Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve. – Shakespeare, Richard III (IV,iv)
If you’ve been reading me for a while you’ve noticed that I’m a bit persnickety about words. OK, that’s an understatement; I can actually be downright maniacal about them. But as I pointed out in “Nasty Words”,
As a writer, words are my tools, and I cherish them and baby them the way a good mechanic cares for the tools of his trade. And just as a good mechanic always uses the right tool for the job rather than trying to make do with whatever happens to be nearby, so I insist on using the right word…and just as some mechanics are annoyed by seeing others misuse or abuse their tools, so am I annoyed by the misuse or abuse of words…
This doesn’t mean I’m a grammar Nazi, though (as you’ve also probably noticed). It’s not misspellings, malapropisms or mistakes like “irregardless” that set my teeth on edge, and you’ll probably never see me rail about them unless I’m deliberately trying to be difficult. No, what annoys me are A) words which are improperly constructed (such as “homophobia”) or improperly used (such as “vagina”) by people who should know better, trying to sound “proper” or “intellectual” or “serious” and failing miserably; and B) proper words used properly which nonetheless grate on my nerves due to their referring to morally or philosophically objectionable concepts. I’ve already written about (A) in the aforementioned “Nasty Words”, and about one important example of (B) in “The Privilege Paradigm”. But today I’d like to target the word “deserve”, the visible part of an iceberg of moral odiousness floating unseen below the social waterline.
If you’re scratching your head about now, consider what the word “deserve” implies: that there is some absolute and unambiguous moral standard in the universe against which actions and people can be weighed like a heart against a feather in the Egyptian afterlife, with “deserving” things exalted with hosannahs and “undeserving” thrown to that crocodile-headed thing. Yes, that’s an exaggeration, but not by much; “deserve” implies a clear, objective standard on which all right-thinking people can agree, and sets up an external authority as the judge. And those implications lead to two important misrepresentations of subjective things as objective; the first is merely annoying, while the second is one of the chief rationalizations for tyranny.
The first of those misrepresentations is the one used with irksome regularity in advertisements for luxury goods or what we might call “common luxuries”, things such as ice cream or fast food which aren’t luxurious, but aren’t strictly necessary either. It’s nearly impossible to go a day without seeing some huckster hawking his goods with phrases like McDonald’s classic “You deserve a break today,” implying that the consumer is a long-suffering paragon of virtue whose unremitting efforts go unrecognized by Them, despite the fact that the whole business would fall apart if not for her. So even if she isn’t paid as much as she “deserves” or given the praise she “deserves”, she can reward herself by spending money at whatever business the ad is trying to promote. Vacation travel is one of the most notorious abusers of the word, but in a bad economy it has a strong challenger in loan companies who promise to give the consumer “the credit you deserve”, implying that hey, it isn’t actually your fault that you defaulted on all those bills. Am I implying that people with bad credit are deadbeats? Not at all; life is hard and shit happens (and I’m only just building back my own credit from a near-total wipeout in the autumn of 2008). But let’s not pretend that good credit is some kind of award for the virtuous, either; actuarial tables are not based in scruples, but in statistics. Either there’s a good chance a lender will get his money back from a borrower or there isn’t, and “deserve” has nothing to do with it. That also happens to be the title of an excellent essay by Ken “Popehat” White which I linked in “Return of the Agitator“:
…the central narrative of our criminal justice system…offers the ultimate excuse for cutting corners, giving police the benefit of the doubt, looking the other way at constitutional violations, putting our thumbs on the state’s end of the scales of justice. He got what he deserved — that’s what one side says, cutting through facts and law and reasoned analysis to pure us vs. them. He didn’t deserve that, says the other side, unwittingly lending support to the implicit argument that there are some who do. But deserve’s got nothing to do with it. Heroism and villainy have nothing to do with it. We have to demand that everyone be treated justly, whether our viscera tell us that they do not deserve the rule of law at all…because it’s…foolish and perilous to let the state (or the mob) decide who deserves rights and who doesn’t…
The word “deserve” is thus allowed to excuse the inexcusable; it’s OK that we gunned down that black kid, because he stole a pack of cigarettes two years ago. It’s OK we raped that woman, because she’s a streetwalker. It’s OK we’re fining charities for feeding those people, because they’re drug addicts. It’s OK we entirely shut these men out of human society, because they’re “sex offenders”. They don’t deserve to be treated like human beings, because they’re “no angels”…the implication being, of course, that only angels deserve humane treatment, no matter what the easy-credit guys tell you. And if you see nothing wrong with that implication, you deserve everything you get.
