![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A person on here posted a meme-question that I have been ruminating on for a while. So here's my rant on it.
Do you believe things happen for a reason?
Usually this is stated as a sanctimonious pronouncement "Everything happens for a Reason™", a variant on "God's will", but with a victim blaming component. The implication is, of course, that something the person is, was, or is supposed to learn is why X or Y bad thing happened.
Sure, everything happens for "a" reason, and sometimes that reason is that the world is a nasty place and people and systems are vicious. Also, entropy and chaos are "reasons". Often the reason is bad luck, not bad choices or bad "karma".
Yes, I believe that your actions help shape your path in life - it's called will, or wyrd. But there are always two other elements - the actions of other people, and the element of chance.
Take the current Texas freeze and power outages. The system is the execrable Texas power grid, deregulated and separate from the national grid so they can't be regulated by the feds, privatized and used as a cash cow, only making just enough power so prices can be kept high. (We have some of this quasi-deregulated crap here in CA, which is why I pay more for electricity that people in most other states.)
The cause of people freezing is a) chance weather event, b) "choice" to live in a GOP governed state that wants to be the Liberia of the US, c) fecklessness of the Texas GOP and their worship of disastrous deregulation, d) greed and malfeasance by the unregulated grid operator. The individual is responsible for only one of those things, and even then isn't to blame because they've been gaslit for years about how deregulation is "better".
Take the CA wildfire and the homes lost - a) global warming, b) mismanagement of federal forestland due to GOP cheese-paring, c) malfeasance on the part of PG&E WRT line maintenance, d) lightning strikes, and e) buying a home in an WLU area.
Yes, everything has a small component of personal choice - but usually it's blind choice, like crossing a street normally and getting run over by a speeding jerk - sure, you chose to cross there with the light, but he chose to speed and run the light. Not your fault, even though you "chose" to be there.
So if you want to say "everything happens for a reason", then you have to include chance, chaos, and malice on the part of others in the possible reasons. Anything less is victim blaming.
Sure, you can get screwed over by making bad choices, but more often than not other forces are out there that will take a slightly bad choice and spin it into a life destroying disaster. Plus, in some circumstances that we don't chose all that we are offered are bad choices and worse ones. Generational poverty is a prime example of this.
The responsible way of handling this is to own the choices you made, but to put the onus for all the rest where it's due: the society and environment we live in. You can't make gold if all you have is air. What you can do is make the best decisions that you can make given the circumstances you live in, knowing that chaos and chance will take a dump on you at random, and that's ok, it happens.
Do you believe things happen for a reason?
Usually this is stated as a sanctimonious pronouncement "Everything happens for a Reason™", a variant on "God's will", but with a victim blaming component. The implication is, of course, that something the person is, was, or is supposed to learn is why X or Y bad thing happened.
Sure, everything happens for "a" reason, and sometimes that reason is that the world is a nasty place and people and systems are vicious. Also, entropy and chaos are "reasons". Often the reason is bad luck, not bad choices or bad "karma".
Yes, I believe that your actions help shape your path in life - it's called will, or wyrd. But there are always two other elements - the actions of other people, and the element of chance.
Take the current Texas freeze and power outages. The system is the execrable Texas power grid, deregulated and separate from the national grid so they can't be regulated by the feds, privatized and used as a cash cow, only making just enough power so prices can be kept high. (We have some of this quasi-deregulated crap here in CA, which is why I pay more for electricity that people in most other states.)
The cause of people freezing is a) chance weather event, b) "choice" to live in a GOP governed state that wants to be the Liberia of the US, c) fecklessness of the Texas GOP and their worship of disastrous deregulation, d) greed and malfeasance by the unregulated grid operator. The individual is responsible for only one of those things, and even then isn't to blame because they've been gaslit for years about how deregulation is "better".
Take the CA wildfire and the homes lost - a) global warming, b) mismanagement of federal forestland due to GOP cheese-paring, c) malfeasance on the part of PG&E WRT line maintenance, d) lightning strikes, and e) buying a home in an WLU area.
Yes, everything has a small component of personal choice - but usually it's blind choice, like crossing a street normally and getting run over by a speeding jerk - sure, you chose to cross there with the light, but he chose to speed and run the light. Not your fault, even though you "chose" to be there.
So if you want to say "everything happens for a reason", then you have to include chance, chaos, and malice on the part of others in the possible reasons. Anything less is victim blaming.
Sure, you can get screwed over by making bad choices, but more often than not other forces are out there that will take a slightly bad choice and spin it into a life destroying disaster. Plus, in some circumstances that we don't chose all that we are offered are bad choices and worse ones. Generational poverty is a prime example of this.
The responsible way of handling this is to own the choices you made, but to put the onus for all the rest where it's due: the society and environment we live in. You can't make gold if all you have is air. What you can do is make the best decisions that you can make given the circumstances you live in, knowing that chaos and chance will take a dump on you at random, and that's ok, it happens.
Tags:
From:
no subject
I've so far restrained myself from ranting about it, proving my amazing self control ;-( (Or perhaps it was the will of God ;-()
In general, I agree with you about wyrd, and note that almost nothing happens for only a single reason. I also like the D&D metaphor - you accumulate die roll modifiers, but eventually the dice are rolled, producing randomness.
I guess these beliefs help some people in managing their otherwise even worse moods, which is fine by me.
OTOH, they also help some people in finding ways to express their habit of blaming the victim, which I rather despise.
meh.
From:
no subject
Because the "Will of God" raining down crap onto someone's life and expecting them to just suck it up and consider it a "blessing" is some very fucked up shit.
Sure, we make our lives better or worse with our actions, but that's not the whole of it. You can be the best, nicest, holiest Mr Rogers around, and randomness can still come and bring your life crashing down. That's why Wyrd is more than simple Karma with a Norse twist. It's not just the cause and effect of who you are and your actions, it's everyone around you, and the randomness of the universe and humanity itself. It's the butterfly effect combined with a die roll. Your choices influence your direction, but don't always determine the outcome.
I've seen too much abuse heaped on victims with the "Everything happens for a reason" crowd, which is why my response is always "Sure, but often that reason is just random chance, or Murphy having a party."
Do things happen to people to "teach them a lesson?" Maybe, but likely not. I view it instead as making use of random circumstances to grow as a person. No heavy hand of a deity involved.
From:
no subject
To Quote Marcus Cole from Babylon 5. "I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?' So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
The same can be said of things happening for a reason. When people say things happen for reason, they mean that something has happened because you deserve it.
This is not true. Things happen because random shit happens, or because shit happens due to someone else screwing up and you got caught up in it randomly.
From:
no subject