do you know the way?
Driving around yesterday I saw a lot of people asking for money at intersections, which of course turned into a huge topic of discussion between M and I. There was one man holding a sign and walking with his eyes cast down, and I wondered if he was feeling defeated or tired, or deliberately not making eye contact b/c he found that people are more likely to give if he doesn't? I certainly see the benefit of eye-contact as putting people on the spot and forcing a connection (Yes, you. Please help me out.) but I could also see how trying to make people as comfortable as possible, by not forcing them to look this situation in the eye, might ease them into feeling more good-natured and thus charitable. There's a logic to all of this, but the thought of homeless people having to accommodate us rich, vehicle-owning folk is just so sad and frustrating.
Also sad and frustrating is that I've noticed such people seem to have a lot more luck on the street corners of poorer neighborhoods. Not the truly poor parts of town, but the lower middle-class or upper lower-class parts (making these distinctions makes me feel oddly wrong and privileged). And that's been my experience, too, as far as giving and having sympathy for the homeless goes. It's the people who know what it's like to go without. It's the people who aren't so high up that they can still feel some kind of connection with what's needy and not pretty to look at.
And that's what chaps my ass most about the rich attitude (and I do mean attitude, and not necessarily all rich individuals): This feeling of, ew, I don't want that cluttering up my perfectly manicured street. Or else this almost quaint, patronizing trivialization. But no recognition of basic humanity, nevermind an understanding of the play between luck or class or race that help shape people's positions and our attitudes toward them. I mean, it blows my mind. Fuck theorizing it all -- what we do to each other is gut-wrenchingly horrible sometimes. Not that the world isn't amazing and interesting and beautiful, but the ugly, horrifying spots are just so very ugly and horrifying.
I know what I'm saying isn't original or even suitably broad/complex, but man. Even the fact that I'm sitting here typing this serves (as it always does) to intensify my privilege and how little writing about it in my journal does. But this is so close for me to that postmodern feeling of hopelessness after the Holocaust, of the weight that often and suddenly falls on me when I'm sitting in class: People are out there suffering, and I'm sitting around a table talking about books.
And there's nothing to do but move on, do what I can, and resist that horrible, disgusting, disrespectful, self-indulgent middle-class academic pit of writing hundreds of pages about how hopeless and conflicted this makes me feel. Not that we shouldn't talk and write and teach, b/c I believe in the power of all those things, but there's a line.
I'm not sure what I'm getting at here, and maybe it's just as horribly self-indulgent as those writers/thinkers I'm mentally criticizing (Doris Lessing, I'm looking at you), but it feels like something. Something that needs to change, something I need to start doing.
Also sad and frustrating is that I've noticed such people seem to have a lot more luck on the street corners of poorer neighborhoods. Not the truly poor parts of town, but the lower middle-class or upper lower-class parts (making these distinctions makes me feel oddly wrong and privileged). And that's been my experience, too, as far as giving and having sympathy for the homeless goes. It's the people who know what it's like to go without. It's the people who aren't so high up that they can still feel some kind of connection with what's needy and not pretty to look at.
And that's what chaps my ass most about the rich attitude (and I do mean attitude, and not necessarily all rich individuals): This feeling of, ew, I don't want that cluttering up my perfectly manicured street. Or else this almost quaint, patronizing trivialization. But no recognition of basic humanity, nevermind an understanding of the play between luck or class or race that help shape people's positions and our attitudes toward them. I mean, it blows my mind. Fuck theorizing it all -- what we do to each other is gut-wrenchingly horrible sometimes. Not that the world isn't amazing and interesting and beautiful, but the ugly, horrifying spots are just so very ugly and horrifying.
I know what I'm saying isn't original or even suitably broad/complex, but man. Even the fact that I'm sitting here typing this serves (as it always does) to intensify my privilege and how little writing about it in my journal does. But this is so close for me to that postmodern feeling of hopelessness after the Holocaust, of the weight that often and suddenly falls on me when I'm sitting in class: People are out there suffering, and I'm sitting around a table talking about books.
And there's nothing to do but move on, do what I can, and resist that horrible, disgusting, disrespectful, self-indulgent middle-class academic pit of writing hundreds of pages about how hopeless and conflicted this makes me feel. Not that we shouldn't talk and write and teach, b/c I believe in the power of all those things, but there's a line.
I'm not sure what I'm getting at here, and maybe it's just as horribly self-indulgent as those writers/thinkers I'm mentally criticizing (Doris Lessing, I'm looking at you), but it feels like something. Something that needs to change, something I need to start doing.