stanzicapparatireplayers:

ceescedasticity:

homojabi:

The idea that “suffering builds character” is 100% capitalistic propaganda. Telling someone that they are experiencing hardship “for their own good” or their own personal growth is bullshit because it makes it seem like there is morality and purpose behind suffering. People don’t need to be poor, to struggle to put food on the table, or worry whether or not they’re going to have a roof over their head at the end of the week just to become “better” people. You know what else builds character? Surviving. So don’t act like the excess food, water and shelter that we have would be wasted on people who need it just because people working themselves to death is a capitalistic requirement.

P sure it predates capitalism. By a lot.

It does, actually. It’s a core concept of Protestantism, and possibly also Catholicism. Probably also other religions, because as a species we tend to cope poorly with the idea that bad things can happen to anyone no matter what they do; we want to believe that we have at least some measure of control over things.

So “you’re suffering for your own good” gives two options for a reason why bad things are happening to someone: either they did something bad (and thus deserve to suffer), or they’re being Tested and made stronger by the suffering.

Now, both of these are pretty bullshit reasons when you get down to the basics. No one deserves to be hungry; no one deserves constant food insecurity. No one deserves to be houseless. And we have the resources to fix this.

I’m not talking “we can fix it within our lifetimes” (although that too, sure), I’m talking “if you make it illegal for companies to waste food by rejecting off-model produce or throwing out and deliberately contaminating leftovers and require them to donate anything that isn’t going to sell before it spoils to food banks, we could ensure that food is on every table”. I’m talking “if you made it a legal requirement that any residential building must be lived in by the owners or rented out to people who need it, we could get people off the streets”.