Fundamental ignorance of priviledge in this thread. The average CP poster most likely came from a decent family, with a decent amount of focus on school, probably played sports, had their parents drive them, never really had to worry about much. That life is your reference case and therefore it's easy to understand why you can't understand how may others got a raw deal with early childhood stress, depressed parents, no direction or encouragement. That's the role of priviledge that you didn't earn or deserve, you just got it over someone else. Sure it's systemic and it's not meant to make people feel guilty; but it is here in this discussion to get people to think critically and understand that maybe even though we all have a story of how we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps there are people with no bootstraps at all.
THe plight of the working poor is one of the most depressing developments of the last 25 years. In a time of significant affluence there are millions of people working the rear end of jobs and working their asses off doing it with no light at the end of the tunnel.
For all of these anecdotes about brothers Karamazov that materialize their own Kia dealership empire from sweat and hard work there are thousands of others that never get ahead, are chronically unhealthy, under-educated, left to fend for themselves. These anecdotes are the fibres of the warm blanket of ignorance we wrap ourselves in. Meanwhile we simultaneously holler and scream at the suggestion that we pay more taxes of develop better state sponsored systems like say funded day care. The fend for yourself mantra will just NOT get these people ahead. No amount of hectoring, rationalizing or judgement will help them.
This blog post went viral describing the life of the working poor by a working poor person, it went viral a while back so you may have seen it. Highly highly worth it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-...b_4326233.html
Quote:
I make a lot of poor financial decisions. None of them matter, in the long term. I will never not be poor, so what does it matter if I don't pay a thing and a half this week instead of just one thing? It's not like the sacrifice will result in improved circumstances; the thing holding me back isn't that I blow five bucks at Wendy's. It's that now that I have proven that I am a Poor Person that is all that I am or ever will be. It is not worth it to me to live a bleak life devoid of small pleasures so that one day I can make a single large purchase. I will never have large pleasures to hold on to. There's a certain pull to live what bits of life you can while there's money in your pocket, because no matter how responsible you are you will be broke in three days anyway. When you never have enough money it ceases to have meaning. I imagine having a lot of it is the same thing.
Poverty is bleak and cuts off your long-term brain. It's why you see people with four different babydaddies instead of one. You grab a bit of connection wherever you can to survive. You have no idea how strong the pull to feel worthwhile is. It's more basic than food. You go to these people who make you feel lovely for an hour that one time, and that's all you get. You're probably not compatible with them for anything long-term, but right this minute they can make you feel powerful and valuable. It does not matter what will happen in a month. Whatever happens in a month is probably going to be just about as indifferent as whatever happened today or last week. None of it matters. We don't plan long-term because if we do we'll just get our hearts broken. It's best not to hope. You just take what you can get as you spot it.
I am not asking for sympathy. I am just trying to explain, on a human level, how it is that people make what look from the outside like awful decisions. This is what our lives are like, and here are our defense mechanisms, and here is why we think differently. It's certainly self-defeating, but it's safer. That's all. I hope it helps make sense of it.
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