One Kossack replied to a previous diary of mine to point out that she sees some of the same attitudes toward the poor in the middle class that I described in some of my wealthy acquaintances. She is right. I've seen them as well, and in fact, I've noticed to my dismay that the poor sometimes share those attitudes. At least, they share them to the extent that they would indignantly turn down an offer of financial help.
I can understand this. From time to time I have had temporary brushes with homelessness, and only the generosity of good friends kept me off the streets. It was humiliating to have to tell friends--even friends I know respect me--that I was reduced to that. I had to talk myself down from feeling ashamed of my predicament. I had to remind myself that my friends didn't think any less of me because of it. To the contrary, they did not think highly of the wealthy people who were putting me out of my home.
When those of the middle-class blame the poor for their circumstances, I suspect it's because, on a subconscious level, they sense that they could find themselves in the same circumstances, and they're recoiling from that. They'd prefer to live their lives thinking that they're out of reach of the kind of misfortune I'm dealing with.
In truth, the rich aren't out of the reach of poverty, either. I've sensed at times that some of the wealthy have talked themselves into thinking of the poor as innately different from themselves, and that's how they make the leap to thinking this can't happen to them. They've convinced themselves that we're poor because we're lesser beings, a completely different breed from them. Since they're nothing like us, the mythology goes, they can't lose their wealth. But that's just what it is--mythology. The misfortune that besets me could happen to them. I suspect that they sense that on a deep level, and they put up defenses against that knowledge.
Another Kossack replied to a diary to say that he's heard rich acquaintances refer to the low salaries of their employees; they say, I didn't get rich by paying high salaries to my workers. If they don't like it, there's the door. There are plenty of others out there badly off enough that they'll be happy to work for these wages.
They "got rich" by paying subsistence wages? Who the hell says they're rich? What definition of "rich" are they using? And what does an attitude like this say about the character of someone who would pursue material, immediate wealth by paying others just enough to keep them working?
When the "rich" deny so many Americans a dignified, living wage, no one is rich. It's very convenient to define being "rich" in terms of immediate, short-term, material wealth. That way we don't have to ask ourselves hard questions. We don't have to ponder unhappy matters, like, what entails having earned wealth, versus having acquired it in unprincipled ways? What obligation do we have to act as members of a community, not as self-centered, petty tyrants?
Several months ago SEPTA, the public transit agency in Philadelphia, did away with transfers. A family member (a wealthy woman) in the home where I live was reading a news account of the new SEPTA policy, and asked me my opinion of it. I said I was appalled by it because it impacts so heavily on the poor.
"You mean that's the only reason why you oppose it? Because of its effect on the poor?" she replied, in a tone of disbelief, and of disgust for the poor.
"You mean that isn't enough of a reason?" I replied.
She fixed a silent, icy stare on me, then went on reading.
The truth is, the rich haven't come as far from poverty as they'd like to think.