"The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied...but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing." ~John BergerMonday, May 5, 2008
Evolved... to what?
"The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied...but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing." ~John Berger
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That's just sad. I grew up in Detroit, and there were homeless guys everywhere. Yet these people were generally viewed as lazy and unmotivated. There were community-run homeless shelters and soup kitchens, but the city government as a whole was very unsympathetic towards them, even during the freezing winter months. I never understood that.
Yeah... it's so sad to see. I must cross at least half a dozen homeless people per day walking to and from work, and every time I wonder how the hell they manage. It's a brutal life fraught with loneliness, which is the worst poverty a human being can ever experience I think :-(
I think that's a crock - a homeless person in the western world still has options, many homeless people just choose not to take those options (I've known a few homeless people and ex-homeless people).
Compare their existence to someone poor in Uganda or India (I use these examples as I've been to both) - they have no options. They are poor, uneducated and life is a constant struggle just to find food - in India they are treated by their own people with a contempt and indifference that is truly sickening (when you see _every_ street in Mumbai lined with sleeping people at night, you see what a homeless problem really is). In Uganda they are constantly swept this way and that by war, and their lives are blighted by AIDS (close to half the population now). Uganda doesn't even have a manufacturing industry to give people hope of getting somewhere, it's just scrabbling in the dirt for the short life that they have, hoping that they aren't on the wrong side of the war.
In India they do have a chance of getting somewhere, but they are competing against millions of other hopefuls to get a shitty job in a factory working 100 hour weeks for a pittance (no holidays, you get fired if you're sick, the foreman will take a chunk of your pay). Nearly everything they produce is bought and consumed by the west - so in an ideal world we could say that we are distributing our wealth to the poor, except that many western companies are moving to other countries for production now; India got too expensive, we can't get t-shirts for £2 from there anymore.
That's what this quote is about - not only do we in the west consume far beyond our needs and requirements, but we also don't let anyone else get a foot on the ladder if it's going to prevent us consuming at the cheapest possible price. The joys of competition.
So when I see homeless people here, I don't have sympathy for them unless I can see they're mentally ill (the fact that those people are on the streets is evidence of the failure of government to properly look after the truly needy). There is a way out for most of them - they can get help, they can get back on the ladder. Alcoholism and drug addiction often mean that they won't - but that's self-inflicted and I have little sympathy for their plight.
What I will say is this - I never ignore a homeless person, I will always say "no" to someone begging. I always buy the Big Issue (a magazine that homeless people can sell in the UK to earn money and get some dignity) and I always have a chat with people. I just refuse to believe that they are 'stuck' in the way I've seen in the developing world.
/rant
Don't get me wrong, the homeless squeegee kids get on my nerves and I have zero sympathy for them, but the ones who are obviously mentally deranged? Those hurt.
The system shoved them out the door with a foot in their ass because they were "costly" to look after - chrissake these people talk to lamp posts, do you really think they'll remember to take their meds, erm, if they could afford them in the first place?
We don't choose who contributes to society or not but we (the gov'ment) chooses to buy gold faucet taps for private office bathrooms while denying the most vulnerable of the pack basic things such as shelter, food and respect.
_THAT_ pisses me off.
Thing that pisses me off is how people say the homeless in this country don't have it so bad because... well... because they don't live in Iraq or Peru or Darfur.
When did this all become a game of comparative poverty?
This country has the resources to take care of our own. Yeah, the homeless fit into that group, too. We should be taking care of our poor and destitute instead of kicking them to the curb while calling them lazy and welfare cheats.
Wow, people have made some really insightful comments.
All I can say is someone needs to take a good hard look at this world and start making some changes!
I think you can't judge the homeless anywhere until you've heard their stories. A lot of them would probably make any of us feel like the luckiest people in the world.
Some people end up in abusive relationships while others end up in the streets. Neither are giving a successful contribution to society.
Obviously, some people have it worse than others, but that doesn't mean they don't have it bad.
Everybody's problems are their biggest problems, even if the problems are relative.
I remember that line from Donald Trump as he was walking his daughter into a building past a homeless man. I'm paraphrasing, but basically, he was in debt up to his eyeballs and pointed at the homeless man and told his daughter, "That man has nine million dollars more than I do."
The difference is that a homeless person in the western world can get out of their situation - there is help available, there is a path out of it. There is also an element of putting themselves there - for the most part, they didnt grow up homeless.
There is no such opportunity afforded to the third world. Most of them grow up poor and destitute and they die that way 30-40 years later.
That's the difference.
When you see social-aid programs here being cut left and right in favor of putting the money on other things like prettying up a park for tourists, it makes you wonder where the priorities are.
Yes some homeless and some poor have a ramp out of the sewage sinkhole but others really don't, they keep getting pushed back.
"Here's your welfare check, good luck, oh and we just increased your electricity bill 30% again this month, sorry you'll have to eat more Kraft Dinner and how about recylcling your diapers?"
Message: "we don't care about you, parasite".
Awesome.
Berger is right. The poor are written off as trash. While it's sad, in today's society there are so many more opportunities for people to rise above poverty.
While I don't believe people choose to be homeless, I do believe they choose not to help themselves.
I have a family member who is currently homeless; he is a schizophrenic who chose to stop taking his meds because he thought he was cured. No one has seen or heard of him in years.
In the last year I watched "Reversal of Fortune" an incredible documentary about a homeless man who was given $100,000; it's amazing to see how some homeless/poverty stricken people, given every opportunity in the world have ability to waste it.
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