Double Nickelled & Dimed

February 15, 2008 2:13 PM

"In a test of the American Dream, Adam Shepard started life from scratch with the clothes on his back and twenty-five dollars. Ten months later, he had an apartment, a car, and a small savings." Introduction to the book which arose from his "journey", which was inspired by Barbara Ehrenreich.

A comment from a homelessness blog, and a timely counterpoint video from al Jazeera. Why are people homeless (PDF)? Shephard can be hired as a public speaker if you would like to know more about this research.

Also, an audio interview with Ehrenreich and the first chapter of her book.

posted by Rumple (243 comments total)

I'd say that's quite a misleading use of 'started life'.
posted by pica at 2:21 PM on February 15 [11 favorites]

Someday, I hope people will learn that generalizations can't be inferred from a) single events and b) anecdotes.

So this kid was successful. Does that mean all poor people are just lazy and he's the living proof? Hell, no.

Do Ehrenreich's experiences mean that poor people can't get ahead no matter how hard they try? Hell, no.

I like your Why link.
posted by nzero at 2:22 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

Also, what pica said. This kid self selected from a background that, presumably, inspired in him confidence that he would succeed. His patronizing attitude is pretty infuriating.
posted by nzero at 2:23 PM on February 15

Yep. Handsome straight white guys from great backgrounds can get ahead in America.

Color me shocked.
posted by MrVisible at 2:28 PM on February 15 [14 favorites]

He still had a credit card in his back pocket in case of "emergencies."

FAIL
posted by joseph_elmhurst at 2:28 PM on February 15 [11 favorites]

A case of self promotion to sell a book.. I really don't like this guy, and his situation proves NOTHING!
posted by HuronBob at 2:33 PM on February 15

hm. I'm curious to see how this is used to grind various political axes.

Admittedly, I'm just prejudiced because of this: Shortly after graduation – with almost literally $25 to his name..
posted by dubold at 2:34 PM on February 15

When I saw this earlier, I considered posting it as a response to this AskMe...
posted by anazgnos at 2:35 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

Well, otoh, having been at low ebb myself earlier in life I have seen plenty of people wasting money on cigarrettes and feeding food stamp groceries to worthless boyfriends who conveniently leave when the larder is empty.
posted by konolia at 2:35 PM on February 15

I didn't use my college education, credit history, or contacts [while in South Carolina]. But in real life, I had these lessons that I had learned. I don't think that played to my advantage.

He doesn't think it played to his advantage? Really? So all poor people need to do is bootstrap themselves up. And if they don't it must mean that they like being poor - not that there are other barriers to getting out of poverty - right?

I find the idea that he thinks he was able to discard the advantages of his upbringing as simply as he did his clothes and belongings pathetic and absurd.
posted by rtha at 2:37 PM on February 15 [8 favorites]

"Shepard found he was able to successfully climb out of his self-imposed poverty."

That's what makes real poverty so soul-crushing. It's not self-imposed (at least, not in the ways that he seems to think).

It's sort of like how learning you're pregnant gets different reactions based on whether you were actually trying to conceive. The reactions of everyone around you change based on that too.
posted by hermitosis at 2:39 PM on February 15 [5 favorites]

What an asshole. He didn't start out "from scratch." He had a family willing to pony up for four years at an expensive private college.

If there's a lesson here, it's that our bottom-tier colleges are turning out sheltered, uneducated students who lack both intellect and empathy.
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 2:40 PM on February 15 [9 favorites]

A former college athlete with a bachelor's degree, Mr. Shepard had left a comfortable life with supportive parents in Raleigh, N.C. Now he was an outsider on the wrong side of the tracks in Charles­ton, S.C....To make his quest even more challenging, he decided not to use any of his previous contacts or mention his education.

Sorry, no. The purpose of education is not to get you contacts or to get your ticket punched. This is precisely what education is not. This is simply a test of whether someone raised as a driven, bright, educated person, can start with no money and end up with some money.

Money money money. Money is the objective. Whoever dies with the most money wins. The kid began his experiment with a huge endowment: his background and upbringing. He did not start with nothing.

Here's a better test -how many poor 7-yr old kids from the slums of any major american city from dysfunctional families and bounced from one lousy city public school to another are going to end up as a "former college athlete with a bachelor's degree"?

The answer to this question is: almost none. I don't need a well-bred privileged kid to prove something when there are millions in the streets proving the opposite. "What ordinary American's can achieve"? Do ordinary americans start life as graduates from private colleges? I want to call this kid an idiot, but he's not, he's a fucking puppet. A pawn. I can actually picture people reading this story and nodding their heads, thinking, "See, they're just lazy, they want a handout." This is clearly timed to rally the goddamn right wing in time for the election. Get ready to learn about how Obama is a socialist. Get ready to hear the 1984 republican playbook.

This story is a fucking insult to my intelligence. Forget the slums (everyone else already has). Go to small rural towns in any state. Open your Christ-forsaken eyes and look around at how people live, how they're struggling. Go ask someone who make $25,000 a year and has to pay triple for gas and power about the American dream.

Who the hell is promoting this pigshit? Who is behind this? Tell me it's some right wing group or thinktank. I can stomach that, I can understand that. But please don't tell me the that people have become so willfully ignorant and blissfully oblivious to the plight of their fellow man that they are coming up with this shit on their own. Goddamn it.
posted by Pastabagel at 2:42 PM on February 15 [113 favorites]

I found Ehrenreich's book a poor analysis; my guess is that this is just more of the same: untenable conclusions, drawn from a charmed vantage point, written up quickly to make a profit. It only makes me wish I'd thought of it first—it's a great moneymaking scheme.

1. Brief homeless stint, with a fallback family home, college education and credit card in the back pocket.
2. Regular entry-level, blue-collar job, like the majority of his peers would already have been forced to take upon graduating with their liberal arts degrees.
3. Write a book about entry-level, blue-collar trajectory as though it's a major accomplishment.
4. Profit!

I hate people my age...
posted by limeonaire at 2:45 PM on February 15

If anything, I think this is an argument for socialism. Because there wasn't any real danger in his situation--he had his credit card, and a decent life to return to--he didn't spend all day worrying and feeling panicky and trapped. This freed him to work at getting a job and getting his shit together. If the social safety net was more secure, people on the edges of poverty could dig themselves out.

