Please Don't Feed our Bums

Then why do you keep saying "homeless people", when the topic at hand is not "homeless people"?

Right there -

"If someone I didn't know started yelling at me on the street, I would think that dude is probably an asshole - not matter what his clothes looked like."

It seems to not occur to you to wonder why someone is so distressed? He or she could be psychotic or having what they used to call euphemistally for years encompassing many behaviors, a nervous breakdown.

Inappropriate people are automatically assholes?

I think this is privileged or at least inexperienced talk.

You haven't figured that out by now? I don't conflate this societal disdain for bums to homeless people, I argue that people, through their imperfect discernment and predilection towards seeing the misfortune of others as dispositional do so through imperfect bum identification. I argue that people too hastily write off even those they "correctly" identify as "bums". I'm saying that even aggressive bums don't deserve dehumanization and can profit from more kindness.

I think you overlooked the word "probably".

In the end, does it matter? I don't care what the motivation is for someone's behavior. I'm not this dude's therapist, I'm not sticking around to make his life better. I just walk on. A refusal to get angry with them or really cause them to suffer any sort of repercussion whatsoever for their assholish behavior.



Uh, yeah. If some dude is acting like an ass, he's being an ass. If he has a mental imbalance that causes this, fine - that's an explanation for why he's being an ass. But it doesn't change his behavior and it doesn't mean I can't feel however I want about a guy.

I don't think the baseline state for assessing behavior of others should be to assume that they are mentally imbalanced. I think we should assume that people are sane unless they give us a more compelling reason to believe otherwise than just bad behavior.

Cycloptichorn

Saying that they're aggressive panhandlers isn't any more dehumanizing than calling you a software developer, or calling me a network guy, or calling Kickycan a graphic designer.

Saying that I don't like the behavior they exhibit isn't dehumanizing, any more than it's dehumanizing to say I don't like it when someone cuts me off in traffic.

And I don't give those aggressive panhandlers money, because giving them money when they're being aggressive rewards the behavior. Period.

And it sounds to me like you're saying it's OK for you to intentionally conflate the two groups because you expect other people to conflate the two groups unintentionally.

Sure, but that isn't all that has been said here either.

I don't know what to say to your post.

You ended that you don't blame them for it. Eh?

Much can be mixed. I suppose there are lazy son of bitches out there. I'm lazy now, relative to my old self, and that is a kind of depression for good reasons. No, I don't expect kindness re that. But, I get giving the f.up.

The exhortations from chairs annoy me.
Mame, now, I get. She walks the walk.

No, I am not conflating them. I am, however, defending them both (bum or not I think they deserve more respect than the self-righteous condescension here) and arguing that many times people jump to conclusions about a "street rat", identifying them as a bum when in reality they know nothing at all about them and are predisposed to write them off that way.

Robert, are you suggesting then that we try to be neutral (non-judgemental) towards others or are you going further and saying that all people, regardless of their background and behaviour deserve our empathy, simply because they exist, regardless of their motivation?

If I consider someone on this forum to be an ass, but keep it to myself, who's affected? No one. So how is silently walking by an aggressive panhandler any different? Why is it wrong to attach a negative connotation to that? He IS aggressive; he IS a panhandler. It's a simple truth. To me. I don't care if he panhandles, but I do care about his threatening behaviour. I wouldn't support that in my children either, so it's not because they're panhandlers, it's because they're rude.

Osso, I didn't understand your remark.

I always assume that people are going to act irrationally. Then if they're sane and rational, I can be pleasantly surprised.

Tuesday, I was walking by myself in downtown San Antonio and these three young men (15-19 years old, 2 white and one sort of hispanic looking and all obviously stoned) were sitting in a bus shelter and one said, 'Miss, do you have 50 cents you could give me? I'm stuck downtown and I don't have bus fare to get home.' Then the other two said, 'Yeah- us too.'
I gave them each a dollar and said, 'Do me a favor - please at least tell me that you won't use this on drugs.'

I figure whether they do or don't is their business - but I can at least let them know that someone cares enough about them to ask them not to.
That simple act of caring might be enough to change their minds about people and life someday.
They were caring of me - they told me they hoped God blessed me when I left.
I told them that I do feel blessed and I hope that they do too someday.

I think the sign in question is despicable. Labeling humans and directing others in terms of their conscience and behavior is degrading and condescending to all involved - the people who need (for whatever reason) to ask others for help and the people who feel led to help them.

I don't think anyone here, Mame, Cyclo, myself or any others is arguing with that viewpoint. Kindness, however, does not require one to become the codependent facilitator of exploitation and anti social behavior if that is occurring.

Aidan's anecdote above concerning an act of kindness to young men who were, as she implied, simply panhandling for its own sake, reveals that she was able to break through their facade momentarily with an act of kindness. However steady treatment in that way from everyone they meet would likely fix these unfortunates in this self destructive behavior, making their problem and its effects on everyone else, worse. How do you resolve that dilemma?

