This is an expansion of a twitter post thread I started at https://twitter.com/mechalink/status/1200445054898323457
Before I get into this, a note: there are other ways people walk their life through Magic. This, however, reflects my experience and frustrations, and I think it is an accurate way of describing what Magic, in particular, can do to your mindset, and how it doesn't match the model of entitlement.
So, the core thesis statement, stated in the second tweet: The core distinction: 'entitlement' as generally used is when a system tells you you deserve something, and then something outside the system doesn't satisfy that. In Magic, the system tells you you deserve something and then the system denies it to you for some opaque reason.
For example: when we say someone is 'entitled' by going to a store and asking for special treatment, or complains because they get two ponies instead of one, or doesn't see why poor people don't need help, because they did it all themselves, they didn't need it.. those all involve the system they live in telling them the world is like their model, and then the rest of the world pushing back and saying 'hey, no, that's not how it works', because that isn't how it works. Notably, this is a static model: it isn't someone learning and growing, or changing. They have a fixed model of the world, as given by their experiences, and the conflict is not because they're changing, it's because they're wrong.
In Magic, we are dealing with something different, and it's importantly different in several ways. The most classic entitlement people claim players have is 'people feel entitled to success'. As if there was one system telling them 'you will succeed!', a reality that says 'you aren't necessarily going to succeed', and these stubborn people saying 'I deserve success!'
That's not how this goes down. It's not even close. Let's lay out all the pieces.
1) The system telling them they will succeed is the toxic positivity and hype put out by other players, the community, and WotC. Here are a non-comprehensive set of sample statements that are all given out, unconditionally and unironically, in the magic community and on coverage:
- If you work hard, you will just get good results.
- If you keep trying, you will improve.
- If you play with better players, you will learn.
- Pros are proof that anyone can do well at magic if they try hard.
- Random people 8-0ing at the PT is proof that the game is approachable and learnable at a high level by anyone.
- This person just never loses.
2) This system is compounded by the gambling-based reward mechanics in place in Magic, giving out small successes and lots of failures in just enough of a cadence to keep one hooked. Striving. This is the closest Magic gets to telling you 'you aren't necessarily going to succeed' directly, but it's a derived message, not a direct one.
3) At some point, maybe after some moderate success, hard work, practicing, a person may see all of these messages, look at themselves, and go 'wait a minute. i'm not succeeding in the way I am being told that people succeed. something is wrong'.
This is the crux point. What could be wrong?
1) The system messages are wrong
2) You aren't satisfying the system messages
3) You are satisfying the system messages, but are unlucky
All three of these are logical conclusions, but lead down different paths.
'The system messages are wrong': trying to go down this route in public, when you are not established, is met with serious social censure. Whether it be rejecting toxic positivity, trying to bring up the role of variance in Magic, or criticizing system design choices, the pushback is high. If you want to hold this (accurate) position, you have to be prepared to suffer. There is a very narrow route you can walk to state how much variance is in Magic, and it typically depends on being recognized as being 'ingroup' not 'criticizing' (and 'ingroup' usually means 'high level pro'.)
'You aren't satisfying the system messages': this is the socially approved route. You aren't trying hard enough. You aren't practicing well enough. And to some degree it may or may not be correct, depending on each person's circumstance. But the fact is that once you reach a certain threshold of capability, each person's year in Magic is dominated by variance in the results they get (although skill plays a significant factor, it is not sufficient to explain the differences in results). If you're well known enough, you can even state that out loud without being yelled at. (See above.)
'You are satisfying the system messages, but are unlucky': If you realize that the first message isn't socially approved, but the second one isn't actually correct (because you are, in fact, trying as hard as other people in your group, but not succeeding), this is the tar pit. The Levine Trench. And it is a trap, and it can cause people to stagnate. To not try as hard. To stop trying at all.
