Quote:
Originally Posted by dda
Part of it is that people are constantly being told that they don't have much control over their life.
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Really? Growing up I seem to remember being told by both educators and the media generally that I could become whatever I wanted to be, that whatever destiny I wanted was pretty much equally available to me as to everyone else in the land. Of course, that was nonsense even for me (a white male born in the first world with no obvious disabilities) but I didn't assume the opposite was true either (that I was stuck in life and it was somebody elses fault). I can imagine others reacting differently though. So perhaps if we didn't fill people's head with such nonsense in the first place, we might find them easier to deal with.
On the personal level though I would tend to agree with the popular notion that "successful" people tend to take the blame for things that don't go their way (even where it's not their "fault" as such). Conversely shitter people tend to blame externalities, irrespective of the cause. But of course, that's dreadfully glib (as T&F has hinted at).
As I've probably related beofre, I heard a story about someone who suffered some form of food poisoning, fell into a coma and sufferred horrific paralysis / other nerve damage. Upon awakening, within minutes of finding this out the man asked for some sort of crutches (or whatever) and said "Well, I can't sit around moaning all day, I've got work to get on with."
Obviously such a response is inspirational but one would hardly blame someone who in the same position fell to pieces and who felt they were the victim of at least circumstances. Especially if their early upbringing wasn't condusive to building a strong personality type.
More generally, beyond people's individual lives there are positions which are slightly nuanced - the amount of control an individual has over something like climate change is absolutley tiny in most but that doesn't mean individual actions (recycling, energy saving, etc) are unnecessary. I tend to find this concept difficult to get over to some people though.