Where the person thinks they started from nothing no matter how elevated their position was.
In America, this is the internalized narrative that everyone has, it’s our national mythology.
I’ll do you one better. I am a working-class born American, who went to Harvard and became part of the upper-middle class. Many people I meet in my adult life, tell me I should have never been born because my parents were unable to provide me with college/grad school education out of their own money. They actively hate and resent the idea of people working their way up in life because it makes them feel bad about themselves. Sometimes I get told that my lack of wealth, makes me MORE privileged than them. Literally last month I was out with someone whose parents had PhDs, who started lecturing me no how ‘oppressed’ they were by having such successful parents, and my uneducated rural upbringing was ‘more privileged’ than theirs because ‘your starting point was so much lower and therefore it was easier for you to achieve things’. It was wild. But I encounter such attitudes very frequently. It’s basically the sentiment that affirmative action is cheating and allowing ‘unworthy’ minorities to attend schools and ‘displacing’ more deserving wealthier white/asian students.
The upper classes do not want anyone to achieve what they have, they want to horde it for themselves. In their own minds, they are the victims of an evil and undeserving working-class who wants to steal from them.
In America, this is the internalized narrative that everyone has, it’s our national mythology.
I’ll do you one better. I am a working-class born American, who went to Harvard and became part of the upper-middle class. Many people I meet in my adult life, tell me I should have never been born because my parents were unable to provide me with college/grad school education out of their own money. They actively hate and resent the idea of people working their way up in life because it makes them feel bad about themselves. Sometimes I get told that my lack of wealth, makes me MORE privileged than them. Literally last month I was out with someone whose parents had PhDs, who started lecturing me no how ‘oppressed’ they were by having such successful parents, and my uneducated rural upbringing was ‘more privileged’ than theirs because ‘your starting point was so much lower and therefore it was easier for you to achieve things’. It was wild. But I encounter such attitudes very frequently. It’s basically the sentiment that affirmative action is cheating and allowing ‘unworthy’ minorities to attend schools and ‘displacing’ more deserving wealthier white/asian students.
The upper classes do not want anyone to achieve what they have, they want to horde it for themselves. In their own minds, they are the victims of an evil and undeserving working-class who wants to steal from them.