Author Topic: unemployed men are a waste of space (Read 13061 times)

Traditional Guy 20 · « **Reply #30 on:** December 09, 2013, 06:01:58 PM »

Quote from: McFiggly

Actually, from what I can gather ggreg seems like a decent man.

You obviously have not been on this forum every long then.

Traditional Guy 20 · « **Reply #31 on:** December 09, 2013, 06:06:59 PM »

Since some folks want to down-thumb my posts about ggreg I would ask they actually have the courage to physically type down what they find good about this man.

Frances · « **Reply #32 on:** December 09, 2013, 06:13:13 PM »

:farmer:
There is absolutely no shame in doing "menial" work. I've two graduate degrees in education and supplement my teacher's salary at a nonpublic school by house and office cleaning. I also do calligraphy and sewing for pay. A close friend of mine runs a cleaning business. She quit school at 16 to get married, thus never finished high school. She's been a widow for eight years and provides for five children. I'm one of her hired temps! She's more worthy of praise than I! Snobbery has no place among Catholics.

Traditional Guy 20 · « **Reply #33 on:** December 09, 2013, 06:13:22 PM »

Quote from: Tiffany

If you cannot find a way to earn a living in a rich country of 300,000,000 people with 50 different states you can work in where they all speak your language, then frankly you are a waste of space.

This is not a defense of ggreg but in a welfare system like ours it does indeed try to reward people for not working while it punishes people who do work hard. If I may also be so bold, those who raise up in society are obviously full of more talent and ability than those on the bottom, social Darwinism if you will.

Croix de Fer · « **Reply #34 on:** December 09, 2013, 07:41:14 PM »

Jesus doesn't think they're a waste of space, as long as these unemployed people still put God and His Holy Mother first in their lives.

shin · « **Reply #35 on:** December 09, 2013, 07:53:38 PM »

I'm waiting for Ggreg to give good advice seasoned with sugar instead of vinegar. :thinking:

:smile:

soulguard · « **Reply #36 on:** December 10, 2013, 12:16:59 PM »

I thought this was a Catholic forum? Since when is this bougois "I have a job so I am better than you - and you are a waste of space" Catholic?

It is not.
The posts in support of this man just show that people are putting their jobs and material wealth in front of God and religion. What is wrong with people not working for a godless society. All you people are doing is keeping the cogwheels in motion and creaming off money to spend on creature comforts.
Catholics should have a more transcendental view of property and status.
Surely also this "waste of space" insult is an argument used by abortionists.
You are all on the wrong side. I have no vested interest in society so I see the truth, but you are blinded by your secular prestige.

ps: I am not "unemployed", but employed in study, but if I were unemployed I would say the same thing as now. What makes you think all of a sudden the unemployed are a waste of space? Whether or not they have a job is not up to them, it is a free market economy in a depression after all.

McFiggly · « **Reply #37 on:** December 10, 2013, 01:48:36 PM »

I agree with soulguard, he may be "young and idealistic" but his point is essentially valid. The view that the unemployed are a "waste of space" is high-minded contempt that is surely not worthy of any Christian. I can see why a "Traditional Catholic" would associate being traditional with being contemptuous of the unemployed, but that is due to mistaking the tradition of the Catholic Church with the tradition of Bourgeois society that has been in place since about the time of the devil-inspired French Revolution. That contempt is not Catholic, it is fundamentally Protestant. Read Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism for elaboration on this point.

Quote from: A famous Christian who grew up in a Protestant country

"When Catholicism degenerates, what form of corruption will show itself? The answer is easy: mock holiness. When Protestantism degenerates, what form of corruption will show itself? The answer is not difficult: shallow worldliness. But in Protestantism this will show itself with a refinement which cannot occur in Catholicism."

Shallow worldliness is what is upsetting soulguard here, and he has a right to be upset by it. I am upset by it as well.

What people ought to be saying to soulguard, instead of rudely dismissing him with downward thumbs, is that he has to come to terms with the callousness of the world, and with the extremely callous worldliness of modernity in particular. So, soulguard, this worldly attitude that is upsetting you has always upset Christians. It upset our Lord, which is why he said it would be easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. It is why Saints have always preferred poverty to luxury. If you really despise worldliness soulguard, good, but you have your work set out for you if you want to battle against it and not just hypocritically moan about it while being worldly yourself. If you really don't want to be worldly then you have the life of a monk before you, and I don't think there's a single person on this forum with enough arrogance to disrespect that kind of life.

