The following replies are approved. To see additional replies that are pending approval, click Show Pending. Warning: These may contain graphic material.
4
Long-time dream of mine: I'd love it if there were some way to make every student, as a condition for graduating high school, spend at least 3 weeks living with a family in another country which does not have the same resources as ours. Doesn't even have to be living in a slum, just another, non-G20/"wealthy" country. All the money we spend, futilely, on various programs to improve this or that about our country, and I really think that money would be so much better spent. People (rich and poor) so desperately need that other perspective, to walk a bit in some other shoes, and there just isn't anything about our system which does that. I think it would help improve the dialogue about our domestic policies, as well as do wonders for our foreign policy.
6
I'm not sure you even have to go outside of the country. I grew up in Palo Alto, CA with college educated parents, white, holding onto middle-class just barely because of various divorces. I had thought of myself as a very open-minded, socially conscious person who was way more aware than my peers with giant houses and new cars at 16. Then I spent a semester interning at a school in DC during my Junior year of college. My world view was ripped wide open and I'm still learning from the ripples of that experience 17 years later.
Spending every day as the only white person in a room with kids who were only reliably fed at school, could not keep themselves in their seats for more than 5 minutes, could barely read at age 11 and had no earthly idea what base-10 was and had never been outside their neighborhood, it changes you. You can't pretend those kids deserve poverty, you can't walk away thinking that they had a shot if they just worked hard enough. Nope. Those kids were completely fucked and I know that while they fundamentally changed who I am as a human being, I didn't help them much beyond being one white face who wasn't a complete ass to them. That's it. Those kids gave me so much more than I could ever give them.
If everyone middle-class and above had those kinds of experiences I don't think anyone would be trying to protect the rich's lofty position in our society or telling the poor to just work harder.
2
It's a fine sentiment, but I know too many affluent young people who will bore you for hours about their summer program where they lived in Oakland and helped feed "urban youths", or how after college they found themselves while building houses in "Neecaragrrrrra." It CHANGED THEIR LIVES, they say, which as far as I can tell means they started wearing hand-knit berets and only going to local coffee shops instead of Starbucks. It doesn't make them any less likely to join the Chamber of Commerce or support dismantling the welfare state when they're 40.
1
I recognize there is No Way it would fix everything, and that for many people, the lessons would be water off a duck's back. However, I think there's also a lot of people who truly *would* benefit from it; and because I can't come up with any test for determining which is which, I think it would need to be universal. So, while I know your objection is valid, I still think the benefit to society (and the world...can we please be slightly better world citizens?) would be tremendous.
I agree that, as long as we don't get our hopes up too much, a program like that would do some good and no harm, and that's more than most ideas can offer.
10
The wealthier participants were also more likely to agree with statements such as “I honestly feel I’m just more deserving than other people” and place themselves higher on a self-assessed “class ladder” that indicated increasing levels of income, education and job prestige.
Jesus fucking Christ. Anyone who agreed with that statement should be shot. I mean even if you do agree with it wouldn't they have enough shame to not admit it even in a confidential questionnaire?
1
I prefer mandatory mental care.
Wealthy people placing themselves higher on a class ladder of income, education, and job prestige would just be common sense. You don't see a lot of wealthy people who are low-income, poorly educated, and working low-prestige jobs.
1
Yeah it was more the "I honestly feel I'm just more deserving than other people" portion I was objecting to.
1
This is interesting to me because I work with a lot of really rich kids, some of whom got their jobs/internships thanks to family connections. I had lunch with two of them today, one just out of college, one going back after her internship ends.
I mean, richer than I can imagine. And they're both totally sweet, totally smart, and don't think any tasks are beneath them. Some of these kids are entitled assholes, but for the most part, they really, really aren't, maybe because they have to have at least a modicum of personal accomplishment to work here.
Now, the big shots who bring home the big paychecks on the other hand.... They tend to be entitled beyond belief. (Including the ones I like, like my friend who explained, after he turned left from the right had lane in rush hour traffic that it didn't matter because a moving violation ticket cost less than his time was worth.)
Try having discussios with them about how they think the world works and you'll hear some appalling entitled bullshit
1
That's why I refuse to share an entrance and lobby with them in any apartment building I live in.