LOL! Yes, you kind of ARE. Just “embrace” it already!!
Great article – I was thinking about this very thing the other day when I found this YouTube video of a cop arresting a motorcyclist for an “obstructed license plate”.
Now … I will admit … the motorcyclist’s behavior pisses me off and, initially hard for me to sympathize with him. He’s an idiot. No matter what a cop pulls me over for – I’m always polite even if I think he’s out of line.
And this motorcyclist is just dumber than a sack of hammers.
But … still … the obstructed license plate is a bullshit charge and it’s one you can hit any rider with who’s riding a “crotch rocket” – just due to the way the back fender in engineered and the lack of a clear-view space to mount a license plate. So this guy mouthed off … the cop figured “he deserved” to be arrested (for something) … he trumped up a charge … called in backup … and then happily slammed the rider around and hauled him off to jail.
Not right.
Agreed. Cops using bullshit to justify giving someone a life altering arrest record (who was clearly just a jerk, not a criminal) is unspeakably horrible. And common.
One of the things I like about modern Christian theology (I think it extends to the Catholics, but I know it runs through the Protestant evangelicals) is the idea that NONE OF US deserve God’s mercy … and it’s there for the asking. It just undercuts the hell out of all kinds of self-righteous twerps, religious AND secular.
I have my problems with Christianity, which is why I’m an agnostic, but it has its good points.
Regrettably, the “NONE OF US deserve God’s mercy” teaching (in it’s various forms and flavors) is paired with “but all of us DESERVE God’s condemnation”. (Further consideration of “undeserved mercy” raises the more-foundational question of why an allegedly omnipotent, omniscient, omniprescient, just, loving, benevolent, infallible father-lord-god would in the first place knowingly create free-will beings whom “he” knew would suffer his everlasting condemnation and whom would need mercy — but, that’s a topic for elsewhere of course.)
The “deserving God’s condemnation” (although admittedly, currently, an often less-emphasized teaching in especially liberal and moderate Evangelical groups) becomes a roundabout route to self-righteousness also, when those who profess to have received God’s mercy and forgiveness adopt a subtle “I’m saved and thereby spiritually enlightened, unlike YOU, you impenitents ” approach to others.
But, yes, I, as what might be labeled a general agnostic/particular atheist agree that Christianity, along with all major religions, has some beneficial teachings.
There were early Christians like Origen and Clement that wrote about universal salvation (the idea that everyone would eventually be saved), which continues to this day in the form of the Unitarians and Universalists. Unsurprisingly, these people tend to be quite tolerant compared to the fundamentalist types.
Regrettably, Origen-type quasi-universalism was very rare, if the Apostolic- and Anti-Nicene- eras primary sources are fair indicators of the beliefs held in early Christianity. Certainly would have meant less tension between Christianity and society if that belief had been accepted by Christianity generally as, yep, it would have led to much more tolerance.
Which is one of the reasons I have never bought into Christianity, or Judaism, or Islam. ALMOST bought into Hinduism because it doesn’t really hold this concept. Honestly … Hinduism is the one that makes the most sense to me. Too many questions with the others that just go ’round in circles. Everyone is supposed to “find” God – how? You have one lifetime to do it. You need to “feel” the truth behind sacred texts – and be able to distinguish the one TRUE “truth” from the other “false” truths. Meanwhile – God has given you no tools to do this.
With Hinduism – theoretically everyone is “redeemed” in the end because you just keep cycling through until you get it right.
But I’m not even sold on that … although it makes a lot more sense than “redemption” through the other major religions. Buddhism – I can’t speak of … never really “explored” it. BUT … I will tell you … I LOVED READING the “Ramayana” and the “Mahabharata” (spelling?) because, to me – they are like Science Fiction novels … which was another cool thing about Hinduism. I’ve always wished they would turn the Mahabharata into a Science Fiction movie – that would be one awesome movie! It would be though … virtually impossible to tell that story in a movie though.
