“Aggrieved entitlement” is a term almost exclusively applicable to white, American men because it takes note of the historically high levels of privilege of that demographic relative to the rest of society, and how as the less privileged have demanded equal treatment some white, entitled American men feel an erosion of their privilege. They feel “aggrieved” about the situation particularly because they think their loss of privilege is unjustified. A less charitable way of describing how they feel is to call them self-pitying and selfish.
A 1952 publicity photo of John Wayne (1907-1979), the actor whose image represented for many throughout the middle of the 20th century the ideal of American manhood, and who is even now still revered by some.
There is good reason to feel uncharitable toward a segment of society when its most extreme members act out their anger and frustrations by shooting and killing other human beings, sometimes on a massive scale. A disproportionate number of mass shooters are angry white men. After every mass shooting, there are calls for tighter gun control and for better mental health evaluations and treatments. Those are measures worth acting upon, if government leaders can ever muster the political will and courage to pass significant legislation and allocate sufficient resources to support them.
The largest element underlying gun violence goes unaddressed, however, and that is the sickness of this society. This is a society that values athletes more highly than teachers, and rewards cutthroat capitalists with outsized political power and immunity from customary ethical standards of doing business with the public and cooperating with workers and government. This is a society that puts cartoonish displays of machismo in its popular entertainment and then exalts them as models of the male ideal. This is a society where the term “toxic masculinity” has become necessary to describe behavior we unfortunately have come to witness every day.
The Searchers was a 1956 western film directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne.
Until the society as a whole works to correct the conditions nurturing the ideas some white men have that the possession, worship, and ultimately homicidal use of guns is the best way to make themselves feel better, then mass shootings are likely to keep occurring. These men deserve our empathy, or understanding, so that we can more effectively pinpoint and effect societal remedies. They do not deserve our sympathy, or sorriness, for how they feel about their changing circumstances. Just as the majority of children who come from broken homes do not grow up to become criminals, only a very few white men are so wrapped up in their sense of aggrieved entitlement that they lash out violently. Everyone has problems; most people find peaceful, constructive ways to cope with them.
Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, the warped character at the center of Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver. The story is told from Bickle’s perspective, which helps the audience have empathy for him. It’s up to individual audience members to decide if they feel sympathy for him. Warning: foul language.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, a physical law first stated by Isaac Newton, and it seems it applies to forces within society as well. As women and non-white ethnic groups have fought for equal rights over the past 100 years or so, there has been an opposite reaction from men and white people, though not all of them in equal measure. As women have gained power in the marketplace and in the home, we have unfortunately seen the coining of terms like “man up”. As non-white ethnic groups have expressed their growing power in increasing numbers at the ballot box, we have begun to hear the phrase “take back our country” from some in the white majority who feel threatened by slippage in their dominant status. If meanness of spirit can be learned, then generosity of spirit can be taught, and society should emphasize the value in it. More Tom Joad, less Rambo.
— Ed.
Hikers in the nation’s parks and wilderness areas can find themselves in trouble due to accident or an unforeseen change in the weather for the worse, but all too often some of them find themselves in trouble due to their own carelessness and poor judgment. When search and rescue teams are called in to help reckless hikers, who should bear the cost?
Looking at the demographics of hikers, the majority are middle class or higher, and compared to the population as a whole they are wealthier and better educated than the average. Most hiking expeditions require expenses in travel and gear over $1,000, and available leisure time that doesn’t take away from the basic costs of living. Poor and working class people don’t have the wherewithal or the time for trips like that to the great outdoors. Since many of them are involved in physically demanding jobs, they are also probably less inclined to see the appeal in hiking around the backwoods during their free time.
Recreation spots in the nation’s Southwest are the busiest year after year for search and rescue operations, and with record setting heat there this summer, the need for search and rescue is greater than ever this year. If it’s hotter than ever, why are there not fewer search and rescue operations necessary? Considering the dangers, are there not fewer hikers out on the trails? Are not ill-prepared hikers, in particular, heeding the warnings and staying off the trails? Apparently not.
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, an 1817 painting by Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840).
When well-heeled people set off on an adventure they have the resources and time for, no one should interfere or try to stop them. The National Park Service (NPS), to name one organization administering hiking areas, has no desire to get caught up in the liability nightmare of being responsible for the well-being of every person visiting the areas under their jurisdiction. Visitors are on their own for the most part, and signs and literature to that effect are evident everywhere. The NPS and other organizations regularly post warnings on the premises about various hazards, including excessive heat. Still, they are loathe to close down trails on very bad days because of the inevitable outcry from visitors. Visitors are using up vacation time, and they want the park’s services and areas to be open and accessible during the time they have available.
From the 1983 movie National Lampoon’s Vacation, starring Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo, a scene set in the locale made famous by the director John Ford in his westerns, Monument Valley, on the border of Utah and Arizona. Warning: foul language.
It seems, however, that some hikers take a libertarian attitude into the park when they set off from the trail head, but adopt a socialist attitude later, when they are lost, dehydrated, and woefully unprepared for the worst case scenario. Oddly enough, in Europe, where socialist policies are more prevalent than in the United States, making unprepared or reckless hikers pay for their own search and rescue operation is the norm. In this country, New Hampshire has struck a balance between taxpayer-funded search and rescue and reimbursement from rescued hikers. Other states and federal organizations could follow the New Hampshire model. It is entirely better than the Wall Street model much in use now, in which people of decent means or better embark on an endeavor of their own choosing, outside of the course of merely obtaining a living in order to accrue benefits beyond that, and when things go well for them they say it was all their own doing and they are entitled to all the benefits, but when things sour they seek to shed the blame and share the losses.
― Ed.
