I dislike when people talk about someone “deserving” something when what they mean is they would like that to happen. The word seems to imply that the person may make a demand on reality (or reality’s subcategory of other people!)
I suggest we talk about what people earn and what we wish for them instead of using this word that imbues them with a sense of “having a right to” things they did not earn.
That is, of coure, not saying we should stop wishing others or ourselves well.
Just saying we should be honest that that is what we are doing and use “deserving” only in the rare cases when we want to imbue our wish of opinion with a cosmic sense of purpose or imply in some other way the now common idea. When no longer commonly used in cases where an expression of goodwill (or “badwill” for that matter) will do, it may stand out in such cases and have the proper impact.
Of course we are not going to make that change and we wouldn’t, even if this reached enough people, because people LOVE to mythically “deserve” things, and it makes them a lot easier to sell to or infuriate too. We may, however, just privately notice when someone tries to sell us something we “deserve”, adress the thanks to the person wishing us well instead of some nebulous “Universe” when someone tells us we “deserve” something good and consider our actual moral shortcomings when the idea creeps up we might “deserve” something bad.
I dislike when people talk about someone “deserving” something when what they mean is they would like that to happen. The word seems to imply that the person may make a demand on reality (or reality’s subcategory of other people!)
I suggest we talk about what people earn and what we wish for them instead of using this word that imbues them with a sense of “having a right to” things they did not earn.
That is, of coure, not saying we should stop wishing others or ourselves well.
Just saying we should be honest that that is what we are doing and use “deserving” only in the rare cases when we want to imbue our wish of opinion with a cosmic sense of purpose or imply in some other way the now common idea. When no longer commonly used in cases where an expression of goodwill (or “badwill” for that matter) will do, it may stand out in such cases and have the proper impact.
Of course we are not going to make that change and we wouldn’t, even if this reached enough people, because people LOVE to mythically “deserve” things, and it makes them a lot easier to sell to or infuriate too. We may, however, just privately notice when someone tries to sell us something we “deserve”, adress the thanks to the person wishing us well instead of some nebulous “Universe” when someone tells us we “deserve” something good and consider our actual moral shortcomings when the idea creeps up we might “deserve” something bad.