Everyone seems to want to tell me what I deserve. Apparently I deserve affordable healthcare as well as high-speed internet access. I deserve to retire with dignity, according to Joe Biden. I deserve “the full measure of happiness,” according to Barack Obama. It also seems I deserve paid leave, a great life, a quality education, and above all a commitment from Congress to provide states with sufficient resources to modernize the water and sewer infrastructure systems. 

As a member in good standing of “the American people,”...

Photo: NurPhoto via Getty Images

Everyone seems to want to tell me what I deserve. Apparently I deserve affordable healthcare as well as high-speed internet access. I deserve to retire with dignity, according to Joe Biden. I deserve “the full measure of happiness,” according to Barack Obama. It also seems I deserve paid leave, a great life, a quality education, and above all a commitment from Congress to provide states with sufficient resources to modernize the water and sewer infrastructure systems. 

As a member in good standing of “the American people,” I deserve answers, accountability, respect, the truth. In short, I deserve better than what I have. From the fact that every American deserves all kinds of good stuff, and the fact that I am an American, it follows that I, particularly and personally, deserve answers and accountability and the truth.

According to Twitter, however, I don’t even need to be an American to deserve all these things. I only need to be able to read. “You deserve peace,” says Twitter user Joél Leon, “you deserve solace. you deserve truth. you deserve compassion. you deserve empathy. you deserve understanding. you deserve community. you deserve love. you deserve reciprocity. you deserve liberation. don’t let anyone tell you differently.”

When I read this, or listen to the hundreds of marketers and politicians telling me to stop compromising on what I deserve because I’m worth it, my self-esteem enjoys a boost. But then I wonder how all these folks I’ve never met know what I deserve. Evidently I deserve all good things just for being within the range of their voices or being eligible for automobile financing.

Sometimes I get confused as to what the word “you” refers to in all these sales pitches. When they say “you,” do they really mean me? How could they? We don’t even know each other.

Plus, if I believed that I already deserved all good things, I might stop trying to improve. After all, I couldn’t become worthier or more deserving than I am right now. Nor could you or anybody else.

An opponent of the current fashion for indiscriminate affirmation may also object that, if I deserve all good things, and you do too, our entitlements might conflict with each other. We might run low on luxury vehicles, spa treatments, or even sewer improvements.

If we are all equally deserving, how can we make the distribution, or temper the concomitant grievances? Well, I’d start with advising you to give all your best stuff to me. As Mr. Biden says, I deserve it, and at the moment I am under-resourced.

Some quibble that praising everyone in exactly the same terms makes saints and monsters morally equal. It’s about time, is all I can say to that. Even the worst person in the world deserves the most reliable 5G network.

Wait—can that be right?

Constantly being told what I deserve puts me in a state of anxiety. Deep in the night, I’m not entirely sure that I do deserve the truth, a new sport utility vehicle, or excellent infrastructure. I reflect on all the things I’ve done wrong, all the people that I’ve betrayed, all the bad decisions I’ve reached, all the crimes that—speculatively speaking, of course—I may have committed. I’ve probably done bad things that I’ve forgotten or of which I wasn’t fully aware.

Sometimes I worry that I actually deserve to be penalized rather than awarded a new car. Come to think of it, Mr. Leon’s list of things I deserve includes “reciprocity.” Oh no!

Mr. Sartwell teaches philosophy at Dickinson College.

Wonder Land: With social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, we have democratized neurosis. Images: Getty Images/Walt Disney via Everett Collection Composite: Mark Kelly The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition