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Quick Note: Double Standards

February 28th, 2009

Why is it “class warfare” only when you’re asking wealthy people to burden the load, and not when you’re asking poor people to?

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  1. morgannels
    February 28th, 2009 at 23:27 | #1
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    I’m not sure if you mean that as a rhetorical question, and I can’t speak for the folks who think that way, but my guess would be that they feel that the poor bearing the burden of their poverty (note the framing and assumptions) is the natural order of things, whereas seeking to change that is a form of warfare. Admittedly, that may be meeting them more than halfway, but I think it has a lot to do with seeing wealth as a moral rather than practical issue. If people are rich or poor because they’ve been good or bad, then making any changes to that situation would be unjust.

  2. Tim Kane
    March 1st, 2009 at 21:17 | #2
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    Because the wealthy people own the means of mass communication.

  3. Luis
    March 15th, 2009 at 14:49 | #3
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    morgannels: Sorry for the late response, doing some catch-up here. You bring up an important point that recurs often: what is to be considered the “natural” order? In the smoking/no smoking debate, non-smokers see clean air as the natural order, which smokers see freedom to act as the natural order. In the religion-in-public-affairs debate, same thing–different sides see different “natural” starting points. And that may reflect on how disagreements and divergent opinions often begin.

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