Not having any idea how the bills are going to get paid is just about the worst feeling I've ever had in my life.
posted by Nahum Tate at 2:46 PM on February 15 [28 favorites]

Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right
'cos when you're laid in bed at night
watching roaches climb the wall
if you called your dad he could stop it all
yeah
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
and then dance and drink and screw
because there's nothing else to do

(I accidentally posted this to the Bull Poker thread, and now am a little embarrassed.)
posted by Navelgazer at 2:47 PM on February 15 [24 favorites]

Shepard's You-Tube clip; and a three part video interview 1, 2, 3
posted by Rumple at 2:47 PM on February 15

I'm stunned but perhaps I shouldn't be, that the immediate reaction here is that this cannot serve as any kind of an example for anyone. Nobody but a pampered, educated kid could possibly do this. If you're poor and unhappy, it is never the result of your choices in life.

Pfft.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:48 PM on February 15 [5 favorites]

When did the American Dream become working for a moving company and owning a pickup truck?
posted by Nahum Tate at 2:48 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

Not to say that there's nothing useful to be gained from this type of experience, but it does seem a little ridiculous to use social services (like the shelter) that are already stretched to the limit when you don't really need to.

A friend of mine and I contemplated doing something similar (for a shorter period of time) during a winter in which I was laid off anyway, but looking at how inadequate the services already were it seemed like two guys taking beds when we had an apartment was a bad idea. Admittedly, we also figured it might get our asses kicked if anyone found out...
posted by rollbiz at 2:48 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

The guy had a mission from the outset. He knew if it didn't work he would still have a home, good education and future prospects. I bet growing up into poverty is a hell of a lot harder to get out off than this fella purposely putting himself in that situation.

He proved with the right mindset, yes, it's possible. But having a college education suggests he is already pretty intelligent. Not saying that people in poverty are stupid but they didn't necessarily have the chances to be as educated as him.

Also, the fact he thought his made up back story was "great" makes him a bit of a dick in my eyes. Try living a childhood as awful as that before pretending you had one asshole. Then see how the future looks.
posted by twistedonion at 2:50 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]

I think it's an interesting datapoint. Not every experiment needs to draw Shocking! New! Conclusions! about the human condition/poverty in America/whatever all by itself.
posted by Skorgu at 2:50 PM on February 15

Libertarian philosophy in a nutshell.
posted by srboisvert at 2:53 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]

Let me guess... the cracker was white and educated? Earning back what you already once earned ain't the same thing as earning it from nothing at all.

D-
posted by three blind mice at 2:54 PM on February 15

When did the American Dream become working for a moving company and owning a pickup truck?

Excellent point. This kid really only managed to do what many people without his background have been able to do to: Get a barely making it job, share an apartment with a violent roomate, get a shitty truck...That's a looooong way from what I'd consider to be the American Dream.
posted by rollbiz at 2:56 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

konolia: "Well, otoh, having been at low ebb myself earlier in life I have seen plenty of people wasting money on cigarettes and feeding food stamp groceries to worthless boyfriends who conveniently leave when the larder is empty."

You're right, I've seen that too but people without good educations and/or role models often have no idea even how to start getting out their hole. I think that a point that people here are making is that this guy starting out knowing that he shouldn't throw away his money on smokes and lottery tickets or the hundred other ways that you can defeat yourself. That gave him huge head start on someone who has grown up poor.
posted by octothorpe at 2:57 PM on February 15

If you're poor and unhappy, it is never the result of your choices in life.
Pfft.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:48 PM on February 15

If you are born into it, and you are still a kid, no it's not about your choices.

And when it is a result of your choices, you fall harder. On drugs at 15 and parents are well-off? Rehab. On drugs at 15 and dad is who knows where and mom barely pays the rent? Prison. There is no parity in consequences. In other words, where you end up to a great degree on where you start.

Finally, there are people who made good choices and they are still struggling. And there are people who made bad choices and they don't suffer the consequences. In other words, this little test case here proves precisely nothing.
posted by Pastabagel at 2:57 PM on February 15 [15 favorites]

So here we are. Most of us American college college graduates (or working to that end) - if not with graduate degrees. Privileged. Middle class. Maybe upper middle class.

And most our grandparents and at least great grandparents were not.

I don't about the subject of this post in particular but clearly the uncontrollable curcumstances of poverty are not to be blamed for every life failure.
posted by tkchrist at 3:02 PM on February 15 [4 favorites]

er. "I don't know about..."
posted by tkchrist at 3:04 PM on February 15

srboisvert:
Libertarian philosophy in a nutshell

Exactly, and this is what frustrates me so much about it. The point that the libertarian mindset looks to in cases like this is that all the public infrastructure isn't necessary, when what this kid managed to do relied entirely on the good public infrastructure in place.
posted by Navelgazer at 3:05 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

I was never tempted. I had a credit card in my back pocket in case of an emergency. The rule was if I used the credit card then, "The project's over, I'm going home."

Yawn. Plus, he gave up when someone his family got sick. How would he have felt if that person didn't have health insurance and he had to pay their medical bills. I guess he would have been fucked right proper. And his family member might have simply died, or maybe something else would have happened. Depends on the disease I guess.

Also, it's not like Barbara Ehrenreich wasn't able to pay her bills.
posted by delmoi at 3:05 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

I think that a point that people here are making is that this guy starting out knowing that he shouldn't throw away his money on smokes and lottery tickets or the hundred other ways that you can defeat yourself.

That's a little condescending.
posted by enn at 3:06 PM on February 15

Black College-Educated With An Emergency Credit Card Like Me.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 3:07 PM on February 15 [4 favorites]

So here we are. Most of us American college college graduates (or working to that end) - if not with graduate degrees. Privileged. Middle class. Maybe upper middle class.

And most our grandparents and at least great grandparents were not.

I guess he should stick with his job and truck, then, and we'll see how his grandkids turn out.
posted by adamdschneider at 3:07 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]

Cool Papa Bell: I absolutely agree. This guy's story can certainly serve as an example; it's also certainly true that one's choices in life, independent of circumstance, can lead to poverty and unhappiness.

That said, the whole thing, coming from someone who graduated with a business degree, no less, just smacks of a moneymaking/publicity scheme. Just think what this will do for this kid's resume!

As someone who graduated at the same time this guy did, with only $775 more to my name at the time, I'm mostly just jealous of the idea. He started out at about the same place a lot of kids my age do upon graduating, but had the brilliant idea to write a book about the process.

