Bootstraps ahoy

[sabotabby]

I was just telling zingerella that I wasn't going to blog about this because it would just make me angry, but I'm going to blog about it anyway because I have utterly no internal censors.

So I was taking the subway home, tired and cranky as always, and two women sitting next to me started a very loud conversation. Which is good enough reason to hate them, amirite? They were talking about a woman's body found frozen to death in front of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health last night. I didn't think it was cold enough to freeze to death last night, but apparently it was. They lock their doors at night so she couldn't get in and she froze to death. Hell.

To a normal person, if any such creature exists in our warped and sadistic culture, this is a tragedy. But these women were clearly Not Right In the Head. One of them, who was Indian, talked about how in India the government doesn't believe in the minimum wage, so there isn't any guaranteed income, but how can things like that happen here? Okay, clueless and naïve, but not actively evil. The other woman, though. She started going on about how there were so many opportunities here, and These People Are Just Used To Taking Handouts. And why do people have such a sense of entitlement? What's wrong with working at McDonald's and working your way up? You know, getting a foot in the door. And her husband once volunteered for a toy drive and you should have seen those cars the people getting toys drove up in! They know how to play the system.

It's always a shock to me when I realize such people exist (see previous post re: Prop 8). I get disturbed to think that some people lack a sense of empathy, because I can't imagine living without one. And I don't think I'm a particularly good person—more or less I'm a total asshole with a sense of self-control and a belief that one ought to curb one's worst tendencies for the sake of those around them.

Anyway, I was very tempted to join in the discussion; as I mentioned, it was loud. However, I couldn't think of a sentence that didn't have the word "douchebag" in it, so I just bit my tongue and scowled. Thanks to my kids, I am working on perfecting my death glare, and she totally noticed.

I hope she has a lot of money invested in stocks.

Comments

[esizzle.livejournal.com]

next time chime in the conversation it will help you feel better!!!

its stuff like this that makes me think there is no such thing as "human agency" and we have no free will at all, just products of the environment. cause no human would, on free will, be this heartless. whether there are people who are used to hand outs or not, whether they are a minority or not, so what? they deserve to freeze to death? she can't be speaking like this on her own free will, no sir. otherwise bring on global warming and spare the universe from humanity.

[sabotabby]

Seriously. Cockroaches are more compassionate.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

So I was taking the subway home, tired and cranky as always, and two women sitting next to me started a very loud conversation. Which is good enough reason to hate them, amirite?

Makes comic reading quite difficult.

I hope she has a lot of money invested in stocks.

Badda-BING! ZING!

[sabotabby]

Makes comic reading quite difficult.

So does my gigantic and dense Walter Benjamin book.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

:(

[sabotabby]

It was actually originally something very misogynist in my mind, but I automatically do a search-and-replace, hence "douchebag."

[fr-defenestrato.livejournal.com]

I really want to reclaim the word 'cunt' for insult purposes; while I realize its connotative misogyny, it SOUNDS SO VERY GOOD when you're confronted with the scum of the earth and searching for a good epithet.

I usually substitute something with the word fuck in't (fuckwit, fuckstick, or yes, just fucker), for similar aural pleasure. 'Douche' (even with 'bag') is too pretty a word, and just means 'shower' in French.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

You know the people who come up to you on the subway and say, "Excuse me, I'd like to tell you about Jesus Christ?" and give out little tracts? I totally want to go up to people like that and say, "Excuse me, I'd like to tell you about Mikhail Bakunin." Then I'd give them a tract that said about how Bakunin came to earth to explain all the things that were wrong with their sorry ass and their only hope was to get on their knees and repent right now and get on down to their local infoshop for more information on the abolition of the wage system. Hey, I can dream.

[sabotabby]

I did once make a thing like like that for Proudhon's On Government. I wish I still had a copy.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

....my god, here, have some awesome. That is FANFUCKINGTASTIC.

[tanyahp.livejournal.com]

::nod nod:: I'd totally take a tract like that.

