Choice vs Have to
Nov. 5th, 2008 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crazychicknladyI used to consider myself to be very cynical about human nature, but maybe the unschooling attitude about allowing choices rather than have tos is rubbing off on me.
It's like in the case of housework and children. If you make your kid do chores then they are put in the position of dragging their feet, feeling taken advantage of, doing the minimum necessary to get the job done. You rob the child of having that feeling of giving the gift of their help and receiving a grateful response. Instead, the parent takes the approach that the child owes them the help, and ends up feeling resentful when they do not get the full cooperation and help they feel they deserve.
Expand the discussion to helping people in need with tax dollars. Instead of people being grateful for getting help and people feeling good for being helpful, you get people feeling they deserve the help (and feeling like they aren't getting their fair share) and the givers feeling resentful and taken advantage of, since they don't have a choice about their hard earned dollars being taken away.
We rob the good out of the giving by making it a have to instead of a choice.
Those helped with tax dollars don't feel grateful, they feel entitled. Those giving taxes don't feel helpful, they feel resentful. So much more good could be accomplished if we got the government out of the way and allowed people to have the chance to feel good about choosing to help.
It's no wonder it's so hard to imagine enough people would help if we didn't force them to. Giving through our government doesn't feel good, loosing control makes people strive harder to hold on to what little control they still have. Taking their money makes them hold on harder to whatever money they have left.
We can't imagine how freeing it would be to have control back, how good it would feel to help when it is voluntary, how many more people would want to help when it turned into a real choice rather than a have to.
It's like in the case of housework and children. If you make your kid do chores then they are put in the position of dragging their feet, feeling taken advantage of, doing the minimum necessary to get the job done. You rob the child of having that feeling of giving the gift of their help and receiving a grateful response. Instead, the parent takes the approach that the child owes them the help, and ends up feeling resentful when they do not get the full cooperation and help they feel they deserve.
Expand the discussion to helping people in need with tax dollars. Instead of people being grateful for getting help and people feeling good for being helpful, you get people feeling they deserve the help (and feeling like they aren't getting their fair share) and the givers feeling resentful and taken advantage of, since they don't have a choice about their hard earned dollars being taken away.
We rob the good out of the giving by making it a have to instead of a choice.
Those helped with tax dollars don't feel grateful, they feel entitled. Those giving taxes don't feel helpful, they feel resentful. So much more good could be accomplished if we got the government out of the way and allowed people to have the chance to feel good about choosing to help.
It's no wonder it's so hard to imagine enough people would help if we didn't force them to. Giving through our government doesn't feel good, loosing control makes people strive harder to hold on to what little control they still have. Taking their money makes them hold on harder to whatever money they have left.
We can't imagine how freeing it would be to have control back, how good it would feel to help when it is voluntary, how many more people would want to help when it turned into a real choice rather than a have to.