What I'm not jealous of is the neck-wringing this kid's gonna get on forums like this and in the media. Great idea, less-than-ideal execution.

Ah well. Maybe I should write a book about how I outfitted my apartment in fine style with pieces largely found dumpster-diving or given to me for free... that could give me a good return on my respective investment of two post-college years of blue-collar toiling, right?
posted by limeonaire at 3:09 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

This proves nothing except that any harebrained idea can make you money. It is by doing exactly that he's living the American Dream.
posted by flippant at 3:12 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

A little?
posted by absalom at 3:12 PM on February 15

Plus, he gave up when someone his family got sick.

In other words, he gave the moment real life intruded on his juvenile fantasy. Which is exactly where the real experiment BEGINS for most people.

Barbara E. gets a lot of nagging criticism, but her project was interesting and well-written. In fact, the reason why that book is so beloved is because she clearly articulates the reality of others' experiences, not just hers. Because she has talent, she pulled it off.

This guy won't know what he has or doesn't have until he discovers he doesn't have it anymore.
posted by hermitosis at 3:13 PM on February 15 [8 favorites]

Ten months into the experiment, he decided to quit after learning of an illness in his family.

I'm kinda guessing that an American poor persons illness in the family is a hell of a lot different from a rich persons illness in the family.
posted by Artw at 3:27 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

What a smug, self-satisfied, privileged piece of shit.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:28 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

In a test mockery of the American Dream...
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 3:31 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

This is the part that got me:

Would your project have changed if you'd had child-care payments or been required to report to a probation officer? Wouldn't that have made it much harder?

The question isn't whether I would have been able to succeed. I think it's the attitude that I take in: "I've got child care. I've got a probation officer. I've got all these bills. Now what am I going to do? Am I going to continue to go out to eat and put rims on my Cadillac? Or am I going to make some things happen in my life...?"


Oh, really? The fact that this kid is college educated, healthy, athletic, and doesn't carry any of the burdens that members the underclass often do is totally brushed aside with this bullshit about how his positive attitude make the world go 'round. The fact is, he doesn't have a probation officer, or child-care payments, or hepatitis, or an abusive family, etc.

Fuck 23 year old white pretty-boy children of privilege telling people how easy it is.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 3:34 PM on February 15 [10 favorites]

he didn't spend all day worrying and feeling panicky and trapped

More than that, he could take all kinds of small everyday chances that he otherwise couldn't if he had no risk cushion at all.
posted by StickyCarpet at 3:34 PM on February 15 [6 favorites]

Calling himself an outsider from the wrong side of the tracks is a bit like saying he summers in the wrong part of the Hamptons. 'Cuz... that kid don't know a thing about the reality of being born truly impoverished. It was a novelty for him, a little project, and he knew he could rise out of it any time he chose. People who are truly born on the wrong side of the tracks have to face a hell of a lot more hopelessness than he will (hopefully) ever know. It's not a game.
posted by miss lynnster at 3:42 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

When did the American Dream become working for a moving company and owning a pickup truck?

There's been a couple of times in my life when I dreamed of that. And I'm not even american.
posted by monkeymike at 3:44 PM on February 15

Rims on his Cadillac?

Fuck that guy, seconded.
posted by box at 3:45 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

report to a probation officer

You know what's really fucked up? Parole/probation is apparently more and more often privatized. You have to pay a fee for the company's services. If you don't have the cash, you fail and go to jail.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 3:46 PM on February 15

He made himself situationally poor and got out of it. Ok, that's fine.

The problem is that there is a substantive difference between situational poverty and generational poverty. People who grow up in the cycle of poverty have a whole different set of rules to live by and do not understand the rules of school and work (i.e. middle-class rules) unless someone mentors them into it. In general, they try to fit into the work world without learning those rules, and they generally get "given up on" when they repeatedly fail to fit in. So he doesn't really serve as an example of how a poor person can "make it".

For reference on the hidden rules of poverty vs. the middle class, see Ruby Payne's work.
posted by lleachie at 3:46 PM on February 15 [5 favorites]

The only more irritating person might be the Starbucks guy.

Apologies for linking to Amazon, but linking to Amazon is a drop in the bucket besides the Starbucks guy's gall.
posted by bad grammar at 3:52 PM on February 15

Parole/probation is apparently more and more often privatized. You have to pay a fee for the company's services. If you don't have the cash, you fail and go to jail.

Not that I doubt you, but can you provide some background links on this for me, TheOnlyCoolTim? I'd be very interested in reading up on it.
posted by adamdschneider at 3:53 PM on February 15

Apologies for linking to Amazon, but linking to Amazon is a drop in the bucket besides the Starbucks guy's gall.

That's okay, I just followed the link on my Microsoft browser.
posted by Artw at 3:55 PM on February 15

So he doesn't really serve as an example of how a poor person can "make it".

I agree. This kid is really nobodies direct example.

But my great grandparents were in generational poverty. And I mean they had literally nothing. As were the great grandparents of many people right here on MeFi. Yet here WE all are two or three generations later.

The nature of what IS perceived as poor and what IS perceived as successful has changed in this country. Never have our poor been so material as well as so entrenched. Our middle class is in decline but has more stuff than ever before.

The underlying problem is the service based and consumer driven economy, easy credit (and debt), regressive politics, AND a drastic change in work ethic and responsibility.
posted by tkchrist at 3:58 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

As a life experience, this would be quite useful: it's always good to see what you can do on your own, and it's a good idea to stretch yourself beyond the frame of your own experience. Rather like backpacking through South America or volunteering for the Peace Corps, or any one of a number of common post-university life experiences -- it's not a bad idea, and it might build some empathy and provide some understanding.

The "Hey! let's make it a book and sell myself as a public speaker!" aspect, though, gives me the squicks. As Hermatosis pointed out, the whole point of self-imposed poverty is that it's voluntary: by definition, you can get out of it by picking up the phone.