Let's be a little constructive here

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

I don't think that the soul who froze belongs to a type of people of (the existence of) which the subway lady is well informed. "Heartlessness" or lack of empathy have little to do with it; it's the absence of familiarity, the perception of the frozen woman as something extraneous to them, and that has to do with how knowledge is distributed in society, not ability to empathize or lack thereof; with what triggers empathy in a person, not with an absence of ability to empathize.

Re: Let's be a little constructive here

[sabotabby]

But—I mean, my only real contact with homeless people is walking down the street. Surely, she must do that. She was on a subway, after all.

Re: Let's be a little constructive here

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

I don't think your perception of homeless people is shaped much by looking at them on the street. There is much more behind it - how you were brought up, who your friends are etc.
Yet - I was on the subway once and there was a homeless person walking around the car, mentioning he hadn't eaten for 3 days. And one well dressed man goes (enthusiastically and cheerfully, the way you should be I suppose when you're ready for another day at a Bay street office): "What? Three days? I don't believe you". And I'm really headsubwaydoor, and I even write something about it on a piece of paper (never made it to the blog). And what if he is lying? Surely, he couldn't have been doing more deception than you do on Bay street even if he tried.

Re: Let's be a little constructive here

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

"Obama even claims you can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps because you have no boots. Now, how could anybody in this country today be without boots?"

I wish that was satire.

Re: Let's be a little constructive here

[ironed_orchid]

OMG I love Obama a little bit more.

Re: Let's be a little constructive here

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

The line they were quoting was from his acceptance speech-- at 14:27 in this video.

Re: Let's be a little constructive here

[ironed_orchid]

Thanks.

Re: Let's be a little constructive here

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Constructive? No, let's not be. This kind of behavior is, by all ordinary canons of psychological development, evidence of pathological antisociability. We're supposed to have a capacity for sympathy. It's said to reside in the frontal lobes, and have an essential role in 'executive' moral decision-making. Clearly millions of Americans do not have this; they have a deficit; they are abnormal. If that means I'm committed to saying that a hundred million (or more) Americans suffer from a mental pathology which turns them into asshole republicans, well, I think we have only to look at the fate of this country to see the truth of that diagnosis.

I have 'seeing the other side of it' fatigue, especially when the other side is simultaneously and demonstrably evil, stupid, and wrong. Fuck that. I am not going to pretend they have good reasons for being the way they are. It's culpable and they should know better; that's what's being an adult is about. They don't get to plead 'upbringing' for their foolishness - how hypocritical!

Re: Let's be a little constructive here

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Yes, I hope more people thought that way. Then I wouldn't be so used to paying lip service to opinions that give me indigestion.

[rbowspryte.livejournal.com]

Precisely! You know this is exactly the kind of thing I have been seeing more of and talking about over the last few days in my journal.

Maybe we are in some grand period of a bankruptcy of the heart or maybe stupid (or profoundly unsympathetic) people are breeding.

[holy-chao.livejournal.com]

I hate overhearing those conversations (usually from relatives). I used to try to interject, until I realized that people are completely happy with their shitty, wrong opinions.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

CAMH needs to be burnt down, with those two people inside.

[ironed_orchid]

I hate that woman and her husband and her children and her dogs. But not her cats, if she has any.

[5-miles.livejournal.com]

It's absolutely astonishing to me that so many people think that the death penalty is acceptable punishment for the crime of poverty. I don't know why I am so surprised, this is class war, after all, they are killing us for a reason.

[hayleysaurusrex.livejournal.com]

I guess there's some amount of selfish comfort in believing that people get what they want or deserve. If a person froze to death they must have done something to bring that on themselves. Otherwise the universe may well be godless.

[human-loser.livejournal.com]

And the awesome flip side of that of course means that if the frozen poor get what they deserve, then I guess that means *I* totally earned everything I got, due entirely to my own objective goodness and rightness as a person.

Phew!

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

I get disturbed to think that some people lack a sense of empathy, because I can't imagine living without one.

Ever since Palin got nominated, I've been seeing and hearing more and more people like that (the ones who lack empathy). It's like someone kicked over a rock and all the troglodytes came pouring out.

