The reading for tomorrow comes from the book Why Americans Hate Welfare and the chapter starts off by talking about individualism. This chapter explains how individualism in American plays into why so many people are opposed to welfare. A lot of people come to America to live the “American Dream” which includes working hard for yourself and your family so that you will succeed in the end. This mentality is seen all over American and it is a big part of American culture. The author says that this mentality is one reason that we don’t like the thought of welfare. People in America have a lot of respect and pride in self-responsibility. They believe that everyone should support themselves. When they here about spending more of their money on welfare programs for the state or something like that people tend to cringe. I feel like this mentality could be a main reason why so many people in American feel a certain way towards welfare programs. It has been instilled in their minds that you work hard for yourself and that is all. So when people need help everyone kind of looks at them as if they aren’t going along with the norm, they are different. But some people need help and these people didn’t get into these situations on purpose. Someone could lose their job pretty quickly and that could send them into a spiral of bad events ending with them needing some extra help, some welfare. People need to think about if they were to fall on hard times wouldn’t they want someone their to help them for awhile so that they could get back on their feet. I think every person would like to think that if they needed help they would have some way of getting it. So I think people need to keep that in mind when thinking about welfare. These are real people with real families that need real help and it could be anyone at anytime.
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I agree. It is unfortunate that people have adopted this type of thinking. We shouldn’t be so quick to forget the reason why we work and pay taxes. Like someone said a few classes ago; we work and put our money into a box, so when or if the situation ever arises we can then borrow or take this money out of the box. I think the people that are mostly upset over welfare are the ones that never have to actually use or depend on it. If the majority of the people had to rely on welfare then I am sure we would hear something totally different. Granted, there are some out there I think who do abuse the system but the reality is there is nothing we can do about that. We only have to figure out how to make the system work for those that are being cheated of it and make it work better.
I definitely agree. It is definitely that individualistic kind of thinking help to divide the have and the have not. I came across a quote while I was reading something recently, and it stuck with me more so because of this class. “It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it” Albert Einstein. I believed Einstein summed up how a functional society, or an ideal society should operate, in it is simplest form. It’s obvious that if we all aspire to be rich, within a capitalistic society, someone has to be a less off. This individualistic view that is held only seeks to destroy us. The position that most Americans hold and I believe it’s the reason why socialism and welfare has such a negative stigma is that our society is seen as ‘individuals” working “together” to improve their “individual” and collective welfare, but collective welfare can only benefit the greater society to a point, since each is responsible for themselves. If we all put back into the system what we takes out, others may reap the benefit and then they give back as much as they can to keeps it going. Much, like the gift that keeps giving.
I agree, maybe if we all share the wealth instead of being greedy society will be a much better place for us, our families and future generations. We need to be more giving and help the less fortunate, because if worse comes to worse, and we end up in situations in which we need help, we would like people to care for us and not put us aside. Its not best to ignore the facts of life, we need to put our differences aside and come together to better our communities and those in need. And always bear in mind what goes around comes around, so we need to do good now and appreciate what we have.
Roshni