How To Downshift Entitlement

I went and saw this play yesterday called Poor Clare, which is essentially about Clare of Assissi and the idea of going from a life of plenty into a life of service. This is not the play, but it has similar ideas:

The idea of shifting from “life of plenty” to “life of service” is the essential opposite of “entitlement.” Just to level-set on the idea of “entitlement,” it’s basically people thinking they are better or more deserving of good, or fast service, or whatever than someone else is.

Here’s one notable example , from Fort Worth ISD .

The biggest reason “entitlement” is hard to fight is that most of the time (in America, at least), we deify the rich simply for “achieving” so much, often ignoring how many of them were born on third base. As a result of this deification, the rich can skate on actually doing good — simply by contributing paltry sums of money at fancy events. That’s summed up well here:

That’s the biggest brick in the entitlement problem. Most people with means assume they got those means because they’re better, smarter, tougher, and more strategic than the unwashed masses. As such, they deserve their life and are entitled to specific things within it. It’s impossible to break this particular thinking. It will never completely go away.

Then there’s an interesting sub-class of “entitlement” whereby people who work in fundraising, non-profits, major gifts, etc… they will periodically give interviews and talk about these things. They cannot actually offend the affluent, or tell the affluent to change their behavior, because then the affluent would donate less to them, so they say stuff like “lean into discomfort,” which means nothing but sounds good in a soundbite, and then they move on with their asks.

Darren Walker of Ford Foundation summarizes that well here.

The easiest way to “end” entitlement would be better parenting, but unfortunately we seem to be headed in the opposite direction on that particular topic.

Instagram parenting almost directly scales elitism. Snowplow parenting, which is very common these days too, reduces the efficacy of the child (they can’t fail, everything gets plowed over) and if they have means, the child associates “can’t fail” and “means,” and that also scales entitlement.

So, the easiest path is also the hardest — and some parents are doing great work on the next generation. I do think with screens and all and inflation and demands on parental time and two-income family preponderance, it’s not that easy.

We always say “examine your privilege” or “go talk to the unhoused” and whatnot, but those things don’t actually work that well. Most people don’t want to do that, and if they did, it would be very formulaic and not teach them much. I did homeless count in Fort Worth for three straight years and had some good conversations, but I don’t know if it changed my own penchant for being entitled at all in the grand scheme of things.

I don’t really think there is an “answer” to this right now. I think we can just try our best to practice better parenting, self-awareness, and asking important questions of ourselves and our loved ones. Our biggest and best hope is that it doesn’t get worse.