But look at how we got here: we didn't get here because we thought we 'deserved' to win. We got here because 1) the system told us this is how it works: hard work is rewarded 2) I am working hard 3) I am not being rewarded 4) it must be luck 5) I am angry at unspecified sources. This is a completely valid logic chain from 1 to 4, and it only exists because the system _itself_ feeds back onto you if you try to make another conclusion than 4. We even see this from high level players when they have bad years. They have to ask themselves 'am I working hard enough? is my process correct? or was this just variance?' They are smart enough to not be very angry in public, though. But the anguish is real.
Note how different this is from entitlement. Entitlement, and things like it, say 1) the system told us how it works: hard work is rewarded. 2) I am being rewarded 3) therefore I must be working hard 4) people who are not rewarded must not be working hard 5) how dare you not reward me in this situation. The logical flaw here is way back at the jump between 2 and 3: a person who gets rewards, and is told 'yes, you deserve rewards', then assumes that rewards will come to them in the future.
While there are similarities, there is a major difference in how it comes about. This is why I say that peoples' obsession with 'entitlement' as the way of framing things in Magic is not a good/accurate model. But things get more complex yet.
I talk about the 'unlucky' message, and the simplest case, but there is an immediate more complex case that looks more like entitlement, and I think that is where the confusion really comes into play. This is specifically when one has some success, and then can't get any more success. Now you have the chance to believe that you must be working hard enough because you are rewarded, and then suddenly you aren't rewarded and are given the chance to say 'hey, world, how dare you not reward me'.
The important difference here is that this transition happens while you aren't changing the amount of time you're working, so the logical problem isn't that you wrongly assumed you were entitled to success: it's that you believed the system proposition that your success was directly related to your hard work! Once the hard work then is shown to not be paying off like you thought, you're in the trap.
Oh, sure, it's relevant, but hard work only puts you in the position for luck to carry you over the finish line. (And it's also all you can control, so, you know... you gotta put in the work.) But the system says it's really all the hard work, so when you get one success, but can't get any more, in this case, it's Levine Trench time: frustration, anger, confusion. Because, dammit, this is frustrating, angering, confusing.
So if this is somewhat persuasive, what does this mean we should do? Strangely, it means we should do what we should always do: when you find someone who's struggling like that, but clearly still trying, treating them like they're innate garbage is the opposite of a learning mindset: it's a static mindset. Even if your message is 'they need to change', they need warmth. They need comfort. They need support. They are suffering. It's not necessarily about entitlement, structurally and logically, and peoples' insistence on that framework does a good job of saying 'this is bad', but it does a horrible job at helping people understand and climb out.
Discussion: GerryT's article on growth - http://old.starcitygames.com/articles/36074_Social-Currency.html
Here, Gerry self-identifies as entitled. But note his framework for what entitled means: "A sense of entitlement came from thinking the world "owed" me something because of how bad my childhood was." He identifies entitlement as coming from a different place than 'being frustrated by lack of success'. He came to Magic entitled, in his view. This is not a case I can inherently talk to: if someone comes to something entitled, the way they're going to act is different. But you can diagnose that across their action set, in theory.
This article, though, also talks to how Gerry dug himself out. He found friends, he found understanding, he found warmth. Even in a case that is arguably worse than the one I'm describing where Magic makes you frustrated and miserable, he dug himself out with the same rough toolset I recommend.
He talks about how one of his flaws was how you can't see why people are doing what they're doing, and that's exactly what's going on when you respond to someone struggling by saying 'you're just so entitled'. You're telling them their story.
He identifies three things, not one, as reasons why he was doing what he was. That is not going to be addressed by just saying 'you're entitled'. It's not a complete or accurate analysis, and to reduce it to entitlement is not just to tell them their story, it's to tell them their story is just one thing.
If you want to learn the lessons of Gerry's article, then I think framing things as 'if you struggle with losing you're just entitled' is simply not how you're gonna get there. It doesn't match the model, it doesn't provide you the tools to get out, and it doesn't follow the pattern of action he identifies as healthy.
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