this country, they have not had enough clout to prevent themselves from being discriminated against.”
Sowell notes that resentment and hostility toward high achievers tend to be focused on people who start at the bottom, alongside the resenters and the hostile. In the U.S., we’ve seen or read about blacks resenting others who open stores in their neighborhoods and make money off “their” people, and other immigrants resenting the success of Jewish immigrants.
“Achievements are a reflection on others who may have had similar, and sometimes better, chances but who did not make the most of their chances. Achievements are like a slap across the face to those who are not achieving, and many people react with the same kind of anger that such an insult would provoke.”
Resentment and hostility toward achievers happens in most societies, as Sowell discusses in the article and in Black Rednecks and White Liberals.
There’s nothing quite as powerful in America as racial grievance. America enslaved blacks and separated them from whites by government mandate. But American race relations have progressed so far so fast. It’s a stunning achievement. However, some will never be satisfied. Rather than seeing progress as the blessing it is and the opportunities that abound, they complain and hunt for the slightest grievance. To keep envy at bay, it’s helpful to remember an axiom: someone else’s success doesn’t stop you from succeeding.
“People who call differences ‘inequities’ and achievements ‘privilege’ leave social havoc in their wake, while feeling noble about siding with the less fortunate. It would never occur to them that they have any responsibility for the harm done to both blacks and Asian Americans.”
I’ll go so far as to say social engineers and instigators know exactly what kind of harm they’re causing. Leftists must maintain strife and tension in order to win elections and influence the masses. Sparking discord between the races and the haves and have-nots, and imbuing people with the sense that they’re being mistreated or left out, is a powerful platform, one that cuts to the heart of human nature. The challenge is to rise above that nature...
Not only is coveting a waste of time and energy, God considers it a sin.****Coveting means that one wants what another has; resenting what another has is different and worse. A middle Eastern story goes as follows:
JEW: God, my neighbor has a goat. Please give me one like his.
CHRISTIAN: Lord, my neighbor has a goat. Please give me his goat.
MUSLIM: Allah, my neighbor has a goat. Please kill it. ****

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