Miss Trunchbull

[spacefem]

I saw "Matilda: The Musical" for the first time this week, I was excited to see one of my favorite all time books come to life on stage and it was amazing. But this quote by Miss Trunchbull made me think:

"In this world, children, there are two types of human being. The winners and the losers. I am a winner. I play by the rules and I win. But if I play by the rules and I... do not win, then something is wrong, something is not working. And when something is wrong you have to put it right. Even if it screams."

I see people raising kids this way, sadly enough. When I read stories about cults and religious abuse, it's a theme. If you follow THE RULES God favors you. If God hasn't favored you, it's because you've done something wrong and you need MORE RULES and discipline. You're a bad person. There are Two Types Of People. If you're rich, it's because you work hard and fear God. If you're poor, you are lazy. There are geniuses, and people who need to stay out of their way and quit holding the geniuses back, questioning their authority, and asking them to pay taxes. There are moral beacons of authority, and there are lawless criminals who need to be locked up and punished so they follow the rules. Did you sleep on a park bench because you were homeless? That's against the rules. Why aren't you working! You should be in jail, or forced to leave. You got yourself into this situation.

At some point in my early 20s, I started realizing that there's some serious luck and birthright involved in who's rich, who's poor, who went to college, who went to prison. I realized there aren't two types of people, there's basically one type of person, and we're all kind of trying our best. If we create a system that helps people out, we might all thrive, because you never can predict who's going to do great things in the world. If we create a system focused on finding the bad people and punishing them, we're missing the point. You can blame all your problems on criminals, but then when the blame starts you don't know where to stop, who else isn't following your rules? You slide from thieves to drug addicts to undocumented immigrants, gays, atheists... because you lose a scale, you're so busy trying to figure out who is squarely in your bad category and screwing everything up for all of us, and you definitely can't look in the mirror anymore, you forgot how. In your perfect categories, you tell your children that religious leaders are infallible and drag queens are dangerous and you ignore all evidence to the contrary.

So I decided to do the opposite of all of that, be thankful for what the world has given me, because it was luck, and I can help other people have the same opportunities because I was helped. I wasn't a magic Good Person. How else can we say it? Well... I didn't just fall out of a coconut tree!

Comments

[siglinde999]

Luck and birthright are such big factors in life! And people don’t sleep on park benches because they want to (though they may chose the bench over a shelter because they are afraid to be indoors, or risk losing their few possessions, or there is no room at the shelter, etc). There have been so many studies showing that sharing wealth in a judgement-free way doesn’t lead to more crime or laziness; it leads to better outcomes for everyone, including the rich (because long-term they pay less taxes to cover the costs of prisons and so on). I was listening to a radio piece just yesterday about a study where randomly-selected people were given $10,000 to spend as they wish. The only requirement was that they report at the end of the experiment period on how they had spent it. Overall, even the most financially needy folks passed on over half that money for the benefit of others. Studies on universal basic income and supportive housing for the homeless (including drug addicts), have shown similar positive results.

[fbhjr]

I've never been good with rules. Guides, sure.

But, the musical sounds cool!

[anais_pf]

Yes! All of this.

I meant to see Matilda on Broadway but I've only seen the movie, which was pretty good. Strangely enough, I have never read the book. Ah, just looked it up and I was in my 30s when it was published, and I have no children to read to. That explains it. I may go get a copy from the library.

[brittdreams]

I loved that musical when I saw it. I also totally agree with what you've said about the element of luck in all of our lives.

[msconduct]

I would add to that that people who benefit from privilege tend to ascribe their success to their own character and work ethic, not to the privilege.

[ironphoenix]

Yep... good old "prosperity theology" shows up in many forms.

[kazzy_cee]

All of this. Also, the fact that society seems to want people to fit into these categories, means that people with disabilities have struggled for years trying to use public transport and to get easily into buildings. Finally, that is very slowly changing, but other groups are still struggling with society's expectations of 'normal'.

[pineapple_sour]

So much of what you said! And couple these beliefs with the slow removal of any means of people to improve their situation... will throwing homeless people into jail or forcing them to leave will HELP their situation? NO.

It's all such a roll of the dice.

[adafrog]

yep