A Modest Proposal
Ok...
Some context to yesterday's bitter proposition that everyone be a little more suicidal.
First, obviously, but perhaps not obviously, general feelings of helplessness or unwavering sadness suck and I do not want anyone to experience them.
I also don't mean to trigger anyone. Or help feed into a cycle of self-harm. I wouldn't go so far as to say I don't condone self-harm, because that feels judge-y...but I'm not advocating for it as a positive coping mechanism. The relief is pretty temporary, and then, at least for me, it kind of creates a new source of anxiety. While things are all fresh and red, even through the healing process, my body is a curious thing that I see from a distance. It's fascinating. Maybe because something that was wrong is fixing itself? I can't really describe it better than a sense of relief to be outside of myself somehow. And I write about it probably to work through why I do it...like examining the process might make it easier to find something else to do. I also do so because it's stigmatized. Like adult acne it's something people are just horrified and grossed out to find you didn't outgrow. It might be useful to someone to know that adult acne isn't the end of the world, someone will probably still love you...and this habit, while unhealthy, probably doesn't make you a shitty person on its own. Some people won't judge you for it. Finally...I think I want it to be a thing people around people who do this are not judgmental about. This is probably self-serving. But I want you to know that this probably doesn't make your loved one a shitty person. They probably don't like that they do it either, after the initial relief passes. They might not be doing it just to get attention. They're probably not doing it to hurt you. And I guess if they do feel they need to go that far to draw attention to something feeling wrong, don't be a dick about it when you notice.
Which is not to say anyone has been a dick to me about things. I'm kind of grateful most people haven't noticed.
So...the context.
I have been having an ongoing argument with an old friend about social safety nets and the responsibilities of society to it's members. I don't know if you've gleaned this from any of my other posts, but I am in general incredibly liberal. I don't think we necessarily need to judge anyone for things that they want that don't hurt or exploit other people, but I do think government should take a more active role in people's lives. Regulation has been proven not to destroy industry in the many other nation with stricter rules. Often, it leads to innovation out of sheer necessity. It can become cheaper in the long-run to find ways to comply with rules than pay fines for breaking them. It also builds up brand capital to not be dicks, which makes it easier for people to patronize a company. Sometimes this doesn't work...but it probably could if people were consistent about it. I firmly believe Chick-fil-A could be cancelled if liberals were more adamant in their refusal to purchase gay-bashing chicken.
That's actually kind of not context.
Back to context.
As a liberal who believes that we should be more interested in caring for marginalized society, perhaps in a way that makes the gaps of inequality much smaller, I think a lot of things should be expected in societal infrastructure and mostly free. Education is one of them. I definitely support free higher education. A well informed population is preferable in every sense. I just feel there don't need to be barriers to anyone's ability to learn, and wealth is commonly one of those barriers. The income, race and zip code a child is born into can have an outsized impact on their ability to succeed, and parental involvement is not able to effectively close that gap. The truth of poverty is that it is emotionally and physically taxing, and even if parents have the best of intentions to get involved, teaching them ways to do so when they're juggling bills and simple sustainability is not going to help. A well informed population would be able to recognize this. Broad education is able to make people more empathetic. It takes a willful density to learn about systemic racism, the brutal treatment of immigrants and minority populations, and the ways in which wealthy corporations have attempted to curb healthy labor practices in order to maximize investor profits, and still feel like government has no responsibility to protect the interests of its citizens.
My friend believes that anything higher than an associate's degree is a waste of resources. Not everyone deserves to be invested in. People should have to earn it. People should be forced to find ways to invest in themselves. At this point, an associate's degree is akin to a high school degree in the 1920's or 1950's or whenever people were able to more easily support themselves without the expectation of higher education. When there were good stable jobs for the working class. Good factory jobs. Good mining jobs. Good industry jobs. The working man could support the wife and 2.5 children behind a picket fence just as the American dream promised. While an associate's degree is definitely beneficial, much like a $15 minimum wage, it's not enough anymore. It's possible we are quickly approaching a time where no amount of education will be enough. Automation is taking up far more of those "skilled labor" jobs, and an associate's degree won't make jobs that aren't there more accessible. We should all just get used to the idea of investing at both ends. People who work in "menial labor" should have livable wages. The typical McDonald's worker, grocery bagger, or Favor runner is not a teen looking to make some cash over their summer breaks and weekends. They're people who are struggling to survive, and why can we as a society feel it's only fair that they are struggling while other people have amassed so much wealth that they could never spend it all in their lifetime? Why would it be so rotten to make life easy for a janitor? Or to prioritize the salaries of educators? Why do people feel like their own accomplishments are less significant if they don't perpetuate a system that keeps others from succeeding more easily? These are the jobs we need people to fill right now. There will probably one day be robots that pick up the garbage, that recite facts to children, and make burgers. For now, these are the jobs people can fill. It will never be the case that everyone will be paid for research and development. It shouldn't be the case that we force everyone into sales, marketing and public relations. Not everyone needs to be a repair person. Not everyone can be an entertainer...
