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I have a big thing for merit based distribution of anything, which makes the Christian concept of Grace a difficult one for me. The best I was ever able to do with the proverb of the prodigal son was that salvation is given for what you are, not what you did, but that just creates different unfairness of people who would have converted had they lived a week longer, but are now doomed to hell. I'm not Christian, so I don't need for grace to make sense as a concept, but it's been coming up a lot lately and I think it's relevant to me.
If you think about it, my relationship with my cats is, in many ways, godlike. I determine where they live, what and when they eat, what medical care they get. And they haven't really done anything to deserve it. I think I am in the top 10% of pet owners. Very few people would have adopted a cat that sneezed blood, much less spent as much time and energy as I did trying to heal him. Now one of my cats ha a weird inflammation or displacement of his third eyelid gland, and while I'm not definitely getting him surgery, it's not out of the question either. Lots of people- good people who love their pets- wouldn't (or couldn't) do that. And my kittens didn't do anything to earn that level of care, relative to all the other kittens in the world who don't.
But while the gifts I give them are unmerited, they're not impersonal. Intellectually I know that I would fall in and love and care for any cat I adopted (and of my two cats, I only picked out one. The other was whichever the breeder had left over), and yet I'm immensely responsive to them as individuals. It always shocks me when other people play with my cats, because they're so bad at it. Subconsciously, I've learned what they like best and do it.
I think what bothered me about grace wasn't it's perceived lack of meritocracy, it was its impersonality. You can't claim what I do matters if I receive the same rewards either way. But I am beginning to see a gap, where something can be responsive to you do and yet not earned. Maybe very strict merit-based systems are the impersonal ones, because they give everyone the same reward for each action regardless of what it costs them.
*Something Communist-identified countries seem to be especially bad an implementing.
If you think about it, my relationship with my cats is, in many ways, godlike. I determine where they live, what and when they eat, what medical care they get. And they haven't really done anything to deserve it. I think I am in the top 10% of pet owners. Very few people would have adopted a cat that sneezed blood, much less spent as much time and energy as I did trying to heal him. Now one of my cats ha a weird inflammation or displacement of his third eyelid gland, and while I'm not definitely getting him surgery, it's not out of the question either. Lots of people- good people who love their pets- wouldn't (or couldn't) do that. And my kittens didn't do anything to earn that level of care, relative to all the other kittens in the world who don't.
But while the gifts I give them are unmerited, they're not impersonal. Intellectually I know that I would fall in and love and care for any cat I adopted (and of my two cats, I only picked out one. The other was whichever the breeder had left over), and yet I'm immensely responsive to them as individuals. It always shocks me when other people play with my cats, because they're so bad at it. Subconsciously, I've learned what they like best and do it.
I think what bothered me about grace wasn't it's perceived lack of meritocracy, it was its impersonality. You can't claim what I do matters if I receive the same rewards either way. But I am beginning to see a gap, where something can be responsive to you do and yet not earned. Maybe very strict merit-based systems are the impersonal ones, because they give everyone the same reward for each action regardless of what it costs them.
*Something Communist-identified countries seem to be especially bad an implementing.