Quote from: John 16:33

These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world.

Do not be distressed by the noise that the world makes, soulguard, because your Lord has overcome the world.

Kazimierz · « **Reply #38 on:** December 10, 2013, 02:34:51 PM »

The dangerous and eventual fatal terminus of this kind of thinking has shown itself in 20th century atrocities. It reeks of utilitarianism.

Some of us men are trying to find work and it is not easy.

Matthew · « **Reply #39 on:** December 10, 2013, 05:44:56 PM »

Quote from: ggreg

I recommended an Indian guy for a sales job recently. He was a nice enough intelligent guy, in his mid 20s, but he had a terribly strong Indian accent. It was his first sales job, no proven sales experience. I did warn the company that his Indian accent would be a problem for him selling on the telephone. The job pays $65k per year. They liked him because he knew something about business telephone services, but frankly nothing you couldn't learn with a couple of weeks study and watching youtube videos.

Why isn't a native English speaker with a neutral accent getting that job, if there are so many hard working, willing and able white English speakers out there? Some recent import from India is beating white natives in the job market. Ok, $65k before tax, isn't much but it is not too bad for 26 years old. It is a good steeping stone to bigger things.

I work in the business world and I am regularly asked by clients to interview people from junior to senior so they can get an objective third party opinion. I can assure you that long term unemployment in your early 20s are the kiss of death. They mark you as unemployable and you need to think smart and have a very cunning plan to negate them.

It's hard (impossible?) to argue with this.

This is a first-hand account from someone who clearly knows what he's talking about.

I'll pass over ("transeo") the subject of ggreg's spiritual life for the moment.

When it comes to jobs/careers/employment/etc. I think ggreg is a great source of anecdotes and advice. He's up to his elbows in this stuff, and he knows what he talks about. When he talks about it, he talks FIRST HAND, not related urban legends from other unemployed people, negative attitudes, etc.

He states facts, at least in this case.

How would you react -- what would you think -- if you experienced this? A young man with a couple weeks' worth of knowledge and a thick Indian accent gets a 65K sales job. What would that make you think?

I think ggreg must have a point. Fortune favors the bold, or something to that effect. You do have to put yourself out there, sell yourself, put in some effort, etc.

I could add other anecdotes to ggreg's. I know of plenty of cases of men (and women) with inferior intelligence that out-succeed much smarter men because of SHEER EFFORT EXPENDED. Sad but true.

And if you want to talk spirituality, let's talk about the parable of the Ten Talents.

You have men with IQs of 100 working hard and achieving X, while men with IQs of 140 under-achieve and produce nothing. Who is going to have the easier Personal Judgment?

McFiggly · « **Reply #40 on:** December 10, 2013, 06:33:46 PM »

Quote from: Matthew

You have men with IQs of 100 working hard and achieving X, while men with IQs of 140 under-achieve and produce nothing. Who is going to have the easier Personal Judgment?

The point that soulguard has been eager to make, and that I support, is that God doesn't judge our bank accounts, he judges our character, our soul. Yes, sloth is a character defect, but ggreg didn't just condemn sloth, he condemned the unemployed. Now, many of the unemployed may well be infected with the sin of sloth. I've already put forward that I'm such an example. The point is that if a Christian wants to rebuke a person for their sloth then he should talk about sloth, it's causes and it's remedies, with charity towards the person and with the aim of moving that person towards grace. I don't see how anyone can fail to miss that this was far, far, far from ggreg's intention. He wanted, like a Pharisee, to whip and humiliate the sinners. Ggreg is very worldly wise - not say that he isn't spiritually wise - but when worldly wisdom leads to spiritual ignorance it has exceeded its bounds, and what soulguard and I have alluded to in our diatribes is a kind of spiritual ignorance, or even a sin, that is contained in ggreg's original comment and that has been repeated throughout this thread by others.

Now, I am young and vain. As is soulguard.

Quote from: Ecclesiastes 11:10

... childhood and youth are vanity.

Which is why I felt like a hypocrite in this thread - accusing my elders. However, I think that soulguard and I, in our youth and vanity, have a legitimate point that is going over your older and wiser heads because your age has cemented in your head a Bourgeois kind of bigotry against the "lazy", as if anybody that isn't enthusiastic about careers, promotions and corporate ladder-climbing is a condemned man. Soulguard and I grew up in more or less the same generation (I'm 21, I believe he is a few years younger), and so perhaps we have inherited a view inherent to our generation that was never a part of your own.

