Sometimes, when I'm discussing politics or public needs in the world around us, there's an interesting gap that I have encountered, a place where empathy seems to disintegrate in ways that I have found infinitely frustrating. But I have found at least a pattern to some of it.
Let's take, for example, a light subject: poverty. I reject the idea that persons who work certain jobs "deserve" to be poor and should just "find a better job" if they don't want to be poor. Poverty is a cycle. It's much more complex than the occasional piece of avocado toast, a latte, a haircut, or a manicure--sometimes a small treat is one nice thing to tide you over, and the complete abstention from all "unnecessaries" does NOT, in point of fact, magically pull people out of that cycle. Spending twenty dollars on yourself when you've resigned to never paying off that medical debt or student debt that's in the triple digits, it's something that gets you through the day and isn't going to much impact some of those larger problems.
That's my side of the argument, at least. However, more than once I find a retort already forming in the comments section about how these people got themselves into that situation and should "just pull themselves up by their bootstraps." This ignores a lot of systemic issues, instead focusing the blame on the individual. When assistance is proffered, it can often range toward that particular individual in some particular case--not dealing with the root of the problem in the world around us. In short, there's this odd, prevailing idea that these persons deserve to be in the position that they're in.
An argument could be made in a small handful of cases, maybe, where poor decisions contributed to a current financial distress--they certainly exacerbate an existing concern--but the bulk of people are one bad day away from the same situation. A cancer diagnosis, losing insurance after getting laid off at work, and no amount of bootstrap-pulling is going to magically make that go away overnight.
But we want to believe that poverty, homelessness, and illness only happen to those that deserve it. Fairness is something that we want to believe is inherently present in all situations. The tendency to believe that someone is suffering mostly or only because of their own evil/poor choices is called the Just World hypothesis or when used in an argument the Just World fallacy. We want good people to succeed and bad people to be punished or at least not succeed. Even animals have an inherent idea of fairness. Whether you call it karma or divine justice or destiny or order, we tend to want it to be there and be real in all situations. This can, in turn, affect how we see different situations--Bezos is a billionaire, so we want to assume he's a good person, particularly when he gives his equivalent of pocket change to a charity of his choice; similarly, assumptions are made that a homeless person on the street probably did something terrible to deserve to be in that position. Maybe we don't have that exact conversation in our brain, but we as a collective can still act as though it's already assumed. Ever heard someone say of someone that they "didn't deserve to die that way" or "he/she/they got what they deserved"? The assumption is hanging out quietly in the background until we draw attention to it again.
If your response to a victim is "well, what did you do to deserve it?" in any rephrasing thereof, you're expressing the Just World fallacy. Not only is this an erroneous stance to assume--because we know that "good" people fall and "bad" people rise in all kinds of practical examples around us--but it strips empathy out of the equation. There's a difference between understanding the consequences of ones actions and assuming that everything that happens in this crazy world is a directly related consequence of their actions. A natural disaster, a new diagnosis, systemic problems (poverty, racism, sexism, ableism, etc), or splash damage from someone else's decision making, these are primarily outside of individual control. We can take onus as a society to change or prepare against the larger things--that would make the world more just for everyone, at least. But we cannot ignore other factors to assume that everyone's misfortune clearly must be of their own making.
People want to believe in this kind of justice, I find, as a protection mechanism, that "I'm a good person, so I'll be fine" line of thinking that they hope to will into being. Or it's a different kind of protection mechanism, one that seeks to absolve the observer from any obligation to become part of the solution--in other words, it's easy to say "not my problem" if we instead assume all situations are purely the fault of the victim/beneficiary. We have agency. We have the ability to make the most of our circumstances. We also have to acknowledge both the chaos of the universe and systemic problems that are factors into extreme situations. To live together is to also consider what effect we have on other people.
If we want justice to be served, are we working toward a world it can be or assuming it's already here despite significant evidence to the contrary? If we want to keep believing in a Just World hypothesis, they we need to create a world where it could be more possible. Be the hands and feet and voice for those that cannot, for what is right.
PREACH!!! Thank you for this, Larissa.
ReplyDelete