A logical extension of this argument is that he'd not mind, at all, if someone killed everyone he loved, stole everything they had and destroyed everything he owned, and then dumped him on the side of the road with 25 bucks, no credit card and no-one to call. He might get out of that, too -- there are scads of people in the world who emerge from refugee camps with not much more, and manage to build lives for themselves, with help. But none of them, I'd think, are writing books.
posted by jrochest at 3:59 PM on February 15

I stopped at:

And I said, "Dude, your life is completely changed." And he said, "Yeah, you're right, but I'm getting the heck out of here." Then there was this other guy
posted by swift at 4:01 PM on February 15

Feh. Young, white, well-spoken, able-bodied, literate white guy, unburdened with children or sick family members (and with, I am assuming, some social skills), can in America get a job and rent an apartment. Woot.
posted by jokeefe at 4:05 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

oh, yeah -- my grandparents immigrated to Canada as very poor uneducated laborers, who worked like hell doing the worst kind of manual labor, but managed -- thanks to a union job! -- to own a house and raise a son who won a scholarship to med school, and my mom, who married my dad, who has family money.

I only have to look at the difference between my life (comfy, middle class) and my cousins' lives (tough, working class) to see the difference that family money makes. Money *matters*, in visible and invisible ways.
posted by jrochest at 4:10 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]

I read a very nice article about this which I can't find anymore, and it seems very underreported.

Here's the contract of one company doing it.
Their FAQ states: "It costs the city nothing. Not a dime. We are an offender paid system." The city saves money, the company makes a profit, everyone wins! When someone gets sent back to prison, another company makes money running the private prison!

This one's $35 a month plus $10 per 40 hours of community service assigned, but the article I read stated they could be more. I wish I could find it.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 4:14 PM on February 15

rent a flat above a shop
cut your hair and get a job
smoke some fags and play some pool
pretend you never went to school
but still you'll never get it right
'cos when you're laid in bed at night
watching roaches climb the wall
if you called your dad he could stop it all yeah
posted by chrominance at 4:27 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

But she didn't understand, she just smiled and held my hand
Rent a flat above a shop, cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool, pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right
'cos when you're laid in bed at night watching roaches climb the wall
If you call your Dad he could stop it all
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do what common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view, and dance and drink and screw
Because there's nothing else to do
posted by uncanny hengeman at 4:28 PM on February 15

chrominance! You fuck.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 4:29 PM on February 15

Navelgazer beat you both.
posted by tkchrist at 4:31 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

Actually, speaking of being white and privileged, I am surprised somebody didn't kick his white rich butt back to NC. The subculture he'd voluntarily entered really is vastly different from the world he'd voluntarily left.

Let's not be too hard on the kid. I mean, all of y'all are right-it's hard to dig out of poverty (we did it with three kids but it took years and years to do well) but there are plenty of people who put in more effort to game the system than to climb out. Fortunately I can report quite a few folks DO climb out IF THE PROPER SOCIAL SUPPORTS CAN BE FOUND. (Hopefully I don't have to turn in my Republican card for saying that. )
posted by konolia at 4:31 PM on February 15

"To see the attitudes along the way, that is what my story is about."

Perhaps his attitude would change if he were introduced to heroin, contracted AIDS and was disowned by his family?

It is simplistic to imply poverty is about attitude and then not inquire from where such attitudes arise.
An able bodied man with no mental impediments should be able to make use of the agencies in place to help someone become a productive member of society. That is precisely why those agencies exist.

A great many impoverished, homeless people suffer from mental maladies, not only addiction and dispair, but undiagnosed mental illnesses as well. The services to meet those needs are vastly underfunded.

Shepard’s experiance proves two things: the agencies that exist to help get a man, displaced by fortune, back on his feet, do work; and the invisibility of, not only the problem of the mental component of poverty, but the invisibility of the need of services for it.
posted by HVAC Guerilla at 4:37 PM on February 15

Republican lawmakers and their radio propagandists will make this guy their poster-child for cutting more social services.
posted by Jay Reimenschneider at 4:42 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

/Additionally, it is indeed possible to climb out of poverty by setting a goal, having patience and sacrificing luxuries, provided one can reach the proper support services.
It is a walk in the park however compared to defeating clinical depression and the addictions which often develop in its wake.
posted by HVAC Guerilla at 4:43 PM on February 15

Navelgazer beat you both.

Bloody hell. I don't understand how I missed that. Put me in the a "little embarrassed" box as well.

What Cool Papa Bell said.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 4:45 PM on February 15

A song, just for this guy.
posted by delmoi at 4:57 PM on February 15

How is this different from going camping?
posted by Kibbutz at 4:59 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

Navelgazer beat you both.

aww, I thought I'd read through the whole thread! doh!
posted by chrominance at 5:10 PM on February 15

"I didn't use my education?"

I was thrown into a similar situation when I had to decide, very suddenly, between the soft life offered by my overprotective parents and the woman I loved. P and M were sure I would never make it ("you won't be able to afford air conditioning!" is a memorable line from before the 17 years I just didn't talk to them.) There were times when I didn't know where the rent was going to come from and I didn't have a credit card in my hip pocket, nor was slinking back to P & M really an option.

I made it mainly because of my education, and I think Shepard is being a dick to not realize just how much of an advantage that gave him. He may not have used his contacts or put it on his resume but he vastly underestimates the ability to read, the ability to quickly learn and adapt, the ability to solve problems logically, the ability to express himself, and the self-confidence borne of having been rewarded for performance in his past. I frequently work with people who are a notch above homeless and they could not hope to accomplish what Shepard just did, because they do not have his considerable advantages.

(Oh, and I'm still living with her after 25 years. We finally got married a few years ago so I could get her on my company health insurance plan.)
posted by localroger at 5:10 PM on February 15 [11 favorites]

So.... he got a college education, left with no debt, got a job and... wait, why the fuck is this news? If he thinks a free college education didn't make a difference here, he's crazy. Even most middle-class people would leave a college like his with loans (and thus with -$, not +25$). What he did isn't the least bit unusual or remarkable... except he's able to spin it as being something its not, and make money off that as well. Good for him, I guess, but this is pretty meaningless to anyone but him.

Whether or not you have an official "degree" only matters in some jobs, I could have had my career without the piece of paper, maybe 1 year behind where I am now. It was the 20 years of education and support that made me successful, not a piece of paper no employer has ever bothered to look at.
posted by wildcrdj at 5:14 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

How much of a college education do you need to budget your money to a point that you're not spending frivolously, but you're instead putting your money in the bank?

Sir, many of the poor in this country are dealing with all manner of illness, both mental and physical, largely untreated. For example, I am poor. I get about $800 a month from social security disability. I am blessed to get this much because I have a work history. Most of the others I know receive SSI, a whopping $637 a month (and if a person on SSI were to by some miracle save $2500, they would no longer qualify for SSI). I'm not saving $2500 anytime soon. Even if I cut out my monthly milkshake. Shut up.

