Comments on: A cruel harvest https://habitablezone.com/2017/05/05/a-cruel-harvest/ Tue, 12 May 2026 20:11:45 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: hank https://habitablezone.com/2017/05/05/a-cruel-harvest/#comment-39005 hank Fri, 05 May 2017 23:31:12 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=63718#comment-39005 The rich have always felt themselves superior to the poor. But in the past, they felt the poor were those that had been dealt a bad hand, the unfortunate, the unlucky. They had not come from good families, their breeding was substandard, or they were victims of historical forces and of their race or nationality or class. Or they were simply unfortunate. After all, as in nature, not everyone can be a member of the leadership elite. But today, the attitude of the rich towards the poor seems to have changed. The poor are now somehow deserving of their fate, they are responsible for it. They are by their very nature lazy, lacking in ambition, slow, dull, larcenous, uncreative. They're just not unlucky, they deserve their lot. They are just not willing to struggle for anything, they want everything handed to them, they are takers, not makers. They have earned their place in society by failing in virtue, in excellence. They don't like to work. I wonder if this attitude has somehow trickled down from the philosophy of Ayn Rand, or if the latter is simply a result of that feeling, that Objectivism simply reflects the conviction that the wealthy deserve their lot because they actually are better than the rest of us. And now, they have the advantage that their feelings of superiority can't be mistaken for ordinary racism. Again, the term 'Fascism' comes to mind. We still struggle for a valid definition of the concept, and once again we find one more example of what I feel is the answer. To the fascist, there are the superior folk, the Master Race, and everyone else is just the dregs. Of course, the Master Race is no longer a genetic category, you don't carry it in your DNA. I guess that makes feeling that way about yourself all right now. The rich have always felt themselves superior to the poor. But in the past, they felt the poor were those that had been dealt a bad hand, the unfortunate, the unlucky. They had not come from good families, their breeding was substandard, or they were victims of historical forces and of their race or nationality or class. Or they were simply unfortunate. After all, as in nature, not everyone can be a member of the leadership elite.

But today, the attitude of the rich towards the poor seems to have changed. The poor are now somehow deserving of their fate, they are responsible for it. They are by their very nature lazy, lacking in ambition, slow, dull, larcenous, uncreative. They’re just not unlucky, they deserve their lot. They are just not willing to struggle for anything, they want everything handed to them, they are takers, not makers. They have earned their place in society by failing in virtue, in excellence. They don’t like to work.

I wonder if this attitude has somehow trickled down from the philosophy of Ayn Rand, or if the latter is simply a result of that feeling, that Objectivism simply reflects the conviction that the wealthy deserve their lot because they actually are better than the rest of us. And now, they have the advantage that their feelings of superiority can’t be mistaken for ordinary racism.

Again, the term ‘Fascism’ comes to mind. We still struggle for a valid definition of the concept, and once again we find one more example of what I feel is the answer. To the fascist, there are the superior folk, the Master Race, and everyone else is just the dregs.
Of course, the Master Race is no longer a genetic category, you don’t carry it in your DNA. I guess that makes feeling that way about yourself all right now.

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