I do think that our generation is less enthusiastic, in general, about having a successful career, especially the men of our generation. Through lazy speculation, here are the explanations that I propose for this phenomenon:

- The economy is bad, it's very disheartening to a young person to be told that his entire career is built upon on the whims of greedy stockbrokers who could collapse the economy at any moment and render him jobless.
- Feminism has won and marriage is wrecked. Why even work hard to get a job? What are you working towards? A marriage, a family? But so many marriages are ending in divorce, family life has been cast as boring in the media while sɛҳuąƖ promiscuity has been glamorized, "alternate lifestyles" and things like gαy marriage have made marriage and the family seem like mere options, not vital necessities. We young men are told again and again that women are better at us, that they get better grades than us and that more of them attend colleges/universities than do men. So what's the point? It used to be that a man had a career so that he could support a woman. Now you get a career only to be emasculated by your female superiors at work and to be emasculated by your partner at home who constantly reminds you that she "doesn't need you", and that she could "get by on her own".
- We were raised by Boomers / hippies who believe that sentimental love can solve all problems. You may have been raised by parents that were set on you having successful careers, but I never had that pressure on me. Your parents may have deemed you rotten failures for being unemployed, our parents are "sympathetic". It could be argued that they are far too light on us, but I could argue that your parents were too strict on you and turned you into career snobs.

There's probably more, but you get the idea.

If anybody wants to point me to the writings of a Church authority on sloth I'd receive them with thankfulness. I think that would be far more pleasing to both me and soulguard than to be bashed for being wastes of space, even though I admit that I'm wickedly slothful to the point of being a waste of space.

ggreg · « **Reply #41 on:** December 10, 2013, 07:32:35 PM »

So you are going to just lay down and die?

Charles Morse: You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame.
Stephen: What?
Charles Morse: Yeah, see, they die of shame. "What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?" And so they sit there and they... die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their lives.
Robert Green: And what is that, Charles?
Charles Morse: Thinking

http://goo.gl/pgvGf

My advice is set yourself little goals and start rebuilding your self-respect a piece at a time. You've let the world beat you.

McFiggly · « **Reply #42 on:** December 10, 2013, 07:41:52 PM »

Yes, ggreg, the world has done a number on me. However, don't forget that "the unemployed are wastes of space" is a worldly phrase par excellence. If the world has beaten me it has beaten me, I'm sorry to say, with words like that.

Mabel · « **Reply #43 on:** December 10, 2013, 09:19:28 PM »

My husband has offered to help young men and even fathers of family come to the US ( and the ones that already live here) to find a position in his line of work. When they found out there would be mandatory overtime and that sometimes it was difficult amd menial, they turned him down. I've seen it happen almost a dozen times now, no one has ever taken him up on the offer, despite the excellent benefits and opportunity for advancement, and job security. I was shocked! If I were a young man, I would have loved such an opportunity to get my foot in the door.

I see a lot of truth in what ggreg says in the realm of making a living, even if he is unnecessarily offensive, but maybe some people need to hear the truth about themselves. I don't know. I can't judge a whole group of people I don't know from the Internet. The young men that I have met since becoming an adult seem to be allergic to work.

Even my father, who works in the manufacturing industry, has had jobs fall through because of the economy. However, he has and still does manage to find something else in his line of work because he was willing. He took menial jobs when he was young, got experience, worked his way up, and made contacts in other companies that helped him stay employed even when his workplaces shut down.

To be fair, I've heard a lot of women say "Ew, I don't want to learn how to cook/teach/sew/be frugal!" towards their state in life as well. It's not just the men and it is sad.

Thorn · « **Reply #44 on:** December 10, 2013, 10:29:27 PM »

McFiggly, you need to take the words 'career', 'promotions', and 'corporate ladder-climbing' out of your vocabulary right now & replace them with 'WORK'. Then get to work looking for WORK, even if it's lowly & menial. Someone has to bus tables. Someone has to clean toilets. Someone has to feed & milk cows. Someone has to scrub the floors in schools, hospitals, restaurants, etc. Someone has to wash dishes. Someone has to pick strawberries. Why can't that be you?
Stop whining about your sloth. It's unbecoming of a man. That's for children.

"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, but when I became a man I spoke as a man."