Posted on by Fred

What We Deserve

Judgment is a tricky issue.  We absolutely need to be able to make judgments, even about people.  We decide with whom we will be friends, who we will date, who we will marry.  We decide what people deserve from us.  We are required, simply by nature of being alive, to make those judgments.  I have no problem with that.

What infuriates me is when we believe we get to decide who deserves to share in the bounty of 200,000 years of human progress.  It begins with the idea that we have to earn a living.  The easiest response to that is to call that what it is: Bullshit.

Let’s begin where we must certainly agree: no one asked to be born.  We didn’t decide where or when or to whom to be born.  The most of which we can be accused is having been the fastest sperm, and I don’t think sperm are sentient, so there really is no blame to be assessed for someone having had the unmitigated temerity to take up space on this planet. 

Some of us were born in ideal circumstances, others were born in atrocious conditions.  We didn’t choose that.  Some of us overcame unimaginable abuse and neglect, and we rose to better lives.  Others had all of our needs met from the moment of our birth and went on to screw it all up. 

I don’t know why someone became who they are today.  And you know what?  Neither do you.  You can’t.  There is no way we know enough about someone’s life to determine what went wrong or what went right.  We don’t know if it was dumb luck or intelligent use of the resources someone had available to them. 

Everyone, from the person I love most in the world to someone whose very existence makes me cringe, deserves to be allowed to live safely, be properly fed, and have all the medical attention required to keep them healthy.  This is true whether they have more money than Elon Musk or less money than the guy outside of Circle K whose body odor offends even those of us whose olfactory organs have been destroyed by years of smoking.  He’s probably wearing clothes Goodwill rejected.  And he is at a place in his life where the best he can do to get by is stand there and ask someone for some money.  Did you think this is what he wanted to do?  Did you think when he was a little boy he used to dream of having this life? 

***

20-year-old Esther is holding her 4-year-old daughter, Emily, in her arms.  Esther is standing in line at The Department of Economic Security.  There are 11 people ahead of her.  They’ve been here for an hour already.  It’s 7:30 AM.  DES opens at 7, but the line outside the door usually starts forming before 6. 

Emily is getting cranky and wants to get down.  “I need to go peepee.”

Esther can’t let Emily go alone, obviously.  She looks at the line behind her.  There are more than 20 people in it who didn’t get here as early as Esther. 

Emily begins to kick and cry.  “Mama!  I have to go peepee now!!!”

Esther rubs her daughter’s back lovingly.  “Can you hold it just a little while like a big girl?”  Esther’s arms are starting to ache.  She wants to put Emily down at least as much as Emily wants to get down, but she doesn’t feel safe here.

A man wearing an army jacket that Goodwill would reject, reeking of alcohol and cigarettes, is watching them from one of the plastic chairs.  He smiles.  “Want me to take her for you, ma’am?”

***

Why don’t we guarantee the basics of survival for, at the absolute minimum, all the citizens of our own country?  This is where my passion is ignited. 

We justify homelessness, hunger, and poverty with the convenient capitalist myth that people deserve those conditions.  No, they don’t!

Well, if they wanted money, they should have….

Well, if they wanted money, they shouldn’t have…

Whenever someone says that, I have to remember that hitting them won’t help anyone.  I’m not entirely certain I can even make a fist anymore, so I’m not one for whom violence would be a good choice even if I didn’t oppose it on moral grounds.  Nevertheless, I find it infuriating.

How the hell does anyone know enough about someone’s life to decide they deserve to be homeless or hungry?  Do we know why they made the choices they did?  Do we know that, in their situation, we would have made different ones? 

***

“I feel for you, ma’am.  I’m awful sorry we need to do this.  It’s the law, though.  Your landlord won the eviction.  You have to vacate the premises.  We can give you a few minutes to gather any property you might want to take with you.”

“My daughter is four.  I paid what I could.  It’s not like I’m not working.  I mean…” Esther looked down.  She didn’t want the deputy to see her crying.

