When my first marriage broke up, over 25 years ago, I tormented myself with the question of what I had done to deserve it. It eventually dawned on me that people don't necessarily "deserve" what happens to them. It's now becoming clear to me how desperately people cling to the narrative of just desserts and how undeserving that narrative actually is.
Let me give a few examples and then let me try to explain what is wrong with the story. 1. "This is a strenuous life. The rewards are for those who work for them -- a corollary of which is that the rewards are not for those who do not work for them. The useful man in business -- and the laborer is a man of business in his relations with his employer -- succeeds in making himself efficient and still more successful in proportion as he sees opportunities and embraces them. If these involve his rising early in the morning, he rises early; if they mean that he must sit up late at night, he sits up late at night. He lends his hand to the work that is before him, wherever it is and whenever it is before him." 2. "Mr. Tynan in himself furnishes the finest of examples of what a willing, strong, self-reliant lad may do for himself in America. He left his home in County Tyrone, Ireland, ten years ago and came to this country without an acquaintance to welcome him anywhere in all its broad limits, He began work as a mechanic at 25 cents an hour for the Cramp company and has risen steadily to his present position, one of the most important in the yards. Mr. Tynan came to America a poor boy in the steerage of a common ship of the times. Within less than seven years he went back to British waters in charge of one of the swiftest and finest of the " ocean greyhounds," the steamship St. Paul, built by the Cramps. From the very beginning of his connection with the yard, he worked overtime and his willingness in that respect with his intelligence, strength and skill, brought him rapid advancement." 3. "Mr. Tucker is a well-equipped native American, having had, before he entered the shop, training at one of the leading colleges of the land and having served in the shops with the commonest day laborers and having risen to his present conspicuous and useful office through his own inherent aptness and sterling qualities of application and energy. He is a ready reliance to the masters and men of the yard in more ways than can be defined in the duties he is expected daily to discharge because of his rare adaptability of tact and skill. He is a bright and patriotic American in the prime of young manhood, frank, courageous, generous. a man who convinces you is thinking well of what he says and is never careless as to the impression he would convey. The judgment of such a man is entitled to respect." The first thing wrong with the story is that it is a cliche and, as is evident in the above examples, a propaganda cliche. There is no middle to the story. It is simply cause and effect. Hero works hard and is rewarded. That's that. Open and shut. Compare that truncated narrative to the story of Joseph and his brothers in the Old Testament. Joseph has a dream where all his brothers are bowing down to him. He tells the dream to his brothers and it makes them angry. The brothers sell Joseph into slavery. Joseph ends up as a slave in Potiphar's household. He works diligently and becomes a trusted servant. Potiphar's wife falsely accuses him of attempting to rape her. Joseph gets sent to prison. While in prison he interprets the dreams of two of Pharaoh's servants. The dreams foretell that one of them, a baker, will be hanged and the other one, a wine steward, will be restored to his position. Pharaoh has a disturbing dream. The steward tells about him the man in prison who can interpret dreams. Pharaoh summons Joseph and Joseph interprets Pharaoh's dream. There will be seven fat harvest years followed by seven lean years. Pharaoh puts Joseph in charge of administering the royal graineries. Joseph's homeland is also affected by the famine and Joseph's brother journey to Egypt to buy grain. They end up bowing down to Joseph who forgives them. In the Joseph story, a lot happens between Joseph "deserving" his reward and getting it. At several points Joseph's story could well have been terminated with an untimely death in undeserved circumstances. His brothers didn't "deserve" to be forgiven either, but they were. The Joseph story also happens to be a story about stories, which are thematized in the successive dreams: Joseph's, the baker's the steward's and Pharaoh's. Joseph's dream comes true in the long run, only after leading him into serious complications. Coming in the middle of the Joseph story, the contrast between the steward's dream and the baker's dream and can be interpreted as a contrast between a good story and a bad one. In the good story, the steward dreams of a growing vine that brings forth fruit, which he then presses into a cup. In the bad story, the baker dreams he is carrying loaves of bread in baskets. The difference is between the fullness of the steward's dream versus the "economy" of the baker's. The baker is so eager to have his reward, he doesn't allow for the wheat to grow or be milled into flour, let alone mixed into dough, kneaded and baked. Pharaoh dreamt two dreams on successive nights, but, as Joseph interpreted them, the two dreams were one. That is, they followed the same narrative structure. In the same vein, Mr. Tynan's story and Mr. Tucker's are one and the same. According to the first story we cited, there is a corollary to the hard work and reward story -- "that the rewards are not for those who do not work for them." Sure enough, the source for the Tynan and Turner stories does present its corollary, cautionary tale about idleness. Before presenting that corollary, I would point out that the unbridled hateful odiousness of the tale confirms for me the sense of the Tynan and Tucker stories as "bad" stories, like the baker's dream. "A great proportion of Southern labor is negro labor. To turn loose every day the hordes of negroes that would be idle so much of the day as the eight-hour system would give them would visit on the South nothing short of calamity. The negro problem is grave enough at best. It is vexing the calm of our greatest statesmen and baffling already the efforts of our most strenuous intellects. Who is going to provide entertainment, profitable and wholesome entertainment, for our negroes in their hours of ease? Who is going to guarantee that the passions of the blacks - the millions of blacks - will conform themselves to the invocations of the lyceum and the library? It is a matter or record that the towns and urban communities throughout the South show that there is most crime among negroes on days on which they are not at work, their few whole holidays and their once-a-week half holidays. The eight-hour system would give them some holiday every day and the race would either degrade every community in the South or have to be exterminated." Joseph, too, was sold into slavery and was convicted of a crime.
