Why Entitlement Attitudes Grows in Societies?
Why is it that attitudes of entitlement increase in society, and those who have more grateful attitudes decline?
This is similar to the idea of why children that grow up in wealthy families become spoiled brats. The more prosperous the society, the more people feel that they are entitled to something. People move away from feeling gratitude for the simple things in life, such as safety and security. Instead, these are taken for granted, and their attention moves to seeking usually more shallow and trivial pursuits such as pleasure-seeking and material goods.
People want or need more and more to make them feel fulfilled. However, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t make them content or happy, certainly not for very long anyway.
Relatively speaking, people have never had it so good. If you think about the entirety of human history, for the vast majority of it, most people struggled to stay alive day by day. This prosperity and expected, perhaps demanded basic comforts and rights tends to lead to people taking things for granted.
This attitude difference is really noticeable if you compare people from the UK, and those who live in harsher eastern European countries, such as Poland and Hungary. This also affects the politics and political direction in these countries.
Entitlement & Dating
When you hear people say (particularly women) “I won’t settle” or “I know my worth”, it’s partly a sign of arrogance and narcissism. It’s like saying “I’m amazing, and I won’t accept anything less than amazing”. It’s an entitlement attitude that has become common in many western countries.
In contrast, a more humble attitude might be one of self-improvement, and therefore humility. If someone is not meeting the quality of partner that they think they deserve, one approach is to consider that they are partly to blame, and if they got their act together and improved themselves as a person, then they may attract higher-quality partners. Humble attitudes in general are more likable and attractive.
Abundance causes people to raise their standards and to be more selective. However, this inflates the ego, which breeds arrogance, and feelings of entitlement.
Societal Decline
This issue is also connected to how societies and civilizations decline and fall. Entitlement breeds laziness, mediocrity, and a decline in personal responsibility. It leads to more people thinking that they simply deserve something, rather than thinking that they need to work for something.
Summary
Prosperity in the west has bred entitled and ungrateful attitudes. It has also resulted in people seeking shallow, superficial, and frankly narcissistic desires. There is an over-emphasis on compassion, while demonizing strength and competence. This gives birth to a society that becomes more mediocre and self-destructive.
