Negative Reinforcement

Perhaps I imagined the whole thing but seems to me there used to be a time where it was the normal thing to reward those who did good. Nowadays we seem to be encouraging people to stop giving a fuck about themselves and be the worst people they can. I need not explain this in too much detail seeing as how if you've read any part of this blog you already know how I'm feeling about the decline of self respect and so on and so forth.
I really should have known better than to watch Dr. Phil with my roommates as I consider him to be an extension of the now-dead-to-me-after-meaning-less-than-zero-to-me Oprah, but today's topic was interesting to me as I sadly know many who live the same as his guest. Here's how Dr. Phil.com describes today's topic:


"Throw It Out!"
Do you know people who are constantly in a clutter crisis? They keep newspapers, magazines, old clothes and junk thinking those items could be useful one day. Dr. Phil goes into the minds of extreme hoarders who are embarrassing their families and destroying their homes.


The woman featured on the show today owns two homes and rents a storage unit filled with clutter and things she refuses to throw away up to and including rotting food in several freezers and refrigerators. Every day she shops for more, more items, more food (which she then stores with the rotting food), more everything while never throwing any of it away. She is forcing her three children to live this way, becoming combative when anyone (including the children & her boyfriend) tries to throw something out or suggest that her lifestyle is unhealthy and hazardous. Turns out she and her boyfriend are also heavy drinkers with a pretty lousy relationship and this woman also loves to make a habit of driving her children around while drunk.
I was less than surprised when Dr. Phil exploited her lifestyle in lieu of actually attempting to help her but I was so done when he says at the end of the show that he won't do anything because she has to do things for herself, while I agree with that, I fail to understand why he then continued to bring out a representative from Lowe's to offer her a complete kitchen make-over including new cabinets and a refrigerator when she decides to finally clean her house. WTF is that?? Let me tell you something, I and many other people clean their homes on a daily basis and there isn't one mother fucker knocking on my door to reward me for doing so. You fail again, world. Fucking fail.