“I understand, ma’am.  It’s not fair.  It’s not right.  It’s the law, though, and we have to obey it.”

Emily came into the room holding her teddy bear.  “I need to go peepee.”  She looked up at the deputies in the doorway.  She waved.  “Hi police people.  I’m Emily!”

***

I have some amateur philosopher friends who find great joy in expounding on the idea that Free Will doesn’t exist, and that it’s physically impossible for it even to be considered a reasonable idea.  Maybe they’re right.  I don’t know.  I do know that I like to believe that whatever it is that makes me Fred, the combination of my genetic makeup, my upbringing, all the experiences I’ve ever had, and the limitations and capabilities of my body have combined to make me a person who gets to choose what I’m doing at any given moment.  I like to believe we all get to choose.  I could be wrong.  Perhaps I’m only deceiving myself when I think I’m making a decision.

But, much of what we choose is undoubtedly out of our control.  I can’t, for example, choose to go to the Moon, climb Mount Everest, run The Boston Marathon, or write better than Shakespeare.  I could make choices that might move me closer to some of these things in the future, but at this moment, none of those options are available to me.  And this is the only moment in which I get to choose.  Life is a collection of moments, and the present is the only place where we have any semblance of control.  And sometimes we make the best choice we can at any given moment, and it still fails.

I play Texas Hold ‘Em on Facebook frequently.  Poker is all about choices.  I try to make the best ones I can at each moment. I’ll call someone’s All In bet when I have pocket aces, and I’ll still lose.  It’s not because I’m bad or stupid or evil.  It’s because what appeared to be the best choice didn’t work out the way I reasonably expected it would. 

Life is like that.  People who make decisions I think are wrong or stupid sometimes win.  People who make decisions I think are right or brilliant sometimes lose.  Much of it is out of our control.  In fact, most of it is.

***

“Esther, you can’t come into work like this.  You’re a good waitress.  Your customers are more than satisfied, but… I don’t want to be rude, I really don’t… but… Esther you smell horrible.  No one wants to order food in a restaurant where the employees… well… stink.”

“If I can get enough hours, I can get a place where I can shower.  I’m doing my best.  I really am.”

“I’m sure you are.  You’re a good girl.  You really are.  You just can’t work here anymore.”

***

And because we’ve decided money is what matters most in the world, some people suffer while others live in unimaginable opulence.  Over what, exactly?  Something we invented to determine who is good and who isn’t?  We all know many people who have more money than they could ever spend, who are not good people in any meaningful way, and people who have almost no money at all who are wonderful human beings.  To make judgments about someone based on how many little green pieces of cotton and linen they’ve collected is at once patently stupid, unnecessarily cruel, demonstrably inaccurate, and utterly immoral. 

We make reasonable judgments about people based on who they are.  If we would like everyone to become the best versions of themselves, we need to give them the freedom to find out who that is without worrying about survival. 

Hierarchy on needs pyramid concept pointing finger

It’s Maslow’s Pyramid.  We have advanced far enough as a species to guarantee everyone’s physiological and safety needs are met.  Why should we deny those to anyone?  There are six times as many empty homes as there are homeless people.  We dump between 25 and 40% of the food we produce before it even gets to anyone’s plate.  And yet we’re okay with a 4-year-old girl sleeping under a tarp with her mother?  No, this is not a failure on the part of the mother.  It is a failure on the part of the civilization.

But she could get help from all these programs. If she’s too stupid to do that…

Go ahead… finish that sentence.  If she doesn’t know how to make use of those programs the little girl should shiver all night?  I decline to believe anyone with a single molecule of empathy could think that. 

Have you ever tried to make use of any of these programs?  Getting food stamps is exhausting.  This assumes you know how to do all you need to be able to do.  I’m an educated man.  I have a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Education.  And it is exceptionally difficult for me to figure out how to get the help I need.  How is someone who is illiterate supposed to do that?  The waiting list for a place that lets you live there for a third of your income is not less than 3 years.  Some lists take five years. 

