Roberta X has a post that triggered thoughts for me. Those who can, those who can't, and those who won't, and the differences between them.
There are those people who can accomplish tasks. Often it does not matter so much what they can do best, they can do almost anything when needed.
There are those who can't accomplish tasks, or can't do very many, from lack of ability.
There are also those who won't accomplish anything, despite ability or potential.
None of these positions hold a moral high ground, it's just reality with no moral issue to it at all. The idea of right and wrong, or 'moral question', comes into play as we regard how each type of person interrelates with himself and others.
When a person honestly views himself with open eyes, freely admitting what he is and demanding nothing of anyone else to make up for his own unmet needs and desires, no foul may be declared. Oh, perhaps a man who has ability without desire or drive, who languishes in decrepitude through laziness, that man might instill a loathing in others. Yet, that loathing is a product of the other persons viewpoint, not his own. As long as that man does not demand others make up for his own lack, then while his stay here on the earth may be fruitless, it is of little harm.
Then there are those of another condition. Those who lack ability or potential, or have it in limited amounts. The same again; as long as such a man does not demand another supply him what he lacks, but instead is willing to accept himself as he is and live with his lot in life, then so be it. Again, no cry of foul may be raised. In fact, a man of limited ability who uses it to it's fullest everyday, happily striving to do well with what he has, that man has earned a measure of respect. Both internal self respect and external.
In either case, if that same person demands others make up his lack, and fill his coffers without compensation or honor, then that person is a thieving looter. Feeding on those who have ability and use it, such a lowly creature deserves neither respect nor sustenance.
This leaves us those with ability, and who choose to use it to it's fullest. The man who tackles most any job willingly, who's hallmark is the simple phrase "It needs doing, and doing right".
These are the people Ayn Rand called the 'Motor of the World'. The people who produce, build, create, manufacture, repair, devise, and sustain.
There is a simple morality held by many of 'those who can and do'. It's that the act of working, of producing, of building, has a value. It is worth and wealth in it's simplest form. By the mind and hand of a working man, the world moves forward.
Those who can't or won't, but demand 'those who can' do so selflessly and for others benefit.... are thieves. They should be treated as such.
I learned a lesson young.... and here it is: When a man asks you to work for nothing, it's for only one of two reasons. He thinks your labor (mental or physical) has no value. If that's the case, why do it? The only other reason a man will ask you to work for free is darker... he knows your labor has value, but he wants it for nothing. He wants what you have, what you produce, what you build, and he wants to steal it. By trickery of phrase or brutality of gun point, he intends to steal your wealth for himself.
Don't work for thieves. Doing so encourages the practice, and successful thieves only beget more thieves. Even the smallest theft of ones labor should be fought, as it's but a pebble on the slope to hell.
2 comments:
So perfectly and beautifully put. I too ponder on such things, and often when I've re-read Atlas Shrugged, a book perhaps meant to be historical but becoming more prophetic.
The present state of our nation the political events, and ideals of today are so grotesquely irrational and so disturbingly true to the base points of the book, that it can't be anything else.
If any of you reading this long winded comment haven't read Atlas Shrugged it is a book written decades ago that shows what happens to the world when the men of the mind - the originators and the innovators in every line of rational endeavor - go on strike and vanish, to protest again an altruist-collectivist Society.
There are two key passages in the book that sum it up well. The first is a statement of John Galt:
There is one kind of man who have never been on strike in human history. Every other kind and class have stopped, when they so wished and have presented demands to the world claiming to be indispensable - except the men who have carried the world on their shoulders, have kept it alive, have endured torture as sole payment, but have never walked out on the human race. Well their turn has come. Let the world discover who they are, what they do, and what happens they they refuse to function. This is the strike of the men of the mind, Miss Tagger. This is the mind on strike."
The second passage, which explains the title of the novel is:
"Mr. Rearden, said Francisco, his voice solemnly calm, "if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders, what you you tell him to do?"
"I. . . I don't know. what . could he do" What would you tell him?"
"To shrug".
My work has value. My mind has value. I won't do it for free, nor will I do it to pay the rent and gas and food of those who aren't welling to put forth their own effort to the best of their own ability. A hard working person, down on their luck, I will help in many ways. But do not ask me to support, through work or taxes or even my time, which has value of it's own, a class of people who only wish to take, because they feel they are owed it for breathing, for crossing the border illegally, or for being a specific race, creed or religion.
I paid over $32,000 last year in taxes, yet got no "tax rebate" this week to "stimulate the economy". I made too much. My share went to someone who did not even work last year, and paid no taxes, filing simply to get their handout.
I'm getting the urge to shrug.
My old coroner boss had a strange idea of what it meant to be a "professional", he defined it as working without compensation. He never claimed to understand that a person who worked without compensation was an amateur, from the Latin AMOR, love, and professionals got paid.
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