A lot of people in the US argue that the poor don’t deserve anything, any lack of money is a moral failing, and they don’t deserve any kind of help.
A bit of a reduction. It’s not that being poor is a moral failing, but there is a mindset that if you don’t have a job, it’s your fault, and that if you have a job but are still poor, you’re probably wasting money on drugs or something. It’s not so much “they’re poor because they’re a bad person so I shouldn’t help them” as “if I help them then they won’t help themselves.” Which is an easy position to hold if you don’t consider how little the low-hanging jobs can pay, how much rent costs, how much food costs when you can’t home-cook it, and how hard it is to get a job when you don’t have a number, address, shower, or clean clothes.
And then there’s a second group that thinks “Well, we have systems in place. There are homeless shelters somewhere, so they should be going there instead of begging on the streets.” And they can be right, but you should probably do some research on said homeless shelters before you take that stance, in case it’s too far away to walk, understaffed/underfunded, or poorly managed.
It’s easy to think the poor don’t need your help if you don’t think on it too much, and to be fair, not everyone has the bandwidth and energy to be thinking on that. But at the end of the day, we have poor people, so those with means should be doing what they can to help.
and to be fair, not everyone has the bandwidth and energy to be thinking on that
Incredibly astute and also incredibly sad because it’s a very purposeful design of our society to have everyone so broken and tired by our world that they simply don’t have the energy to recognize that other people are suffering as well. I am constantly trying to remind myself that everyone around me is struggling as hard as I am, and it’s not anyone’s fault they don’t have all the time in the world for me. How could they?? They’re hanging by a thread just like I am!
Which is part of why I say “The cruelty is the point.” You’re very correct that I was being reductive, but there’s definitely a class (mostly the capitalist class, people who actually have capital.) of people for whom it simply boils down to a desire for power for the sake of power. An enjoyment of expressing power over others, and making them squirm. Those are the people who are designing society to be this way, to break every worker so badly they cannot stand up for one another. They smirk knowing we’re so broken we can’t stand up to save ourselves. They simply get off on hurting others.
A bit of a reduction. It’s not that being poor is a moral failing, but there is a mindset that if you don’t have a job, it’s your fault, and that if you have a job but are still poor, you’re probably wasting money on drugs or something. It’s not so much “they’re poor because they’re a bad person so I shouldn’t help them” as “if I help them then they won’t help themselves.” Which is an easy position to hold if you don’t consider how little the low-hanging jobs can pay, how much rent costs, how much food costs when you can’t home-cook it, and how hard it is to get a job when you don’t have a number, address, shower, or clean clothes.
And then there’s a second group that thinks “Well, we have systems in place. There are homeless shelters somewhere, so they should be going there instead of begging on the streets.” And they can be right, but you should probably do some research on said homeless shelters before you take that stance, in case it’s too far away to walk, understaffed/underfunded, or poorly managed.
It’s easy to think the poor don’t need your help if you don’t think on it too much, and to be fair, not everyone has the bandwidth and energy to be thinking on that. But at the end of the day, we have poor people, so those with means should be doing what they can to help.
Incredibly astute and also incredibly sad because it’s a very purposeful design of our society to have everyone so broken and tired by our world that they simply don’t have the energy to recognize that other people are suffering as well. I am constantly trying to remind myself that everyone around me is struggling as hard as I am, and it’s not anyone’s fault they don’t have all the time in the world for me. How could they?? They’re hanging by a thread just like I am!
Which is part of why I say “The cruelty is the point.” You’re very correct that I was being reductive, but there’s definitely a class (mostly the capitalist class, people who actually have capital.) of people for whom it simply boils down to a desire for power for the sake of power. An enjoyment of expressing power over others, and making them squirm. Those are the people who are designing society to be this way, to break every worker so badly they cannot stand up for one another. They smirk knowing we’re so broken we can’t stand up to save ourselves. They simply get off on hurting others.