So why not just let people learn? Maybe they'll get what are traditionally thought of as "good" jobs, and maybe they won't. Maybe their children and their children's children will be brilliant and create loads of jobs through innovative industry. Maybe they won't. Why does it really matter?
I guess the same argument could be made to go negative on the subject. But why the fuck would you?
The thing that my friend finds most contentious, and his primary argument, is that being poor isn't an excuse to stay poor. Go take your wahs elsewhere, you lazy bitch. And this is just a common fallacy. There have been a few articles exploring the myth of welfare queens. There's been countless articles explaining how difficult it is to dig oneself out of poverty once you've slipped into it. I don't think the majority of people want to stay poor. I don't think the majority of people are trying to just sit on their laurels and make excuses for being poor. I don't think the majority of people want a bunch of hand-outs. I should probably eventually site my sources....
Anyway, this is the context of my current feeling of being a pointless sack of garbage. I can't convince someone I deeply care about to deeply care about other people enough to understand that sometimes trying really really hard won't be enough. Education on healthy eating habits and eliminating food deserts won't make it easier to find the time to cook for someone who has to work 3 jobs. Seminars on financial responsibility won't keep someone afloat when a medical emergency can leave them homeless. I firmly believe, and their are now countless studies, that wealth inequality and poverty are at the root of almost all societal ills.
Even making reproductive healthcare more widely available won't mean that everyone who takes advantage of the service will perfectly plan every pregnancy. This is his other solution. It's a solution that, for me, has the gritty mouth feel of eugenics. I find it particularly strange to see involvement in reproductive practices as more worthwhile than involvement in education.
In business school a lot of the focus is on how to maximize profit in ways that are not always ethical. Business school is incredibly expensive. I'm almost certain there's a premium on my tuition because I'm in this program. If this were more accessible, maybe there would be more voices to challenge these practices. Maybe?
I don't know.
That's the rambling, erratic and over-emotional context to my over-emotional position that people should be more emotional. It's likely neither phased you. Neither phased him. He walked away as blithely obstinate as he sauntered in, reassuring me that I had no cogent argument, nor reason to argue in the first place. People just need to be taught to give a fuck.
Would that be considered ironic?
I don't want to live long enough to figure it out.
Some context to yesterday's bitter proposition that everyone be a little more suicidal.
First, obviously, but perhaps not obviously, general feelings of helplessness or unwavering sadness suck and I do not want anyone to experience them.
I also don't mean to trigger anyone. Or help feed into a cycle of self-harm. I wouldn't go so far as to say I don't condone self-harm, because that feels judge-y...but I'm not advocating for it as a positive coping mechanism. The relief is pretty temporary, and then, at least for me, it kind of creates a new source of anxiety. While things are all fresh and red, even through the healing process, my body is a curious thing that I see from a distance. It's fascinating. Maybe because something that was wrong is fixing itself? I can't really describe it better than a sense of relief to be outside of myself somehow. And I write about it probably to work through why I do it...like examining the process might make it easier to find something else to do. I also do so because it's stigmatized. Like adult acne it's something people are just horrified and grossed out to find you didn't outgrow. It might be useful to someone to know that adult acne isn't the end of the world, someone will probably still love you...and this habit, while unhealthy, probably doesn't make you a shitty person on its own. Some people won't judge you for it. Finally...I think I want it to be a thing people around people who do this are not judgmental about. This is probably self-serving. But I want you to know that this probably doesn't make your loved one a shitty person. They probably don't like that they do it either, after the initial relief passes. They might not be doing it just to get attention. They're probably not doing it to hurt you. And I guess if they do feel they need to go that far to draw attention to something feeling wrong, don't be a dick about it when you notice.
Which is not to say anyone has been a dick to me about things. I'm kind of grateful most people haven't noticed.
So...the context.
I have been having an ongoing argument with an old friend about social safety nets and the responsibilities of society to it's members. I don't know if you've gleaned this from any of my other posts, but I am in general incredibly liberal. I don't think we necessarily need to judge anyone for things that they want that don't hurt or exploit other people, but I do think government should take a more active role in people's lives. Regulation has been proven not to destroy industry in the many other nation with stricter rules. Often, it leads to innovation out of sheer necessity. It can become cheaper in the long-run to find ways to comply with rules than pay fines for breaking them. It also builds up brand capital to not be dicks, which makes it easier for people to patronize a company. Sometimes this doesn't work...but it probably could if people were consistent about it. I firmly believe Chick-fil-A could be cancelled if liberals were more adamant in their refusal to purchase gay-bashing chicken.
That's actually kind of not context.
Back to context.
As a liberal who believes that we should be more interested in caring for marginalized society, perhaps in a way that makes the gaps of inequality much smaller, I think a lot of things should be expected in societal infrastructure and mostly free. Education is one of them. I definitely support free higher education. A well informed population is preferable in every sense. I just feel there don't need to be barriers to anyone's ability to learn, and wealth is commonly one of those barriers. The income, race and zip code a child is born into can have an outsized impact on their ability to succeed, and parental involvement is not able to effectively close that gap. The truth of poverty is that it is emotionally and physically taxing, and even if parents have the best of intentions to get involved, teaching them ways to do so when they're juggling bills and simple sustainability is not going to help. A well informed population would be able to recognize this. Broad education is able to make people more empathetic. It takes a willful density to learn about systemic racism, the brutal treatment of immigrants and minority populations, and the ways in which wealthy corporations have attempted to curb healthy labor practices in order to maximize investor profits, and still feel like government has no responsibility to protect the interests of its citizens.
My friend believes that anything higher than an associate's degree is a waste of resources. Not everyone deserves to be invested in. People should have to earn it. People should be forced to find ways to invest in themselves. At this point, an associate's degree is akin to a high school degree in the 1920's or 1950's or whenever people were able to more easily support themselves without the expectation of higher education. When there were good stable jobs for the working class. Good factory jobs. Good mining jobs. Good industry jobs. The working man could support the wife and 2.5 children behind a picket fence just as the American dream promised. While an associate's degree is definitely beneficial, much like a $15 minimum wage, it's not enough anymore. It's possible we are quickly approaching a time where no amount of education will be enough. Automation is taking up far more of those "skilled labor" jobs, and an associate's degree won't make jobs that aren't there more accessible. We should all just get used to the idea of investing at both ends. People who work in "menial labor" should have livable wages. The typical McDonald's worker, grocery bagger, or Favor runner is not a teen looking to make some cash over their summer breaks and weekends. They're people who are struggling to survive, and why can we as a society feel it's only fair that they are struggling while other people have amassed so much wealth that they could never spend it all in their lifetime? Why would it be so rotten to make life easy for a janitor? Or to prioritize the salaries of educators? Why do people feel like their own accomplishments are less significant if they don't perpetuate a system that keeps others from succeeding more easily? These are the jobs we need people to fill right now. There will probably one day be robots that pick up the garbage, that recite facts to children, and make burgers. For now, these are the jobs people can fill. It will never be the case that everyone will be paid for research and development. It shouldn't be the case that we force everyone into sales, marketing and public relations. Not everyone needs to be a repair person. Not everyone can be an entertainer...
So why not just let people learn? Maybe they'll get what are traditionally thought of as "good" jobs, and maybe they won't. Maybe their children and their children's children will be brilliant and create loads of jobs through innovative industry. Maybe they won't. Why does it really matter?
I guess the same argument could be made to go negative on the subject. But why the fuck would you?
The thing that my friend finds most contentious, and his primary argument, is that being poor isn't an excuse to stay poor. Go take your wahs elsewhere, you lazy bitch. And this is just a common fallacy. There have been a few articles exploring the myth of welfare queens. There's been countless articles explaining how difficult it is to dig oneself out of poverty once you've slipped into it. I don't think the majority of people want to stay poor. I don't think the majority of people are trying to just sit on their laurels and make excuses for being poor. I don't think the majority of people want a bunch of hand-outs. I should probably eventually site my sources....
Anyway, this is the context of my current feeling of being a pointless sack of garbage. I can't convince someone I deeply care about to deeply care about other people enough to understand that sometimes trying really really hard won't be enough. Education on healthy eating habits and eliminating food deserts won't make it easier to find the time to cook for someone who has to work 3 jobs. Seminars on financial responsibility won't keep someone afloat when a medical emergency can leave them homeless. I firmly believe, and their are now countless studies, that wealth inequality and poverty are at the root of almost all societal ills.
Even making reproductive healthcare more widely available won't mean that everyone who takes advantage of the service will perfectly plan every pregnancy. This is his other solution. It's a solution that, for me, has the gritty mouth feel of eugenics. I find it particularly strange to see involvement in reproductive practices as more worthwhile than involvement in education.
In business school a lot of the focus is on how to maximize profit in ways that are not always ethical. Business school is incredibly expensive. I'm almost certain there's a premium on my tuition because I'm in this program. If this were more accessible, maybe there would be more voices to challenge these practices. Maybe?
I don't know.
That's the rambling, erratic and over-emotional context to my over-emotional position that people should be more emotional. It's likely neither phased you. Neither phased him. He walked away as blithely obstinate as he sauntered in, reassuring me that I had no cogent argument, nor reason to argue in the first place. People just need to be taught to give a fuck.
Would that be considered ironic?
I don't want to live long enough to figure it out.
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