Sarah Gibbard Cook
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • Contact

Entitlement: The Evolution of a Pejorative

8/13/2018

4 Comments

 
Pressing for Medicare legislation, President Johnson told press secretary Bill Moyers, “We’ve just got to say that, by God, you can’t treat grandma this way. She’s entitled and we promised it to her.”

Words are like people; they change and grow. Entitle is a prime example. At core, an entitlement is the grant of a rightful legal or moral claim, like the title to your house or car. The first sentence of the Declaration of Independence refers to “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them.”

The shift in usage, from rightful to unjustified, dates from the 1960s and 1970s. Psychologists described narcissists as displaying a sense of entitlement. Politicians dropped the word “earned” from Roosevelt’s description of Social Security as an earned entitlement. Defenders of Medicare and Social Security say the programs aren’t entitlements; we’ve paid into them and earned them. Oddly, it has become an insult to call something an entitlement if the recipient is actually entitled to it.
4 Comments
Dennis Doren
8/13/2018 08:54:04 am

Fascinating historical perspective. An additional usage is the idea that other people are "entitled" to their opinions, but somehow our opinion has more validity than that...

Reply
Sarah link
8/13/2018 01:29:50 pm

Nice point about opinions (often expanded to "entitled to their opinions but not to their own facts"). I wonder if validity has two slightly different meanings here. I can acknowledge people have a valid right (are entitled) to think national parks are a waste of good land or to paint their house exteriors purple with orange stripes, without thinking they've made a valid choice or reached a valid conclusion in the sense of correct.

Reply
Walter Hassenpflug
8/13/2018 05:16:31 pm

I totally agree with you Sarah and with Dennis. Let me show a carryover into the educational arena. Many of today's students put far less effort into learning than ever before. Homework assignments seem to be on their way out. Students seem to believe that as long as they continue to occupy space (sit in a seat) and continue to breathe, that they deserve at least a "B" if not an "A". And with pressure from above (principals and superintendents): Failure is not an option.

To be sure, students in Honors Classes and AP Classes do not fit into the "entitlement group."

Good blog. Wish others has shared their comments as well.

Reply
Sarah link
8/13/2018 08:39:45 pm

Walter, the sense of entitlement you describe in the educational arena seems to fit with what psychologists in the 1960s and 1970s described in narcissists, but now in students (and their parents) more broadly. Perhaps we need language that distinguishes a sense or feeling of entitlement with actual (legal or moral) entitlement, being truly entitled.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    I'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. 

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016

    RSS Feed


      ​get updates

    Sign up
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • Contact