People actually believe this sort of thing, that when you do good things for your child you are "d…

| | Comments (0)

People actually believe this sort of thing, that when you do good things for your child you are "disadvantaging" other children.  It's untrue and dumb, but people believe it.

But there is a real point, very poorly expressed and ill-thought-out, in there: many kids don't have a lot of the good things many other kids have.  It hurts them to not have attentive and nurturing parental units at home.  And there's various things we can do to help that: giving to certain charities, participating in Big Brother/Sister, and so on.  (Some might add "support government wealth redistribution policies," but I wouldn't.)

But the idea that doing good for your child "disadvantages" other children is nonsense, and it exposes the entire fraud that people who have things others do not are "advantaged" and those who do not are "disadvantaged."  It's predicated on the false notion that something good happening to me somehow negatively affects you, or the relationship between me and you.  "Advantage" means nothing except through direct comparison or competition.

Frankly, knowing nothing about the man, it wouldn't surprise me if this professor Adam Swift is engaging in satire to undermine the concept of "advantage," especially since you could join the names of Adam Smith and Jonathan Swift to get the professor's name.  A modern "modest proposal" of sorts.  But that's probably just wishful thinking on my part. G+

Leave a comment

<pudge/*> (pronounced "PudgeGlob") is thousands of posts over many years by Pudge.

"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by pudge published on May 7, 2015 5:05 AM.

Long story short on the NFL investigation of the Patriots: the NFL does not have measurements of t… was the previous entry in this site.

Dear Internet: there is an anonymously sourced news report that says Brady will be suspended.  Thi… is the next entry in this site.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.