Entitlement and Powerlessness.

Much of our current societal discord is actually rooted in one or both of these two ‘fraternal twins’.

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There is definitely no shortage of emotionally charged issues in our societal and global struggles. Seemingly intractable intolerance and bigotry based on race, religion, sexuality, gender, to say nothing of the many political and military tensions between various nations. With large numbers of people there will always be opposing views, conflicting beliefs, and firmly rooted disagreements. We are never going to see all things in exactly the same ways but that fact alone does not doom us to perpetual division and hatred.

It is possible to coexist while disagreeing despite what current social and political climates seem to protest. The key is to look past the surface issues, to not get trapped and tangled up in the symptoms, and instead dig deeper in search of root causes and sources. Two of the main, and mutually exacerbating, culprits at work in so many of our current struggles are the pervasive senses of entitlement and of powerlessness.

Entitlement

We are too quick to dismiss entitlement as simply the whining of the spoiled or lazy without acknowledging how wide spread and toxic the ideology of entitlement actually is. The distorted perception that wanting something makes it automatically and…