College education? How about just being able to read? Perform simple calculations? I dropped out of high school (like so many other poor black people), but before I dropped out I remember sitting in my class in one of the worst high schools in the city, and listening to the other students (the ones who didn't cut class that day) trying to read aloud from a history book. Most of them couldn't do it. They stuttered and read very haltingly, and then the teacher would just move on to the next paragraph.

They can't really read sir. And by then everyone says its too late. So they leave.

I was never tempted. I had a credit card in my back pocket in case of an emergency.

I've only ever seen one in person once. A real credit card I mean, not a debit card. Although a lot of people I know don't even have bank accounts and can't get any because of their credit. You've got one in your back pocket. Shut up.

I had this great back story on how I was escaping my druggy mom and going to live with my alcoholic dad. Things just fell apart, and there I was at the homeless shelter.

What really gets me sir, is that you don't even consider that things might be different if you actually did have a "druggy mom" and an "alcoholic dad". Not to mention you have a mom and dad. You couldn't conceive a back-story without them both, though I daresay a lot of the other people in the shelter never had one or the other. Please, please shut up. You are every stereotype of an entitled, privileged, arrogant young man.
posted by Danila at 5:21 PM on February 15 [41 favorites]

"But my great grandparents were in generational poverty. And I mean they had literally nothing. As were the great grandparents of many people right here on MeFi. Yet here WE all are two or three generations later.

The nature of what IS perceived as poor and what IS perceived as successful has changed in this country. Never have our poor been so material as well as so entrenched. Our middle class is in decline but has more stuff than ever before."

Well, and I can say that I'm doing a hell of a lot better than most of the kids I grew up with, despite having (financially) approximately the same starting point. I live a pretty good life.

But I also realize that I've had a hell of a lot of advantages and a hell of a lot of luck, and that I'm still not doing as well as other people who have had more advantages and more luck—or, to be fair, those who have either worked significantly harder or who have had different ideas about what success means (I wouldn't trade my fantastic girlfriend for more money, even though I could easily work more if I wasn't in a relationship).

And what pisses me off are people who don't understand the role of their advantages and luck, people who either assume that everyone has had it equally well or people who assume that it's all their fucking work that's got them to where they are.

Frankly, this guy sounds like one of those people.

I also believe in working hard, even though I don't necessarily need to, to remove the disadvantages that other people have, because I do feel that everyone should be able to achieve at least as much as I have.
posted by klangklangston at 5:22 PM on February 15

Oh, and PS—Folks with bad or no credit often can't get a bank account. Thank the Patriot act. I'm still trying to get AOL-related bullshit removed from my credit, some five years down the line (they billed me for someone else's service, to a bank account that should have been closed).
posted by klangklangston at 5:25 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

Lordy. Another able-bodied, educated white person who brings his upper-middle-class values to the exotic world of Poverty. Just like Barbara Ehrenreich. Just like all those college girls who start stripping so they can blog about it.

I hear Carnival Cruises is organizing a Cruise to Poverty for spring 08. Anyone going?
posted by grounded at 5:28 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

Live like the least among us. Renounce your privileged upbringing. I think these are the guys that got it right.
posted by nax at 5:33 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

I've seen rich kids fail miserably in spite of every social benefit, and I've known poor people to succeed in spite of every obstacle. The idea that character doesn't have a significant role in a person's well-being (economic or otherwise) is simply wrong. I can see this as being a flawed example, but not *that* flawed. It is probably naive, but it should at least be considered. That is, how did his education or race help him get a moving job? Is it impossible to think that *some* poverty is caused by something other than being "disadvantaged?" It is easy to say "fuck the middle class kid pretending to be poor," but it kind of shuts down any reasoned response to what he did. He didn't become rich, he just got by.
posted by Raoul de Noget at 5:43 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

Since when did slumming=sociology?

But then I think Tom the Dancing Bug sums up these kinds of blithe assesrtions about inequality nicely.
posted by emjaybee at 5:48 PM on February 15

You know, I did exactly this experiment when I was 22, but by accident. I moved out to Los Angeles with not enough money to get by, crashed and burned in a few weeks, ran out of money almost instantly thanks to the high cost of living out there, and moved into a shelter. I was college educated from the University of Minnesota, straight, white, good looking, healthy, and willing to work. I mention being straight, because the shelter I ran into was run by the gay/lesbian community services center of Los Angeles and was meant mostly for the multitude of gay and lesbians teenagers who moved in droves to Los Angeles, many of them coming from a background of familial violence, many of them looking forward to a future of drug abuse, sexual violence, prostitution, and early suicide, statistically speaking.

I stayed in the shelter for three months, working at a video store and saving money for my own place. And I discovered a few things. Firstly, being white, straight, and college educated helps. Everything about me betrayed my middle-class, college educated background. Sometime in subtle ways, such as the fact that I knew how to tie a tie when going to a job interview. Sometimes in much larger ways, such as being able to fill out a job application, because I was functionally literate. And in one essential way, in that I was not broken by a background of abuse. I wasn't a raw nerve of mindless defensive reactions that were guaranteed to be counterproductive. I didn't respond to stress by hitting things, or taking drugs. I didn't grow hopeless and cut my wrists in the shelter bathroom. I didn't run out of money and start hustling on Santa Monica Boulevard. I didn't test positive for HIV, which others in the shelter did, including a young man who asked me to come along when he got the result of his test, and then asked me to come along afterward as he responded to the bad news by getting as drunk as possible and giving away all his money to panhandlers. Oh, speaking of which: I wasn't an alcoholic, or addicted to drugs. I wasn't mentally ill and treating my mental illness with whatever drugs I could get hold of; here were a few in the shelter like that. Quite a few. The inventory of advantages I had over others in the shelter was enormous, too long to list here, but unavoidable. They were hurt, many of them, really hurt, and until that hurt was taken care of, a lot of them were going to have a very rough time of it.