***

Esther is embarrassed when she gets to the front of the line.  The lady on the other side of the window backs away a moment.  The smell coming from Emily is even more offensive than Esther’s.  They hadn’t gone to the restroom.  Emily is kicking and crying. 

“How may I help you?”

“We need to get food stamps.”

The lady pushes a card toward Esther.  “Take this and have a seat.  When they call your number, you can go apply.”

“Do you know how long it will be?  I kind of need to take the little one to the restroom.”

“No idea, ma’am.  Sorry.”

***

The idea that some humans deserve more of the advantages those who came before us have made possible, and other people deserve to live like the lesser primates is obscene.  We are the only animal on the planet that has to pay for our right to exist.  Lions don’t charge 7.5% interest on tonight’s zebra banquet.  Earthworms don’t pay for the right to slither through the dirt.  Most species work together to ensure their own survival.  They do what they can to ensure they all thrive. 

Many of our species live in fear.  We’re afraid that someone may be better than us.  We have an insatiable need to be better than someone else.  “I may not be perfect, but at least I’m not…”  That sentence usually ends in the betrayal of someone’s bigotry. 

***

“So,” says the man behind the desk handing papers to Esther, “we’ll just need you to bring proof of your earned income –”

“I lost my job.”

“And your little girl’s birth certificate.”

“It’s gone.  I didn’t think to get it when we were evicted.”

“And your bank statements.”

“They closed my account.”

He looked up.  “I don’t think there’s a lot we can do for you, ma’am.  I’m sorry.”

“How am I supposed to feed Emily?”

“There’s probably a charity somewhere.  You could ask them for help.  I have some phone numbers.” He opened his desk drawer.

“I don’t have a phone.”

“See, we just can’t prove that you’re eligible.  We can’t just give food stamps to everyone.  We’d be broke.”

“I know about being broke.”

***

We have become immune to the hope for a better world.  My hope is that AI will free us from our own shortcomings.  It will do all the work and allow the rest of us to spend our time trying to improve ourselves and the rest of humanity. 

***

Esther emerges from the building into the sunlight that nearly blinds her.  She walks to the bench, sits down, and cries on her sleeping daughter’s shoulder.

Posted on by Fred · 4 Comments

Refuse Boxes

Trigger Warning

I’m surprised to need a trigger warning in this piece because I didn’t think it was powerful enough to warrant one.  The story you’re about to hear, however, is the only story I’ve ever written that actually made my best friend angry with me.  When I write my normally calm, rational arguments against the existence of homelessness, she has little reaction.  “It’s okay, Fred, but I’ve heard it all before.  It’s just not very moving.  I’m sorry.”

That wasn’t the case this time.  She was angry that the story existed.  I sent it to her right after I finished it because I was proud of it.  She wrote me back promptly.  “I hate it!  Never again.  Please!  God!  WTF Dude?”

So… you are hereby warned.  Animals are injured offscreen in this story.  If that’s going to bother you more than you can tolerate, you’ll want to skip this.  I’ll read you the story, and then I’ll return to explain to you what an allegory is, and how this parallels what we’re doing to human beings, right now, in Arizona and California.  This is called “Refuse Boxes.”

Refuse Boxes

Karen Adamson walked into the parking lot behind the condos, and she rolled her eyes and sighed with disgust.  She took out her pen and began to write feverishly on her clipboard.  She took pictures of the rain-soaked boxes behind 616.  The Homeowner’s Association was never going to allow this.  She was already quoting the rule in her head: 

No Lot shall be used or maintained as a dumping ground for rubbish.  All trash shall be regularly removed from each Lot and shall not be allowed to accumulate thereon.  Trash, garbage, or other waste shall be kept in sanitary, covered containers.  All equipment for the storage or disposal of such materials shall be kept in a clean and sanitary condition.  In no event shall such equipment and/or containers be visible from the Common Area streets, from neighboring Property, or within property contained in the Plat, except for a reasonable time immediately prior to and after scheduled trash collection, and in all events in compliance with Fairvale County Code.

