MN really IS full of jealous, angry people

[durundundun]

AIBU to think MN is full of people spitting tacks that some people have a lot of money. More money than them.

I'm currently reading threads bashing those than own Range Rovers calling the owners stupid, wankers and the like.
Several threads on private school VAT where the resentment is palpable and people are positively gleeful that the private school dc might suffer and end up in sone terrible school miles away from their homes.
Threads on women who do not work and have husbands who earn a lot. Apparently these women are not rich. Their husbands are and the women live 'off their dh money', are prostitutes, their rich husbands are definitely having affairs and the woman are definitely miserable but pretend to be happy and not contributing in any way to the marriage. The same accusers then have to do a completely illogical about face and say they don't think women who earn £2k a year whilst their dh earn over 100k are living off 'his money' because she is 'still contributing' because otherwise they are agreeing that the one who earns more is the boss. And they don't really believe that. That obviously just resent and have rage about rich women who have the choice Whether to work.
Threads on people seeking private diagnoses claiming the highly qualified and regulated consultants are on the make and unethically diagnosing anyone who pays. ^
Threads on how helping adult dc with their first hike purchase makes the dc spoilt, entitled and will definitely fail in life due to always needing help.^

It's just relentless. The people attacking anyone with money are just so illogical and contradictory that it is obvious they just can't stand rich people.

They are convinced anyone with money has gotten it through ill gotten gains, tax evasion, immoral means and when all else fails pulls out the 'new money' trope. ^

Bizarrely they seem to worship people who inherited money through no hard work, sacrifice or intelligence. They love referring to them as old money in the conversations putting down those who made a lot of money themselves.^

They sniffly state they wouldn't want^ a Range Rover if it was given to them/private education for their dc/access to private healthcare/the ability to choose whether to work or not.... basically anything money can buy that they don't already have is beneath their superior moral code. Because by the end of any debate they have to resort to trying to denigrate the rich person's morality^ as all their other attacks are shown to be illogical or weird.

In all honesty most people I know would be on their knees thanking all their Gods if they had no financial worries, no health care waitlists for their sick relatives and the sorts of small class sizes and facilities private schools offer to their kids.
It's kind of cringey reading it.

Yes the race to the bottom on MN is - and always has been - tedious and I totally agree that the deferential worship of “lovely down to earth…drive an ancient Volvo…still wearing mummy’s darned socks, never mop the floor” people with inherited wealth v the “ghastly snobby….Gucci handbag…brand new Range Rover on the Astro edged drive” nouveau riche…

when the latter have actually earned their money blows my mind.

You sound nice

I don't care. You're no different to the people you moan about. Going around thinking everyone's jealous of you is quite narcissistic.

My poverty stricken self could totally be frenzied and frothing with jealousy at those private school threads, but the sheer panic and terror was actually laughable and mock-worthy. Like something out of Catherine Tate’s middle-class mum character.

I think at least anger and jealousy are understandable. Insufferable entitlement and wanky lack of self awareness are not.

Exactly ❤️.

Great post. Standards of living in this country have declined sharply over the past couple of decades. Many people are very worried about how they're going to access healthcare, pay their mortgages or rising rents, get or keep decent jobs, and buy enough food. I think it's no wonder they don't have much patience for whining about private school taxes or range rover boasters. It isn't as though most wealthy people have had stellar achelievements either - most wealth in this country is inherited rather than earned. I don't think it's any wonder people are getting more and more angry at the unfairness of it all.

I'd say no to a Range Rover and/or private education. Not bitter or jealous.

I wholeheartedly agree that teachers are dreadfully underpaid (and nurses and social workers for that matter). But surely this is a personal choice situation. Using the same examples, it’s pretty obvious that banking is a much higher salaried role than teaching and I do think that it’s impractical to choose one over the other then complain that teaching doesn’t pay enough.

My dd used to say she wanted to be a teacher. I told her she can be anything she wants but teaching isn’t going to generate enough income to lead the sort of life she wants to lead. She has thought about it and now wants to be a solicitor. If everyone looked at their options in an objective way there would be a shortfall of qualified teachers and pay would have to increase to attract more people to the profession.

Not at all.

We have 2 mortgage-free houses, a land rover, private medical insurance and I only work part-time.

😄

I think it's a lazy assumption/belief that people are drive by jealousy rather than values.

I wonder if it's easier to explain it as jealousy rather than engage with the moral arguments against things like private education and healthcare.

