| ON VICTIM-BLAMING |
| Issue #26, February 1996 Q: What is the difference between the conservative and the liberal approaches to the homeless problem? A: The conservatives are the ones who yell, "Get a job, you lazy bums!" at us from their car windows. The liberals are the ones who stop their cars and get out, walk right up to us, smile sweetly and say, "Let me explain to you what a job is." As you might gather, both of these approaches are equally insulting and useless, as they are both based on inaccurate information as to why we are homeless. The conservatives assume we are simply unwilling to work (i.e. conform) because we are lazy, or just plain bad people. The liberals assume we are merely unable to work or conform because of something that was lacking in our upbringing or education, that for some reason we failed to learn about the Work Ethic and the other middle-class values of deferred gratification and such, which would have enabled us to fit into the Mainstream and have a "good life". As you might also gather, these two differing views also translate into different ideas as to "what should be done about the homeless." The conservatives are bent on punishment: they see us as dangerous criminals who should be locked up. Either that or we're just lazy bums who only want to sponge off the government, so the thing to do is deprive us of all public assistance so that we'll either be forced to go to work or we'll turn to crime--in which case they'll have an excuse to lock us up. The liberals, on the other hand, are forever devising programs designed to teach us the work ethic, and other such innovations as classes in budget management, food preparation and the like, believing we must not have learned these things when we were growing up, otherwise we couldn't possibly have become homeless. And they believe we are willing to be led like sheep into the mainstream and the "good life" if only someone would take pity on us and gently show us the way. Both of these views have something in common, however: they are both based on an implicit faith in the System. They both believe that conformity to this system is the only ultimate good, and deviation from it, for whatever reason, can only be bad. So the idea of "changing the system" as a solution to the homeless problem is utterly foreign to their thinking. It is inconceivable to them that there could be anything fundamentally wrong with the system itself, when so many people are enjoying "the good life" by conforming to it. That's why they don't know what to do with people like me, who grew up middle-class like they did, who did learn about the work ethic and all that other stuff, and who keep talking about changing the system as a solution, and who have absolutely no patience with all the endless talk about "education and job training" and "programs" and "services" that is forever being spouted by the do-gooder liberals. The reasons I am homeless have nothing whatsoever to do with anything that was "lacking" in my upbringing. On the contrary, I had an education and upbringing that taught me how to think! That's why it could begin to dawn on me that there are indeed very serious flaws in this system that I'm expected to conform to. That's why I learned that it's possible to criticize it instead of blindly accepting it. That's why I can see so clearly the arrogant paternalism that lurks just below the surface of that benevolent liberal facade. That's how I know that their views are based on largely fictitious notions of the "kinds" of people that are homeless, the reasons they got into that situation, and what their actual needs are. In a way I have less trouble with the conservative view, because its bigotry is so clear-cut and they are so blatantly rude in the way they express it that it's much easier to see what's wrong with it. When they yell, "Get a job, you fucking bums!" at us from their passing cars, it's easy to know how to respond: we either yell some other epithet back at them, give them the finger, or simply ignore them because their stupidity isn't worth acknowledging. But what do we do with the people who walk up to us and smile sweetly and say, "I want to help you", and then offer some kind of "help" that's not what we need at all? We don't want to be rude when they're being so polite; they do seem to mean well. So how do we explain to them, nicely, that their way of thinking is just as useless as the conservatives' way in addressing our real needs? And part of the irony of this is that I myself grew up in a family of wishy-washy liberals and I learned all about being polite (another one of those middle-class values they think we didn't learn), which is what makes it all the harder to tell them what I really think of them. What to do? How do I explain to them that I have no use for what they're offering, that I got so permanently alienated from the system through the events of my life (despite having learned the middle-class values, gotten an education, and supposedly having had every opportunity to attain the "good life") that for me there is no going back? How do I explain that my homelessness is a matter of nonconformity because I'm hearing a different drummer? (In America we're supposed to have the freedom to live and act according to our conscience!) How do I tell them that I see absolutely no sense in their either trying to teach or to force people to conform to what I see as an outdated and slowly dying system? That what we need to be doing is creating new ways of surviving that will see us through the twenty-first century? If I tried to tell them what I do see as viable solutions to the homeless problem, they wouldn't yet understand, because they can't see that far into the future. So for now, my own personal solution is to keep a polite distance from them all, while I sit in my illegally-parked camper quietly cranking out these subversive writings, because I do know and have always known what work is--while they continue to define me as being "unwilling" or "unable" to work. (click here for next page) |