She was looking forward to talking to Mr. Singleman.  She was going to show him who was in charge.  “Wretched refuse.  People just live like pigs.  This is a fine of $100 a day, per day, up to $1000.  He’ll take me seriously when I present him with this violation.”

A kitten stepped out of one of the boxes, looked up at her, and then scurried back inside.  Karen knelt and looked in the box.  Cat food?  What could this guy be thinking?  Encouraging feral cats?  That’s a violation, too.  That’s another $25.00. 

A black and white puppy waddled out of another box.  He saw Adamson and began jumping around her ankles, yipping excitedly.    “What kind of place is this?”  She kicked him away.  The dog yelped and limped into another box.  In a moment its mother poked her head out and growled.  Karen gave the dog a glare, and it went back inside.

The boxes were piled 4 or 5 high, and from the box at the top she heard an obnoxious squealing sound.  A moment later, a finch dropped from the sky and entered the box.  When she looked inside, Mrs. Adamson saw the bird feeding its babies. 

She stood staring at the disgusting mess that was the back of Condo 616, and then she thought.  None of these horrid things is a pet.  They’re not registered.  They’re not licensed.  They don’t count.  They don’t matter at all. 

She took out a cigarette and lit it.  She blew the smoke toward the animal tenement.  These things are a menace.  And these boxes… they’re dangerous.  They’re a… yes… yes.  She took a long drag from her cigarette.  She grinned.  They’re a fire hazard.  She flipped the cigarette into the box with the birds’ nest and nodded.  As the smoke began to waft out, she thought, “I’ll show them who’s in charge.”  As the smoke grew thicker, she chuckled softly and walked away enjoying the sound of the burning birds. 

***

Allegory, as defined by Merriam-Webster:  the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence

“Refuse Boxes” is an allegory for the homeless.  Its hidden meaning is, I think, completely clear, but in the event I am wrong, the animals are people.  The boxes are homeless encampments. 

When this happens to humans, we dismiss it.  If it makes the news at all, we’re likely to scroll past it without much thought.  It doesn’t strike close enough to our emotions for it to matter much to us. 

It’s a general rule among humans that we can’t tolerate hurting animals, at least not cute and harmless ones.  Everyone cries at the end of “Old Yeller,” but we can, for the most part, dismiss the earthquake in Tukey which has, as of this writing, taken the lives of more than 28,000 living, breathing people.  Among those who have survived, homelessness has skyrocketed.  Their dwellings were destroyed.  But it didn’t happen in America.  We don’t know any of these folks.  Sorry that happened.  Bummer.  Does anyone know who won the Super Bowl?  Oh, and did you hear about the twenty-million-dollar Jesus ad?

Our priorities are misplaced.  This is not to say that animals don’t matter.  If anything ever happened to Speedy Shine (my dog for those who are new here), I would be devastated.  My love for him is off the scale.  He’s infinitely closer to me than anyone in Turkey.  But the fact is every one of those people matters more than he does.  Not to me, perhaps, since I never met them, but certainly to those who have.  All of them have mothers and fathers, and most of those people have people who love them as much as I love Speedy Shine.

Of course, we can’t feel empathy for every human death.  We would be unable to function.  We’d spend our lives in a fetal position as we drowned in a river of tears.  But we can recognize their significance.

We can certainly try to change things.  As much as you’re hurt by the deaths of the birds, the dogs, and the cats in the Refuse Boxes, we need to be at least as concerned about the plight of those who live in such places in the homo sapiens world. 

