Much like graphics, analogies are remarkably useful tools for people to use to help other people understand concepts that may be outside of their realm of knowledge or immediate understanding. However, unlike graphical representations of hard data, analogies are almost invariably flawed (after all, few things/situations are exactly equivalent in all ways, shapes, and forms), but you can still learn something from not only the comparison itself, but also how it falls short.
For example, take this entire post from photographer extraordinaire, Oleg Volk:
Parks usually warn visitors not to feed wild animals. Habituated to handouts, creatures such as bears get aggressive and attack visitors who disappoint them by not providing the expected food. Then the park rangers have to shoot the “problem bears”. It’s the same with the people: habituating them to handouts and letting them think the handouts are tribute is a surefire way of getting riots when the bread and circuses cease or merely decrease.
Oleg was specifically referring to the nearly-week-long riots in London and the rest of England, but the very same concept could be applied here in the States to seniors with an oversized sense of entitlement threatening generational warfare over Social Security cuts. In once-Great Britain, the violence can be traced to a culture that allows criminals to get away with whatever they want, and thus they become accustomed to this lack of consequences being the status quo, and become agitated (to the point of burning hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of private property) when that changes. Here in America, the simple truth of "you eventually run out of other people’s money" is going to come true sooner than later; the only question is how precipitous the change will be – if we can intentionally taper the governmental handouts off over time, the "problem bears" may get used to the decrease… or at least take it better than the cold-turkey treatment that is coming.
So where does this analogy fall short? Simple: animals do not know better, but people do, and that is probably the most disgusting aspect of these riots, the entitlement/dependence predicament we have here in the States, and all the rest of the related and similar things out there.
“So where does this analogy fall short? Simple: animals do not know better, but people do”
Except that from birth on they’ve been taught entitlement. They’ve not been taught morals, or how to reason. They are ignorant savages, just the way the state wanted them. No different from feral animals except in the ability to speak and learn. And what have they learned? From birth on? Everything is Society’s fault, and they OWE me. Not one adult among them, regardless of their age.
Fair enough – they are capable of knowing better, even if no one has ever taught them so.
But, yeah, this situation is most definitely a product of the society, and given it took them about 25 years to craft it the way it is, they are not likely to start unwinding it any time soon.