"Why Don't We Complain" Response Assignment

"Why Don't We Complain" is an article written by William F. Buckley JR. in 1960 and addresses why American people don't complain about injustices they experience and expresses the consequences of this in action. In this blog post, I'm going to talk about my personal feelings on why it's important that we complain in our society.
First off we need to address what it means to complain. A complaint is a call for change, and you the complainer are willing to do something to bring about this change. Complaining becomes whining when people know they have no intention of making a change. In the article, it is stressed that Americans, in general, refuse to complain and just accept whatever inconvenience or unjust thing that is occurring. I think that the article, though out of date, actually represents how people feel about complaining or complaining in the true sense of the word pretty accurately. As a high school student I see people get annoyed, bothered, and even bullied and not themselves or anyone else for that matter makes a complaint. There are lots of reasons for this and as Buckley states "we are all increasingly anxious in America to be unobtrusive, we are reluctant to make our voices heard, hesitant about claiming our rights; we are afraid that our cause is unjust, or that if it is not unjust, that it is ambiguous; or if not even that, that it is too trivial to justify the horrors of confrontation with Authority" (Paragraph 8). I believe what is stated directly above is true to a certain extent, I must, however, point out in our society today more people are willing to complain to stand up for their rights and to fight authority; though it is still less common than it should be. Another event that transpires in the article is the story about a plane ride and a lunch tray that could have been taken but was not. I look at this example and yes I understand the annoyance of the refusal to simply take the tray as the flight attendant walked by as she was headed to the kitchen anyway but it is at this point I contemplate how necessary it is to complain. Does complaining about the actions of the flight attendant change anything? In this specific case are you or anyone else being mistreated or receiving unjust retreatment? In my opinion, it's not worth making a commotion over the tray when it is only a very slight inconvenience. The Article doesn't frame the situation in the same light but in the end, Buckley does not make a complaint which makes me believe that the situation was different than let's say the movie theater example he provides toward the beginning of the article; though it must be said that the complaints he made were directed to his wife and therefore could be labeled as whining as no action was taken to fix the projection of the movie which apparently was slightly out of focus. The difference between the movie theater example and the plane example is that one involves a whole theater of people and the other just one person. The level of annoyance was close to the same a slight irritation in both cases but one irritation could have affected a majority of people and possibly people that went to the same movie at a later time while the other incident only affected Buckley so to suffer through a few minutes of unpleasantry was not a reason to complain unless a number of other passengers had the same problem. Complaining about a change is necessary because if no one complains then the problem will either not be noticed by an authority or the problem will be ignored by that authority. It is important to note that the authority in this sense is not an officer of the law but anyone who has the power to directly change a situation.  Rapping up this discussion on complaining I will say that I whine a lot and complain little. But I do complain. Example, I receive an undercooked steak that I'm already paying to much for, I ask the waitress if she would please take the steak back and have it cooked a little longer. She with a polite smile says "sure" and takes the bloody piece of meat back and it is cooked thoroughly and places it in front of me saying "here you go, and let me know if you need anything else." In this case, my complaint is heard and I receive a positive solution to my problem. this solution is why we need to complain. If a complaint is just then some sort of solution should be provided. The scale of problem and solution changes with the situation but nonetheless a proper complaint should get a solution. This concluded what I have to say regarding complaints and complaining. (I am aware it's a sloppy finish, I'm tired.)