[human-loser.livejournal.com]

Ah yes the old "They make more money begging than we do at our jobs", a classic really. Cause there was that one time? That that one lady? Who was actually white, by the way? Was conning people into giving her money. So...you know, they ALL do.

Thing is though, well-off people don't tend to freeze to death in the middle of a fucking city.

[mendaciloquent.livejournal.com]

Well, ya know... there are winners and losers, right? That's just the way it is. Like if this was Communism we'd all be freezin to death like that lady cause Hitler woulda take all our heat for themselves. So I donwanna say the lady deserve it but like on average I'm totally sure we have it a lot better, cause you get to keep what you have. Shame tho'.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

*applause*

[fr-defenestrato.livejournal.com]

What amazes me is that nowhere did the 'addiction and mental health' issue even bear on the conversation of the subway women OR the conversation here. Why are we talking about some monolithic 'poor people' entity? This was clearly a person whose problems had some demonstrable cause or causes. That seems the clearest rebuke to the rotten fuckheads anti-empaths of this world: How can you assume a 'sense of entitlement' in a person who was searching, seemingly desperately, for help? An entry-level job at McDonalds is not a cure for crack addiction or schizophrenia.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but rich people who have addiction and mental health issues don't usually freeze to death over it.

How can you assume a 'sense of entitlement' in a person who was searching, seemingly desperately, for help?

They would tell you that asking for help implies you think you might get some, and so you're assuming everyone's just there to help you and you don't give a damn about your own responsibilities, or some crap like that.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

It's Tough Love. If it were used more, people would be more self-reliant. I advocate Tough Love for the aging, the injured, and people with incurable diseases. I mean, really, doctors just enable the sick. That's why health care needs to be expensive; people get sick as much as they can unless you somehow disincentivize illness. It's the genius of the market that they found a way to make illness unpleasant. That had never been done before.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

What holding such opinions often comes down to is the "I've had it tough too, let them not whine" thought. The power of that thought lies mainly in the generality of its phrasing.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

I know that feeling. I was on the MARC train going to BWI airport after attending the 2000 Bush inaugural protest in DC and next to me were these two awful women, obviously big Texans, wearing ugly expensive-but-cheap furs (you know what these look like) and caked with makeup, chattering about how heroic Bush was and how awful, awful, awful were all those protesters, and how dirty and ethnic we were, NOT AMERICA, and how we were a tiny minority of those present (haha - remember, this was before free speech zones - it was post-Seattle so the "security" was like a couple of mechanized infantry divisions organized by the Stazi, but we could go wherever we wanted on the route, and there were LOTS of us), and they went on and on and finally I couldn't stand it and I waved my finger at them and I yelled "none of that is true!" and then I felt like a fool.

It's pointless to speak. A camera guy with a mic cornered me at one point - just as we were all watching the mounted cops clubbing a couple of guys that slipped under the barricade and into The Route - asking why I was there, and I said "you think I could possibly tell you all the things wrong with George W Bush and all the ways he'll fuck up the country as president in a ten second sound bite?" And he said "Jeeeeeeeeeeeze" and glared at me. Like whatever guy. You want to know why I'm here? How about the fact that we're being followed around by a Huey gunship for holding a sign up at the president's inaugural parade? How does that strike you as a bit of foreshadowing, hm?

That was eight years ago.

Rich conservatives are still shit.

[lopukhov.livejournal.com]

I would've blurted out "douchebag". I love how immigrants from countries that are *still* developing (we're not backwards, we just haven't fully developed yet!), so called, always buy into the land of the free home of the brave bullshit. I love how we buy into that Capitalism Will Show Us The Way ideology, when capitalism is the reason our countries are in so much debt right now.

[sabotabby]

What I'm interested in is whether she thought IMF debt and farmer suicides were like, fucking awesome and the way we should be heading.

[sqrt-joy.livejournal.com]

Grrr. When I see people like that I typically run through all the things I want to say in my head too. Except my favourite insult is typically "fucker".

I hope she has a lot of money invested in stocks.

I LOLed.