As an example I think people from the American political left to somewhere(?) in the middle see it as what it has been introduced as, that being looking past the status quo and instead looking at your own values, i.e. the morality of homelessness and not having a disdain for them but empathy for them instead.
and then on the other side it feels like the people on the American political right see it as what this website describes it as “ A self-righteously moralistic person who behaves as if superior to others.”
I think the divide has originated from taking unlikeable behaviour and labeling that as ‘woke’ (in bad faith of course) and some people have just bonded to that definition so much that they see it as that.
At least that’s what I’ve noticed online over the past few (bonkers) years
Ok, I'll bite. What is having empathy for the homeless? Is allowing unconstrained immigration to increase competition for entry-level positions empathy? What about restrictions on construction that make housing completely unaffordable? Is that empathy? Is leaving the drug-addicted portion of the homeless out on the street to battle their addictions on their own empathy[1]?
Saying nice words (not having disdain) is not the same thing as helping someone.
[1] https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/you-call-that-compassio...
Bulldozing peoples' stuff is in fact pretty bad. Having laws against giving money to people is in fact pretty bad. Putting hostile architecture everywhere is in fact pretty bad. People make decisions, over and over again, to not just hurt homeless people, but also hurt the people trying to help homeless people.
Stopping people from doing that is called "empathy for the homeless". It's called that because saying and feeling bad things about people is part of the process of hurting them. It's how people agree who is and isn't okay to hurt. By stopping group efforts to make things worse, you only have to worry about random individuals trying to make things worse for other random individuals. Which is unstoppable but untargeted.
You see, the problem with every such discussion is the lack of nuance and the willingness to demonize e.g. parents who want their kids to be safe in their neighborhoods.
What you call lack of empathy for the homeless is, in some instances, the concern and actions of the said parents.
So do these parents truly lack empathy, how do you think? Or they say "no matter what hand life dealt you, please just stay away from my kids"?
What's your opinion?
It's not an oppression to read statistics. It's a good first step in trying to fix stuff.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/07/13/fbi-crime-rate...
I was a guest in communities where people said they had problems with homeless people on a regular basis.
You are free to not believe it. I for the moment believe my eyes and ears.
Think about it like this: if you had no food, were starving, and the only way to eat for the night is to steal something, wouldn't you do it to? Or are you going to allow yourself to literally die because you're afraid to commit a crime? Nah. You will want to live.
I was once held up at gunpoint by three folk who stole my wallet, keys, phone, etc. Over the next 48 hours or so I watched the phone bill logs to see where they were calling. Hospital and HIV clinic were on the list. I asked the main dude why he was robbing me and he responded, "Man, we're just trying to live."
Grow some empathy for your fellow man.
Again, believe what makes you feel good. I am looking out for myself because I was only backstabbed all my life and I am not far from a desperate situation again... in my 40s and with a supposedly prestigious profession (programmer) but almost nobody is hiring.
My empathy only resulted in my money and literal health going toward people who don't appreciate it. Nobody ever worked for my cause. Ever. Not once.
You are a classic victim of a filter bubble. "Worked out for me, must work out for everyone". No, in fact it does not work for most.
If I may -- please try spending some time at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen, or just volunteer your time to help others. Try to have conversations with people who are affected by homelessness and addiction to understand their struggles. People warm up to genuine curiosity and I think you'll find that there's so much more love out there than you give humanity credit for.
Cheers.
> It came from a genuine interest in seeing you grow as a person, despite what you might think
This is your mistake here, to think I need to grow further. I did. I got to the other end you were scared to explore. I understood that kindness will only get you killed in a back-alley if you kept practicing it.
Purely mathematically, it's a function with a limit. This is the part you refuse to see.
You are the one who both needs to grow as a person and sharpen his analytical skills.
This is what I meant by saying you use roundabout ways of insulting.
> The way I read your post is that you, yourself, are effectively insulting people close to me, including friends and family. It's hard for me not to perceive it as naive dehumanism.
Fair to see it that way. I do not mean offense in particular, I simply don't mince words. To me you are hopelessly idealistic and don't live in the real world. Seeing homeless people struggling to make ends meet? Witnessing soup kitchens?
Brother, I've seen much worse than this but unlike you I didn't quickly get to parade it in the hopes of coming across as kinder than your discussion partner. I'll save the gross details of everything I witnessed for myself. Was not the topic here anyway.
So OK, I don't object to you thinking I am insulting. Was not the original intent but I am aware it does come across aggressive. I am simply old enough to stop caring and write like ChatGPT, that's all.
...Plus I am not from the USA. Here's one strong clue why we are so much... not alike.
> People warm up to genuine curiosity and I think you'll find that there's so much more love out there than you give humanity credit for.
That I never denied and never will. I was talking about the scum; the people who don't want to fight their way out of the dump. They love the dump, and they see you and me as free money, free clothes, free phones, and will never change. Yes, they never will change, you read that right. I've been among those people. Lived around them.
So maybe you are the one who got sidetracked and believed I am some stupido who loves to generalize. That's on you however, not on me.
I know there are people who genuinely want to come back to society and, here is the part where you will not believe me and will be convinced I am only saying it to "win" -- I helped three of them do it. The gratitude I got was that they became even better off than me and spat on me. :)
So yeah, cheers indeed. I'll go drink a glass of wine for humanity's inevitable downfall. Shame I won't live long enough to witness it, I'd laugh and even help accelerate it if I could.