And yet, 10 months later, I was barely making it. $6.50 an hour is not enough to get a decent apartment in a good part of town in Los Angeles, so I was living in a transitional living program run by the Teen Canteen, another program for homeless teenagers. I made just about enough money to buy food, pay my rent, and see a movie or two every week. I got into debt quickly, because there was a riot in Westwood at the opening of New Jack City, and I happened to work there, and so I got pushed to the ground and sprained my wrist. Of course, insurance covered a lot of the costs of getting x-rayed and prescribed some painkillers. But I had a $600 deductible, and that was the sort of thing it would take several months of not seeing movies and eating ramen to pay off. I got a few writing gigs, which I what I moved to LA for, but because I was a beginning writer, they paid very little or paid nothing at all. So, yes, 10 months after becoming homeless, I had an apartment, but no savings, a little bit of debt, and a car was out of the question.

And, because I was still in a program for the homeless, I saw many of the people I had been in the shelter with of the course of the year, and for several years. I felt like I was just treading water, and could slip under at any moment, but, trust me, for many of them it was much harder. One roommate slipped back into a heroin addiction, which, of course, took up all his money, and when he was kicked out of the program ran to the kitchen to find a kitchen knife to kill himself with. He didn't find one, because I had hidden them under the sofa the night before, as he had attempted to kill himself previously and I knew he was getting forced to leave. Some dealt with naked, open homophobia on whatever jobs they worked at -- at least one I remember got beaten up by his coworkers. Some did all right. After all, a job? An Apartment? Those things can be found. But where would they be in ten years, and where would I be?

A decade later I was the editor in chief of an Omaha newsweekly, and a playwright with work produced in New York. I attribute both those things to my education, because both are based on having certain writing skills, and a certain discipline. I don't know what happened to the others. The fellow who was HIV positive seems likely to be dead. Homeless and HIV positive is pretty fatal. Others? Well, I know plenty of people my age who are not gay, formerly homeless, emotionally ill, and drug addicted who are just barely making it. It's pretty easy to get lost in the country. Hell, it's 10 years since I was editor in chief, or nearly, and I've had some real lows since then. And the only people who wouldn't know that this is an unstable place, and it's easy to get knocked off your perch by, say, a hurricane destroying your town, or an unexpected illness, or schizophrenia kicking in at 26, or a million of other miserable things that can happen in the course of your life, and you have no control over -- well, the only people who would think that are excessively privileged children without much life experience who jump into homelessness as a sort of dilettante prank, and learn nothing from it except that it is possible to pull yourself back up to some low-level, depressing baseline pretty quickly. That's not much of a lesson, and it certainly doesn't mean that anyone can be a CEO of a fortune 500 company years down the road if, gosh darn it, they just had the elbow grease to make a go of it in this wonderful nation of ours.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:50 PM on February 15 [133 favorites]

I work with a non profit that has a mission to help alleviate hunger and poverty. I was in eastern Pennsylvania recently and visited a church that was feeding people a hot meal. It was noon on a Wednesday. There were over a hundred people in line for lunch. I was invited in, by the facilitator and asked to share a meal with her community. We sat and ate a simple meal of salad and pasta with bread and juice. Midway through the meal, the facilitator stood up and made an announcement: it was someone's birthday. "We won't say how old you are..." and turned toward a beaming woman who was seated with her husband. The crowd sang happy birthday to her. When the facilitator came back and sat down, she turned to me and said "they just celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary." That hit me like a punch in the gut. This could be me. This could be any of my family. What kind of society would treat those who built the society like this? I could see their happiness but I knew their fear: if this kitchen closes we will have nowhere to go.

Poverty, as stated eloquently by many people above, is not how the folks have politically framed it to be. It is a grandmother acting as the daycare provider for her 3 year old grand daughter--and needing to receive food. It is folks with mental illness who cannot pay for medication. It is found in small towns with very little job base and no other options. It is the 70 year old man who stands outside of a food pantry, for a week, never going in to receive food, because he is ASHAMED that he has to ask for the help.

Poverty is compounded desperation. Imagine going to bed tonight, knowing that you had no food to serve your children for breakfast. That feeling of helplessness, sadness and self-directed anger at not being able to provide for yourself or your family is a caustic brew.

There are no easy answers but having an education is the surest way out of poverty. It gives opportunities and hope.

I am stepping off of my soapbox now.
posted by zerobyproxy at 5:56 PM on February 15 [15 favorites]

There's already been a lot of comments in this thread that have said, in one way or another, some of the things I would've, so I'll just say this guy comes off like a real prick, and I have a feeling he's gonna be just pleased as punch to be poster boy for the legions of conservatives who cry endlessly for doing away with what little support there is for the poor in America. Shit makes me madder than hell.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:01 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

There are homeless people everywhere, this homeless guy asked me for money,
the other day, I was about to give it to him, and I thought: he's just
gonna use it on drugs or alcohol.

And then I thought: That's what I'm gonna use it on! Why am I judging
this poor bastard? People love to judge homeless
guys. Like, you give him the money and he's just
gonna waste it, he's gonna waste the money. Well he lives in a box!
What do you want him to do with it, save it up and buy a wall unit?

[...]

"Why don't you go out and get a job, you bum?"
People always say that to homeless guys, get a job. Like it's always
that easy. This homeless guy was wearing his underwear outside his
pants.

I'm guessing his resume ain't all up to date. I'm predicting
some problems during the interview process. I'm pretty sure
McDonalds has an 'Underwear Goes Inside The Pants' policy Not that
they enforce it very strictly, but technically, i'm sure it's on the books.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 6:08 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]

Being poor, written in the aftermath of Katrina.
posted by Anything at 6:17 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]

I didn't use my college education, credit history, or contacts [while in South Carolina]. But in real life, I had these lessons that I had learned. I don't think that played to my advantage.

Blindingly stupid shit like this is why I can't take Libertarians seriously.
posted by dirigibleman at 6:37 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]

The only hypothesis this experiment supports is that a college education may be valuable independent of the degree itself. Which is heartening, I suppose.
posted by blenderfish at 6:44 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

He got a job moving things people, he didn't become president. I'm not sure college, his middle class background, or his race play too much of a role in that. If I remember correctly, I had a moving job before I had a degree -- and I don't remember any of my co-workers having one, nor were they white -- their English was a bit sketchy too. Get some perspective.
posted by Raoul de Noget at 7:01 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

Call me when he owns a nationwide chain of wheel-balancing centers.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 7:04 PM on February 15

The city saves money, the company makes a profit, everyone wins! When someone gets sent back to prison, another company makes money running the private prison!

