Clear (your) Eyes
This is apparently just over a week old but somehow I missed it. Writing for The American Spectator, Ben Stein said:
"The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job. Again, there are powerful exceptions and I know some, but when employers are looking to lay off, they lay off the least productive or the most negative. To assure that a worker is not one of them, he should learn how to work and how to get along — not always easy."
Reading this bothered me a bit as there is something I like about Ben Stein. I’m not sure what it is, but no doubt Ferris Bueller comes into play somewhere.
I read the above blurb first on a website that was not at The American Spectator. While trying to track down the original posting I found it a couple of times more before making my way to the source.
At The American Spectator I found the whole post. The offensive bit above was just a small piece of a larger article Mr. Stein penned (or typed, or whatever). As a matter of fact it was point two in a in a series of three where point three read:
3. Simple habits of prudence will almost save the day, even in a bad recession. People who have meaningful savings, insured retirement plans, diversification of assets, people who do not buy what they cannot afford, people who do not simply assume the money will materialize out of thin air for their next purchase, people who add and subtract and see life plain, these people rarely get in desperate trouble. It is amazing how old-fashioned habits of buying modestly and living within one’s means, and planning for bad times as well as good times, can get one through earth shaking events.
I’m not defending Ben Stein. God knows our politics differ by about 180 degrees. Still, the several sources I came across that mentioned point two made no mention of point three which, I think, contains several useful tips — you know, if it were rewritten so that is wasn’t so much an observational piece as a piece on giving financial advice.
Not surprisingly, Stein got beat up in the blogosphere for his comment. A few days later he put down a few more points on the subject. The first two points were:
1. I have a small circle of friends and acquaintances. Their experiences may be totally different from the experiences of the rest of Americans.
2. Within that small circle, the persons who are long-term unemployed are generally, with some exceptions, lacking in good work habits or substance abusers or difficult to be around because of personality problems or have not bothered to learn new skills or are wildly unrealistic in what kinds of jobs they will accept. They are fine people and I like them but they are troubled. This apparently has a lot to do with their economic situation.
I don’t know if he is backtracking. I don’t get that feel from the article, but I don’t know a lot about Ben Stein’s character past what I see on commercials for eye drops.
It would have been helpful had the other websites I visited gone into more detail about the American Spectator posting. Snipping small bits of an article (or tape or video) just to make someone look like a total wanker is unhelpful.
I don’t like it when Fox News does it.
I don’t like it when the non-insane do it.
(This is not to say Ben Stein is not a total douche. I just don’t know. You’d think Ben would be smart enough to suppose that the massive number of new layoffs might have caught a boatload of people that fall into his “exceptions” category… but maybe he’s just clueless and not douchey.)
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Well, bad things happen to good people, too. However, I have seen in the case of my Was-band, when the economy took a dive a few years back, they couldn’t wait to get rid of him, citing his lack of work ethic and generally being a dislikeable person with poor character traits not excluding a general lack of trustworthyness. I agree with his former employer. Then, after he didn’t work for almost 12 months because all the jobs available were beneath him. Although, he didn’t feel that borrowing thousands of dollars from my family was beneath him (which he reneaged from.) Am I rambling? *sigh*
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Is it wrong that something about the honesty behind “citing his lack of work ethic and generally being a dislikeable person with poor character traits not excluding a general lack of trustworthyness” made me laugh until my eyes teared up?
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Out of context, most anything we can say can be used against us. It’s a tough world out there now.
blueviolet recently posted..Walking on Eggs