Krulac, I’ll go out on a cyber-limb here and toss my addy to you. This now-agnostic/atheist spent ten of my adult years as a bible-literalist, “born again” in an ultra-conservative group “serving Iesus” as a Christian apologist. Ya ever want to amuse yourself with deep discussions outside the scope of Maggie’s column, feel free: we2r1_1980@yahoo.com
Thanks! Yes I would describe myself exactly as you. I like what Charles Krauthammer said … “I do not believe in God … but I fear him greatly.”
He also went on to say …
And that is exactly where I am at. 🙂
Have you read Zelazny’s Lord of Light? Seems like just what the doctor ordered. Assuming the doctor is an ex-submariner who frequents whores, that is.
I just checked that on Amazon … it looks interesting! Thanks!
You’re in good company in your opinions here, Maggie. Georgie Bernard Shaw, that nasty old socialist, had Liza Doolittle’s father say in “Pygmalion” in response to Professor Higgins’ talk about providing charity to “the deserving poor”
[quote]DOOLITTLE: Don’t say that, Governor. Don’t look at it that way. What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I’m one of the undeserving poor: that’s what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he’s up agen middle class morality all the time. If there’s anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it’s always the same story: ‘You’re undeserving; so you can’t have it.’ But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow’s that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don’t need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don’t eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more.[/quote]
Source: http://www.monologuearchive.com/s/shaw_006.html#zohE0HRyPRT5G16V.99
And Mark Twain agrees with you on the important of words. He said: “‘The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
Two of my favorite quotes.
Reblogged this on Sable Aradia, Priestess & Witch.
This was a nice artical. I totally agree with every point.
I always found it rather despicable the way people use “deserve” to alleiviate guilt, whether or not the guilt their feeling is one they should be paying attention to.
Groaner joke a friend told me decades ago:
McD’s manager goes to the shop one morning and finds a window broken. A brick lying on the floor has a note wrapped around it: “You deserve a brick today.”
There is a lot of unfairness in the system as it is, but to deny the concept of the undeserving is to prevent at least some necessary justice from being done. I can’t go along with that — but I do insist that no one be above being judged and treated accordingly.
Reblogged this on iheariseeilearn.
I am reminded of something that Confucius once said, according to the late Gore Vidal. “The Master was asked by his students that if he became emperor, what would be his first action. The Master thought for a moment and said, ‘First, I would rectify the language.'”
Maggie quoting Ken quoting Clint Eastwood. It’s like a Russian Doll of awesome.
Musing on merely the advertising usages of “deserve”…
Of course, in the carefully-crafted, deliberately-ambiguous-in-ways-that-enable-the-listener-to-favor-him/herself manipulations of advertising and marketeering, “deserve” serves to stroke ego and exploit entitlement. It’s another loaded word in another semantical sleight-of-hand employed to seem to say something yet under scrutiny neither explicitly claims nor expresses anything.
I doubt Mc’ds could care less whether anyone “deserves” anything. As a global corporation, McD’s likely cares only that you and I patronize Mc’d’s today and every today and “break” with our money. I doubt that McD’s itself believes the self-favoring meaning people typically attach to the slogan.
Among its communicative ambiguities, the slogan “You deserve a break today” is tactically elliptical, avoiding to define the what-is, the when-to, and the from-what of “break”. The slogan purposely leaves that to the self-favoring, self-serving fill-in-the-blank of the listener.
And, heck, in my estimation of McD’s and its operations, the ellipses could legitimately be filled in with meanings such as, “you [YOUR BODY AND HEALTH] deserve a break [ AN ABSTINENCE] today [THE ENTIRE DAY] [FROM EATING MC’D’S PSEUDO-FOOD], or, “you deserve a break [ A RESPITE] today [FROM HAVING TO DEAL WITH MC’D’S INCOMPETENT, INDIFFERENT EMPLOYEES].
[…] flowers, chocolates, etc. Then in the 1980s, jewelers convinced American women that they “deserved” diamond jewelry on the day; at that rate it’s about time for another escalation, and I shudder […]
There are certain subjects where I try to very quickly steer the conversation away from what people deserve. I don’t necessarily think that “deserve” is a bogus concept, but I do think that, like the recent “let’s put pretzels in everything” craze, it gets sprinkled about too generously.
And I even like pretzels.