That's horrific.
posted by adamdschneider at 7:04 PM on February 15

I'm not terribly impressed.

After numerous false starts, I finally moved out of my parents house for good at age 20. At that point, I had a GED education, no car, and no job. I had a bad family situation, and had survived a very rough childhood and adolescence. Over the years, I had developed some very harmful drug habits, which had taken a serious toll on my mental health. All of my friends in the city were either dealers or hangers-on. My mind wasn't completely together at the time, but I knew one thing, and that was that I had to *get out.*

So what did I do? I had about $1200 that I had saved from a temp job. I called some of my old friends who lived in a small college town across the state. They had a spare room in their house that they were willing to rent me for $110 a month. I will never, ever, as long as I live, forget what my friends did for me. They put up with me during the 6 months it took for me to dry up and return to reality. When the money ran out, I got a job flipping burgers at a Shoney's. That fall, I returned to college.

Now, there was no way in hell my family was going to give me any money, so I had to borrow my way through school. By the time I graduated, I had racked up about $40K in student loan debt, but I'll never, ever regret it. For my first semester, I was undeclared, but by my second semester, I was required to choose a major. At the time, I was a bit of a hippie, and longed to study anthropology or creative writing. However, I had to face facts, and I knew that I'd never be able to repay my student loans and support myself with a degree in Anthro. So what to do? I had always been good with computers, but I never considered doing it as a career. However, I knew that I could make money at it, and it was really the only marketable skill I had.

So overnight, I went from being a slacker to a hacker. I still partied and fucked around with my friends, but when I had to get shit done, I got shit done. When I enrolled in college, the highest level math class I had taken was high school pre-algebra. Four years later, I graduated with a BS in Computer Science and a minor in Mathematics. I want you to think about that for a minute.

So graduation happened in the summer of 2003, which, I'll tell you, was a shitty time to graduate. Sending out resumes was depressing - for all I know, they just went into a big black hole at the end of the internet. Finally, I got a break - on a whim, I had applied for a job at a website that I was fond of reading. During the phone interview, the guy, my future supervisor, asked me a question - I think that it was about network administration, something I didn't know much about. I responded, "Well, I don't know much about that, but give me 72 hours and a good book and I can learn anything." He stopped me right there in my tracks - he said that he had to talk some things over with his boss, but that he'd call me back that afternoon. I didn't know if I had impressed him or what. A couple hours later, he called me back - he wanted to interview me, but there was only one problem - the office was in New York City. So he asked me a question - "How would you feel about moving to New York City?" To which I responded, "Well, I've never been there, but my cousin lives in New York, and he tells me that it's the best city in the world."

Needless to say, I got the job. Two months after my phone interview, I had moved from a sleepy midwestern backwater to New York City. I was working at my first *real* job, at a website that I loved. I had come a long way.

Now, I'm not going to say that it was smooth sailing after that. For the next three years, things were pretty difficult. I had moved to a new city, not knowing anybody except for a cousin who I had never been close to and had nothing in common with. NYC can be a very lonely place, and there were a number of times that I thought about packing it in and going back to the midwest.

The turning point came about three years after I moved to the city, when I finally found - through Metafilter, actually - a real group of friends. They're good people. They keep me happy and feeling loved. And the job? Well, I stuck it out at the website, and now I run my department, make good money, and have a decent chunk of change in the bank. Things are better for me now than they ever were. And the education? Well, it is true that I would have enjoyed studying anthro or english or creative writing. So after graduating, I decided I would read all of the books that I would have read had I studied something less technical. In the last five years, I have read many great (and a few so-so) books.

Things still aren't easy. I still have my share of demons to deal with. But things are good. And they're going to get better.

So, to review, what is it that allowed me to make it out of the hole I had dug for myself back in the late 90s?

1) I was never an asshole. However irresponsible and self-destructive I was, I never took advantage of people or treated my friends poorly.

2) I never lived beyond my means. Even though I think that it's a shame and a crime that young adults in this country have to get into debt in order to get an education, spending four years on a fixed income taught me a lot about budgeting.

3) I was dedicated. Once I decided to go back to school, I refused to let anything stop me. Even when this meant starting at the lowest-level math class my college offered (basic algebra), and working my way up to Calc 3, advanced stat, linear algebra, etc.

4) I was smart. We could argue forever about whether this sort of thing is nature or nurture. However, one thing is unarguable - my intelligence didn't do me any good at all until I decided to put it to use.

So there you have it. Rags to riches, American Dream, etc. However, I'll never forget what it was like to live in a shitty neighborhood in a shitty city, surrounded by dealers and addicts and other various people on their way down. I don't know what it was that separated me from them. God knows, many people (including some of my old friends, RIP) never make it out of that trap. I like to think that somewhere, deep down inside, I always knew that I was meant for better things, and that I wasn't meant to die a meaningless, self-destructive death. However, herein lies the true sadness at the heart of the culture of poverty in this country - millions of people, deep down, don't believe that they deserve any better. They've been mistreated and discriminated against (and in some cases their ancestors had been mistreated and discriminated against) to the point where they don't even think that it's possible to achieve something greater. These are the people who we need to reach. These are the people whom Ehrenreich was trying to help out with her book.

She wasn't trying to help Adam Shepard, who pretty much always knew that things would turn out alright.
posted by Afroblanco at 7:06 PM on February 15 [40 favorites]

Simply put, this is one of the most blatant displays of contempt for the poor since Ronald Reagan.

I wonder if ketchup is Mr. Shepard's favorite vegetable.
posted by grounded at 7:17 PM on February 15 [5 favorites]

"I didn't use my college education..."

I didn't use my stay-at-home mother who devoted every waking hour to her children.

I didn't use the lessons about crafting opportunity taught to me by my hardworking father.

I didn't use all of those incredible life-skills, like knowing how to grow and preserve your own food, by my Depression-era grandparents.

I didn't use that experience of moving to L.A. with $200 in my own pocket and watching my private research university bachelor's degree open up door after door.

I didn't use that inheritance my great aunt unselfishly left me to get a graduate degree.

I didn't use that graduate degree...at all.

I didn't use all of those eye-opening experiences of living my 20s in ethnic ghettos to make myself appear cultured and just a little bit hard.

I am the most self-made man I know.
posted by mrmojoflying at 7:20 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

He didn't start with nothing--he started with hope and confidence.