But there are plenty of other 4x4 on the road - why aren’t they targeted equally?

YANBU OP.

I wonder if it feels better to feel you’re objecting on some sort of moral high ground, rather than just accepting feeling jealous.

Op I agree there is a level of jealousy and bitterness around wealth in general but it’s best to ignore and rise above. People lash out when they are struggling and see unfairness even when it isn’t there.

I find it worse when people lash out at benefit claimants because they ‘get everything’, while those who are lucky enough to have a secure job, healthy children and own their own homes get nothing. I very much doubt they would choose to swap circumstances if actually given the option but that doesn’t stop the vitriol. People always think that others are better off but they would be better served by investing that wasted energy into their own lives.

@Anxiousheartbeat maybe so for some but I don't actually believe that. I think it's usually fairly easy to tell what the motivation is by the arguments used.

Well also banking in particular, depending on the area, can be exceptionally difficult from a point of view that not everyone can do it. I certainty couldn’t / my maths skills aren’t good enough for one. Very few people could honestly deal with 100 hour weeks and the level of stress.

teaching is hard in another way, sure, but many more people could qualify to do it, so there’s no scarcity factor and the hours are obviously far lower etc.

@SchoolQuestionnaire so you've taught your daughter that money is the most important consideration when choosing a career. You must know that not everyone shares those values, and people will have opinions about those whose values differ fundamentally from their own.

It's Capitalism. People aren't paid based on how hard they work, they are based on how much money they make for their employers.

Of course the problem with this is that maintaining health, building communities, supporting people in meed, education, raising families, experimenting and creative activities and so on, while vital to the long term economy, are not immediately revenue generating. However, if these things stop happening then eventually the revenue-generating activities will also seize up.

So there needs to be a balance between allowing Capitalist "success" while maintaining public investment in the non-revenvue-generating jobs that underpin amd ultimately advance society.

The public school VAT will hurt my family but I still support it because we have to start investing in those underpinnings. At the same time, I also understand why the 500k banker jobs exist and what they do within a functioning society.

I think some people literally troll MN and other sites like this because they are bored / mentally unwell or just plain toxic and in all honesty no one pays attention to these people.

You see it in every walk of life, the internet has given people an outage for their rants and they wish to bully others to make them selves feel batter

Why in heavens name do you think the nasty posts are directed at me?

I'm neither going around thinking everyone is jealous of me nor am I narcissistic. Another MN bandied about term.

You don't have to be the one being attacked to dislike the nasty behaviour. If someone is horrible to other people I can still see that they are being horrible.

what other reason for the vitriol? Especially when directed towards people who are accused as "doing better" somehow?

if it's not jealousy, then what is it?

I'd definitely say no to a RR. Private education I'd jump at though.

It would only be a matter of personal choice if there were enough £500k jobs to go round everyone who wanted one, and if those jobs were equally accessible to all demographics of society. Yes some people with the choice will pick a lower paid vocation, but you can't really imagine that the majority of the general population sits there thinking, well, I could do this for £35k or I could equally that for £500k. What will I choose, because if I don't pick the big bucks I'll only have myself to blame...? Because I can assure you, all the careful choices in the world wouldn't get 99% of us near that bracket. For lots of reasons.

My car cost more than a new Range Rover (top spec BMW IX) so I'm not jealous of Range Rover owners. I just think they're driven by wankers. They are the car of choice for flashy Deanos with their crushed grey velvet homes, and they always seemed to be parked badly or cutting people up.

The irony of me being a BMW driver isn't lost on me 😄

None of us know who the hell posters really are. I imagine lots are living out their most fabulous alter egos and winding people up.

I think your OP is sadly lacking in deeper thinking and I'm slightly embarrassed for you that you even made it. Of course people who object to great big tanks of cars in cities are not jealous wtf?

Private school - meh. Plenty of people who could afford it don't choose it for their children for numerous perfectly understandable reasons. How can you not know this? Otoh, plenty of families seem to be under the thrall of private education and make themselves skint just to send them there - why?

My 20 year old son was doing a job application today. He got A*A and B at A level and was offered a place at Bristol to read History. He went to an all boys comprehensive school in a roughish part of south London. The people he met there has made him a really well rounded individual who can talk to anyone, he has friends from a range of cultural backgrounds and family circumstances. It really is the best set up in life - unless you want your child to benefit from the old boys network I guess.