All the responses here have been solidly middle class condemnations. There are so many forces at work here, I don't even know where to begin.
I grew up in the American middle class, and probably felt the same way many of you do. I became more sensitive to this sort of thing by:
a) Talking to my wife, who is an immigrant from a lower class, who came here so she could be something. She's a professor now, so we've seen the whole spectrum of society.
b) Experiencing first hand what the system does to people, even those who try really hard to help themselves. It sucks. It's not fair. It's unjust. It provides perverse incentives. You want to believe that's not true, but it's true.
You see him buying a few beers out of context, and you feel justified in thinking he'd better just man up, but you have no /idea/ what that situation is like, and probably (hopefully?) never will.
I grew up in the American middle class, and probably felt the same way many of you do. I became more sensitive to this sort of thing by:
a) Talking to my wife, who is an immigrant from a lower class, who came here so she could be something. She's a professor now, so we've seen the whole spectrum of society.
b) Experiencing first hand what the system does to people, even those who try really hard to help themselves. It sucks. It's not fair. It's unjust. It provides perverse incentives. You want to believe that's not true, but it's true.
You see him buying a few beers out of context, and you feel justified in thinking he'd better just man up, but you have no /idea/ what that situation is like, and probably (hopefully?) never will.
I suggest reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed to start to get an inkling of what goes on: http://www.amazon.com/Pedagogy-Oppressed-Paulo-Freire/dp/082...