Here in Arizona, police conduct regular sweeps at homeless encampments to rid the neighborhood of the pests.  But these aren’t rats.  They aren’t even dogs or cats.  They’re people.  I’m perilously close to joining them.  And, unless you’re a billionaire, you’re much closer to them than you would probably like to imagine.  (And if you are a billionaire, what are you doing about homelessness?  I promise you have the money to end it, all by yourself, and please don’t talk to me about liquid assets versus investment assets.  That’s a half-ass excuse.) 

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing to stop the destruction.  I won’t go into the details here, but they can be found in the article below.

https://apnews.com/article/arizona-homelessness-3fed4cf117ef8f48d2538e127600f109

Why don’t we mind so much about people?  I think it’s because we find a way to blame them for their situations.  Some of us use The Bible to justify our contempt. 

Thessalonians 3:10, KJV: For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

I don’t pretend to be wise enough to know what caused people to be homeless.  Certainly those in Turkey whose homes were destroyed by an earthquake did nothing to “deserve” homelessness.  I don’t feel comfortable making judgments about others.  I know that people make decisions I might not make, but I don’t know what caused them to make those choices. 

We also hide behind The Law, as though it were carved into sapphire, immutable and unchangeable.  Laws can be, and frequently are, changed.  As the world changes, so must its laws.  I promise you that it’s not that being homeless is against the law that keeps me from joining an encampment.  It’s that I don’t want to be in one.  I will do all I can to continue to live here in my little home.  (A quick thank you to The People On The Porch and my Unofficial Patron Saints who continue to help me to accomplish that goal.)

I’m working on a 5-part story about that, even now, called “Why?”  I’m hoping to illustrate that people who are easy to condemn might have been forced into choices we wish they hadn’t made by circumstances beyond their control.  I’m currently stuck trying to make Part 2 work, but I know I’ll get it right eventually.

It’s easier for us to understand that animals are not in control of much of their existence.  We don’t seem to want to believe we share that powerlessness.  The truth is, however, that we do.  It’s easy to convince ourselves that if we work hard enough, we can take care of ourselves. 

There is a myth that America is founded on rugged individualism.  That could not be further from the truth.  From the “founding of America” we worked together to create this country.  One Pilgrim didn’t build The Mayflower.  No one set up Plymouth Colony alone.  The Declaration of Independence was a statement we had the courage to make only because we could depend on one another.  We didn’t decide who was worthy or unworthy.  We worked together, each in our own ways.

I don’t know what caused John or Jane Doe to become homeless.  Neither do you.  What I know is that the situation is even more horrible than in the allegory I constructed that upset so many people.  Let’s do what we can to help them, instead of ridding ourselves of them as though they were cockroaches.  People matter more than money.  They also matter even more than the cutest and most lovable of animals.  They matter even more than Speedy Shine, who matters more to me than nearly any other part of my life. 

Posted on by Fred

The Undeserving Poor

“Don’t say that, Governor. Don’t look at it that way. What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I’m one of the undeserving poor: that’s what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he’s up agen middle class morality all the time. If there’s anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it’s always the same story: ‘You’re undeserving; so you can’t have it.’ But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow’s that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don’t need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don’t eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I’m a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I’m playing straight with you. I ain’t pretending to be deserving. I’m undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and that’s the truth. Will you take advantage of a man’s nature to do him out of the price of his own daughter what he’s brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until she’s growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you; and I leave it to you.”




– George Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”

What makes one person “Deserving” and another “Undeserving?” Certainly we would all agree those who hurt others deserve punishment in some form or other. Can we also all agree that, simply by virtue of having beaten incredible odds just to be born, we are all deserving of food? Shelter? Clothing? Medical Care? No, probably not.

The Puritan Work Ethic has trained us all to believe that a person deserves only what he or she can earn by trading their time, and some form of effort, for rewards. To the extent we can contribute, we deserve something. This made sense for America’s earliest settlers. If Per Hansa and Beret didn’t work hard, frequently, and faithfully, their family would certainly perish. And their hard work was rewarded with the necessities of life. They were fed, clothed, sheltered, and to the extent possible in that time, granted the best medical care available. (If you haven’t read “Giants in the Earth,” I recommend it. It’s the story of Norwegian immigrants who settled in the Dakota territories in the 1870s.)