The Biblical story of ther Good Samaratain is likely a good guide. When in doubt kindness is usually the best guide. That, however, does not require one to ignore or hide the obvious cause of exploitive and manipulative behavior when that is what is really behind the situation.

We'll have to agree to disagree, I do think that some here are arguing from a self-righteous disdain for people that they dehumanize through generalized slurs.



This, is certainly something nobody here is arguing for, but thanks anyway for taking care of that straw fellow just in case.

Please tell me if you're referring to me because I don't feel that way and if I'm coming across like that I'll have to review the way I write or express myself. Either that or you're reading into it/ascribing to me something that's not there.

I don't know exactly what you mean by neutral or empathetic so it's hard to say. To start with "neutral". I personally am not neutral to aggressive bums. I personally am not spending my time weeping with bums as Cyclo has tried to portray me. If they are aggressive I will tell them off. If they are physical I will return the favor.

I know very well that "panhandling" is often a hair away from mugging. In Brazil they do this all the time, teenagers will ask for money without weapons but threatening harm. If cops come by they are just beggars of course. A little kid in Brazil once started kicking me in the shins when I refused to give him my watch, I warned him once that I'd kick back and with a grin that said he didn't believe me (he was small) he kicked me right in the shin. So I swept out his feet from under him (startling more than hurting) and in such physical and aggressive situations I am often physical and aggressive in response.

What I am arguing against is what I see as generalization of these negative experiences to disparage a whole social class (even if you say you just mean the bad bums stickers like this are generalized slurs, advocating not helping any of them is generalized), and as this is already a highly disparaged one I am defending it against this generalized derogation. Cyclo likes to think his derogation is as lazer-guided as it is scathing and that these "street rats" that accosted him are all he is derogating but the article itself is an example of generalization of this sentiment. They too claim they are only talking about the bad bums, of course, but this kind of movement is never going to be a smart bomb. Dlowan was right to bring up other generalized slurs in response to Cyclo's increasingly derogatory class slurs and while he dismissed the comparison out of hand on the basis of inherent vs. chosen (an important distinction in discrimination to be sure) he ignores completely that even if he's criticizing chosen behavior the use of generalized slurs, and funny lil' stickers at their expense does not restrict this derogation to those exhibiting this behavior but rather to the group as a whole. This is a highly disparaged social class, and every single raindrop claiming to be excoriating only the bad ones doesn't think it's responsible for the flood.

As to empathy. I do think empathy is a good ability to have, in general, and that those who lack the ability to extend it to people very dissimilar to themseleves lack as sensitive a social sense in this regard as those who do. But empathy doesn't mean giving them money or anything, it just means capacity to feel the feelings that the other person is feeling and yes I think that is a generally good thing. I think in the case of bums, empathy could help consider that their behavior might be modified by their environment to some degree, and by the societal ostracization as an example. Basically, I keep saying this but this is Psychology 101 here: greater recognition of situational rather than dispositional factors. Most people like to see people as so single-dimensional, they are assholes or not (Cyclo will recognize that they are more nuanced but just says he doesn't care as emphatically as he can) and most personality negatives are reduced to dispositional characteristics, this is a highly inaccurate world-view in general. Yes, I advocate empathy in general, it's a sense, it's a signal not a conclusion. It is a good thing to have.



I don't know, I am not the person who spoke out against silently walking by an aggressive panhandler (I actually don't think anyone is that person).



I never criticized attaching a negative connotation to that particular aggressive panhandler either.



My qualm is how "he" becomes "they" and "they" becomes stickers and generalized class slurs.

I suggest you try to come down from the petard on which you have hoisted yourself. You ARE making subjective judgements about the inner motives of others which are frankly unknowable to you. Indeed you are making exactly the same prejudgement of their intent of which you accuse others of making towards indigents. There is a common phrase that describes that ... self-righteous hypocrisy.

I am specifically talking about Cyclo's line of bluster, and his hyperbolic excoriation. Things like his natural selection argument (that he doesn't have the temerity to admit to having used) are dehumanizing. Things like calling them rats (even if he argues that it's fair because they "emulate" the behavior of rats) is literally dehumanizing.

I also think that there is a much more mild self-righteousness on another level that I generalize, in that people have a general tendency to ascribe too much of their own good fortune to dispositional factors and their misfortune to situational factors. But then they turn around and do the opposite for others, and there is a general human tendency (not talking about you, this is very general and I surely exhibit a great deal of it myself) to ascribe the fortune of others to situational factors (lucky bastard) and the misfortune of others to situational factors (lazy bastard). Some are certainly lazy, but humans have a very strong self-righteous streak about this.

the degree to which we are personally responsible for the success and failure in our life is a highly debatable point. It can be assumed however that those who hold the individual to full account will disdain the bums. Considering that the larger question has never been settled we should refrain from throwing stones at those who despise bums.