The Prodigal Son

[paulpablo]

I don't think the prodigal so has learned anything about responsibility.
He wasted his inheritance on prostitutes and fun. couldn't even negotiate a job that gave him enough food to live without feeling like he was starving to death, ran back home looking for work but instead got more freebies.

The story does leave out some details like how long the son was working in the swine farm and what happened after the celebration, but I think in general the brother has a good right to be annoyed.
He's not annoyed that the brother is getting the celebration exactly, he's annoyed that the other brother basically spent a gap year in a town full of prostitutes while he had to slave away in the fields.

Frivolous spending +  failed negotiations + quiting your first job to run home and grab some more freebies won't equal learning to be responsible.

I hate this mentality. It isn't that anyone should advocate everyone be poor or addicts, but that this mentality leads to society doing the worst possible thing to those with theses issues and causes us to do the most expensive things that yield the least results. It creates the very things like a caste system like India has. It enables poverty and demonizes those with issues. Then we put non violent people in violent prisons which causes them to be dumped out even worse off than when they went in.

It also causes people who really want help to be paranoid to the degree they don't ask for it. It is irresponsible to demonize those with problems. Instead we should be addressing the totality of economic issues that lead people to end up in those positions. "Fuck you I got mine" doesn't help society. 

The best charity humans can give is investment, especially in better worker pay, and ditching the idea that it is the worker's job simply to drive their health into the ground not having a life outside work.

My mentality is that spending money on prostitutes, not sticking to your job then going home and getting more freebies doesn't teach people responsibility.
I'm not saying he was wrong to go back to his father, I'm saying no lesson was learned here.
So far the only experience this son has is how to buy the services of a prostitute with money he sponged off his father, followed by a job he didn't stick to, followed by running back home to daddy for a free meal.
His other son might have learned the value of hard work, but instead now all he's learned from his father is that he can also most likely go out and squander money on hookers with no consequences.

Actually just let me clarify and correct one point. I shouldn't say he definitely hasn't learned any responsibility, maybe something happened along the way of this story that has changed his attitude, but there's nothing apparent there to be learned from.