In my previous entry in this series (http://amusingbeam.blogspot.com/2012/02/you-have-to-pay-for-things-part-1-to.html), I discussed how everyone has to pay for things, specifically about how kids have to learn this lesson.
Here, I'm going to discuss adults. (By adults, I mean people that have reached the age of majority with a certain minimal amount of physical and mental capacity that it makes sense to make them morally responsible for their actions.) Adults should know that they have to pay for things, but many do not.
For this blog, let's ignore the obvious cases of those on the government dole--they would be good examples, but there is little to say of them that is not apparent on its face. Instead, let's take a few examples of non-monetary paying. If you have a roommate that contributes money to the abode, you are benefiting from that payment. In some way, you have to pay for her contribution. You may need to accommodate her when she is pickier in cleaning up the house than you, or, on the flip side, you may have to deal with the fact that she is not as clean as you would like. In a healthy relationship, you would have the discussion (hopefully before moving in together) and figure out what the expectations are. Oftentimes, though, both sides simply hole up in their own expectations and get silently resentful of the other.
Part of the computation of who gets to make the rules, of course, is how much each side is paying. This should be a no-brainer, but it often is not. That disconnect may be partly because we have trained a generation of kids to think that they are entitled to the roofs over their heads, with no need to contribute anything, yet they had opinions that were listened to (sometimes simply obeyed [!]). Why should they have to contribute more in their new situations? Of course, the answer is that this sort of thinking is not scalable. If neither side is willing to contribute or to give up part of the decision making, there are immediate impasses.
Other, similar "you have to pay for things" moments are in various sorts of lines. Somehow, people rationalize being jerks in these situations all the time. There is a half-mile-long line of cars to get onto the interstate, but nobody in the other lane (which ends shortly before the entrance ramp). If nobody were to get in the other lane, traffic would continue at a slow, steady pace. But, some jerk has to go all the way up there because, you know, why should HE have to wait? HE is more important, and besides, everyone else that is waiting is just a pack of morons taking up his air. Or, you are at a fast food joint that doesn't have well-articulated lines. The same general rules of first-come, first-served should obviously apply, but this lady jumps in when the first guy leaves the register. Both of these type of people will often then get upset when called out on their unsocial behavior. But ... they have to pay for their jerkiness. Them's the breaks.
Contract law revolves around the notion of people reaching agreements through the exchange of different valuable objects. That's generally the way the world should work, and, like every jurisdiction expects of those making contracts, people should expect adults to interact in good faith. You try to follow through in the spirit of the way the agreement is made. You say you are going to do something, you do it, or you pay a premium for failing. The general societal norms say you behave this way, you do so, or you pay a premium.
That doesn't mean that the rules should never be broken, or that they are correctly calibrated. I spent a good portion of my life with long hair, and I was constantly ridiculed for it -- why in the world should anyone, except my wife, care about the length of my hair? (I wore appropriate safety garb when dealing with food and equipment, just to deal with that trivial exception.) But, even though the norms were silly, I still had to pay.
I'm sure the couple of people reading this will find all of this self evident, but all it takes is a moment of thought to realize that much of the world does not find it so. Parents believe their children should get extra attention and extra privileges at school, sports, whatever, and will demand it loudly. People in apartments have screaming matches at 3 a.m. No one wants to put items back on the shelves where they found them. In general, most people believe that the world is a large Lake Woebegone, where everyone is above average (most especially them).
Perhaps apocryphally, Ike was astounded to learn that fully half of U.S. citizens are below average. It would be nice if the rest of us understood the world a bit better.
(My next entry in this series will be on governments paying for things.)
Here, I'm going to discuss adults. (By adults, I mean people that have reached the age of majority with a certain minimal amount of physical and mental capacity that it makes sense to make them morally responsible for their actions.) Adults should know that they have to pay for things, but many do not.
For this blog, let's ignore the obvious cases of those on the government dole--they would be good examples, but there is little to say of them that is not apparent on its face. Instead, let's take a few examples of non-monetary paying. If you have a roommate that contributes money to the abode, you are benefiting from that payment. In some way, you have to pay for her contribution. You may need to accommodate her when she is pickier in cleaning up the house than you, or, on the flip side, you may have to deal with the fact that she is not as clean as you would like. In a healthy relationship, you would have the discussion (hopefully before moving in together) and figure out what the expectations are. Oftentimes, though, both sides simply hole up in their own expectations and get silently resentful of the other.
Part of the computation of who gets to make the rules, of course, is how much each side is paying. This should be a no-brainer, but it often is not. That disconnect may be partly because we have trained a generation of kids to think that they are entitled to the roofs over their heads, with no need to contribute anything, yet they had opinions that were listened to (sometimes simply obeyed [!]). Why should they have to contribute more in their new situations? Of course, the answer is that this sort of thinking is not scalable. If neither side is willing to contribute or to give up part of the decision making, there are immediate impasses.
Other, similar "you have to pay for things" moments are in various sorts of lines. Somehow, people rationalize being jerks in these situations all the time. There is a half-mile-long line of cars to get onto the interstate, but nobody in the other lane (which ends shortly before the entrance ramp). If nobody were to get in the other lane, traffic would continue at a slow, steady pace. But, some jerk has to go all the way up there because, you know, why should HE have to wait? HE is more important, and besides, everyone else that is waiting is just a pack of morons taking up his air. Or, you are at a fast food joint that doesn't have well-articulated lines. The same general rules of first-come, first-served should obviously apply, but this lady jumps in when the first guy leaves the register. Both of these type of people will often then get upset when called out on their unsocial behavior. But ... they have to pay for their jerkiness. Them's the breaks.
Contract law revolves around the notion of people reaching agreements through the exchange of different valuable objects. That's generally the way the world should work, and, like every jurisdiction expects of those making contracts, people should expect adults to interact in good faith. You try to follow through in the spirit of the way the agreement is made. You say you are going to do something, you do it, or you pay a premium for failing. The general societal norms say you behave this way, you do so, or you pay a premium.
That doesn't mean that the rules should never be broken, or that they are correctly calibrated. I spent a good portion of my life with long hair, and I was constantly ridiculed for it -- why in the world should anyone, except my wife, care about the length of my hair? (I wore appropriate safety garb when dealing with food and equipment, just to deal with that trivial exception.) But, even though the norms were silly, I still had to pay.
I'm sure the couple of people reading this will find all of this self evident, but all it takes is a moment of thought to realize that much of the world does not find it so. Parents believe their children should get extra attention and extra privileges at school, sports, whatever, and will demand it loudly. People in apartments have screaming matches at 3 a.m. No one wants to put items back on the shelves where they found them. In general, most people believe that the world is a large Lake Woebegone, where everyone is above average (most especially them).
Perhaps apocryphally, Ike was astounded to learn that fully half of U.S. citizens are below average. It would be nice if the rest of us understood the world a bit better.
(My next entry in this series will be on governments paying for things.)
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