But even they depended, to some extent, on other families in the area to help them from time to time. “Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.” That’s not new information. That’s Aristotle. We need each other from birth. Few and far between are the infants who can survive entirely alone.

So, it seems to me, that at some point, we must grant a person the right to rely on others. We do this, without much debate, at the beginning of life. The overwhelming majority of humans are born into some form of society. It may be a good society or a bad one. The infant has no control over the society into which he or she is born.

We have a choice, as adults, about the society in which we live. We can either accept it, reject it, or something in between. We may criticize it, or we may seek another one in which to live. We may also seek to improve it.

Some place between birth and adulthood we give up the right to rely on others. Is this morally right? I don’t know, but, at least in The United States in 2019, it seems to be true.

Now, we must not only contribute to society in some way, but we must find a way that society values highly enough to pay us a living wage. None of us, anymore, is Per Hansa, chopping down the trees in the area to build the house in which his family will live. We rely on each other for roads, for the production of food, for schools, for military and police protection, for fire departments, and a host of other things. We are a social animal. We cannot live entirely alone. Our work is not for our benefit alone. It is to benefit the society in which we live.

If someone is unsuccessful in that effort, we seem to have decided, that person is undeserving. And that’s where I have my problem . Why is a person undeserving?

We seem to have declared that one must live a life within certain boundaries and norms. We now have the resources to treat every living person as though he or she were a newborn. We can provide everyone with all they need to survive.

Robert Frost is a great poet. He made a living writing poetry. That poetry certainly improved my life. J.K. Rowling is a great writer. She made a fortune writing books that certainly improved my life. I have great respect for both Frost and Rowling.

I feel sure, though, they would both tell you that there are other poets or novelists of whom you have never heard, of whom you never will hear, who are their superiors. And those poets and novelists will work at whatever jobs they can find to support themselves. They weren’t fortunate enough to get published. They weren’t fortunate enough to become popular successes. But they contribute in the same way Rowling and Frost do. Do they truly deserve less? Why?

We’ve moved from philosophy to economic theory. Now we will hear from critics about the virtues of capitalism. It certainly works for some. There are those who amass great wealth under that system. There are others who simply can’t do as well. And so long as we subscribe to the idea that they don’t deserve any more than their skills and efforts allow them to earn, it’s not a problem that many people are poor, underemployed, and not able to pursue what matters most to them because they are required to try to find the funds to survive.

But, what would life be if people didn’t have to do that? Why do we insist that they earn little pieces of green paper to be deserving of a decent life?

I was fortunate to have what I think was an excellent childhood. I had parents who loved me, supported me, taught me, understood me as much as any parents can understand their progeny, and protected me. They allowed me to figure out who I wanted to be. And not surprisingly, I wanted to be Batman. That didn’t work out. I wanted to be Atticus Finch, Santiago, Holden Caulfield, and Aaron Sorkin. None of those worked out, either, though I like to think there are pieces of those men inside of me. Sadly, there’s not a trace of Batman to be found in me. There might be a little Captain Kirk, though. I also wanted to be a teacher. They helped me to work that out. I managed, after a fashion, to make a living.

But, does that mean I deserve more than someone who had no parents, or whose parents were child abusers, or criminals, or simply didn’t love them? How is that the fault of the child? Why does she deserve less than I do?

Certainly, we don’t all deserve jet planes and swimming pools, but is it really unreasonable to ask for the necessities of life for all people when it’s so easily given? If we could be done with, “I got mine; you get yours” I feel like we could begin to make the sort of society of which we can be proud. We provide for our babies because we love them. Is it really unreasonable to ask that we love everyone at least enough to let them live some sort of life?

“You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one.”

— John Lennon