Lacking those is the real problem with poverty. Almost no one in a first world country would be poor if they had those two things--at least, not for long.

If you have the right attitude, living in shitty digs and working shitty jobs isn't any worse than a bad camping trip.

I wish more people in poverty had hope and a good attitude. I'm sure its harder to have a good attitude when the established classes have such a lack of empathy and such ignorance of reality.

Being poor is depressing. And it is fucking hard to move upward in life when you are depressed.
posted by wires at 7:24 PM on February 15 [4 favorites]

Afro that is a good story. And your right about Shepard. And he better wake up and thank his lucky stars because one day.. one day he is suddenly gonna feel like god hates him.

I have ALWAYS known I was lucky.

My family life pretty awesome. I lived all over the world. The worst thing was missing my dad when he was in 'Nam.

I pretty much cruised through school rarely bringing home a book and still got good grades mostly. My parents footed most of the bill of college, though I did work, and I never had to borrow and education was cheap then.

Even through the hard times post graduation having three part time jobs living in a house with six room mates and living on $12 of groceries per week. I still had it easy. Always finding some way to the things I wanted without having any money. Sailing on weekends by scamming my way into the University Yacht Club. Skiing for free on weeknights by making friends with guys at a ski school.

Even when my first career collapsed and I was homeless living on couches for five months and unemployed for nearly 18 months. Taking a night job at Kinkos to make ends meet and lucking into a high paying job that I loved. I also found out I had really good friends.

Or eight years later when my second career imploded along with 60% of our net worth.

Then having to work for free, 14 hours a day 7 days a week, for two years helping my wife build up our business.

Getting ripped off and losing our business to an unscrupulous partner. Then having that unexpectedly turn around and end up MAKING us a ton of money.

All of it turned out for the best.

My luck has always held. Even when it hasn't.

Good things always just dropped into my lap. I don't what I have done in my life to deserve such luck. Everyday I wake up thankful, looking over at my beautiful wife, thinking how awesome the universe has been to me. Always be thankful for what you have. Helps you see what is really important.
posted by tkchrist at 7:45 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

Wow, oh wow, Astro Zombie. Thank you for that.

Maybe I don't know enough about the Christian Science Monitor, but I'm startled that it even bothered to give this guy a sympathetic and non-critical interview.

The whole piece is just an advertisement for his book & his "inspirational" talks.

I feel like I need a long, hot shower. Fortunately for me, I can afford to have one.
posted by treepour at 7:56 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

Hate
posted by Joseph Gurl at 8:16 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

So, to review, what is it that allowed me to make it out of the hole I had dug for myself back in the late 90s?
1) I was never an asshole. [...]
2) I never lived beyond my means. [...]
3) I was dedicated. [...]
4) I was smart. [...]

So there you have it. Rags to riches,

How quickly you forget number 5:
5. I was lucky.

Don't believe me? Your own words:

Finally, I got a break
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 8:24 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]

Well, this thread was worthwhile for the Pulp song. I'd never really listened to that song before.
posted by Bookhouse at 8:46 PM on February 15

No such thing as luck. Unless you want to rename it grace.

There is so much truth in this thread. I think the biggest thing is, we need each other, and we need to cut each other slack when we can.

And we need to remember that if we are warm, and dry, and fed, we are blessed.
posted by konolia at 8:51 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

there's something else that disturbs me about this whole business - the idea that some people can't do anything for themselves to get a stable life together

i don't argue that some can't - or that the obstacles to having an empowered life can be daunting and impossible for some people to meet

but if they can't manage to hold down a job or build a halfway decent life for themselves what are we to do with them? - let them wander around the streets? - give them what they need, which often results in them squandering what they need for what they want?

are there people so screwed up and incapable that they should not be free to run their own lives? - and i'm not just talking about being schizophrenic, or addicted, or too depressed, but also, too unwilling to work, too uneducated, too unwilling or unable to improve themselves to a functional level?

right now, we pretty much just ignore these people, give them a paltry dole and don't bother further until they do something that results in their being put in jail or prison

why shouldn't they just be TOLD what to do? - why should they be free when they aren't capable of building themselves a worthy life with that freedom?

i'm not coming from a libertarian viewpoint or anything like it here - in fact, i don't have an answer to this question

what i am doing is stating it - because it seems to me that we haven't managed to come up with a real answer to it - not if the millions of people in our underclass are any indication

it's fine to get angry at this kid for saying, "well, i could do it, so anyone on the ball can" - but the other side of the coin is if you're going to argue that some people can't, then why should they be allowed to make choices for themselves that are so ineffective?

40 years ago, we were in the midst of the war on poverty - poverty won - and although the republicans don't give a shit about the poor and therefore shouldn't be listened to when they start talking about bootstraps, what do we have to offer? - we haven't solved the problem after decades of trying - and you're not going to solve it with the same proposals and the same philosophies

millions of people can't seem to get their own lives together on their own initiative - do we let it go on or get their lives together for them? or is there another choice?
posted by pyramid termite at 8:51 PM on February 15

then why should they be allowed to make choices for themselves that are so ineffective?

Um, because they're human beings, with free will, and if they don't choose to live their lives according to your standards of what a "halfway decent life" is, that's their prerogative.

why should they be free when they aren't capable of building themselves a worthy life with that freedom?

What the fucking fuck are you fucking talking about? Freedom is the default position, not something you get as a reward for living a nice suburban life with a full time productive job and well-behaved children, or whatever constitutes your version of a halfway decent life. Jesus fucking christ on a cooter.
posted by rtha at 9:07 PM on February 15 [11 favorites]

Oh, and one more thing:

millions of people can't seem to get their own lives together on their own initiative - do we let it go on or get their lives together for them? or is there another choice?

No.
posted by rtha at 9:09 PM on February 15

Night night, mefites.
posted by LiveLurker at 9:16 PM on February 15

I do like the idea that you can someone not use a college education once you have it—as if the benefits of a college education end after you can put it down on your resume.

And what's with all the Ehrenreich hate? Yes, she's as much a dilettante of poverty as Mr. Shepard, but you can draw sharp distinctions between them. At least she's trying to be an advocate for the poor. You have to do a bit of moral equivocation to get Shepard and Ehrenreich on the same level. A frat boy sleeping in a homeless shelter and then writing a book about how a good attitude is your salvation is noxious on infinitely more levels than Ehrenreich's book.
posted by Weebot at 9:22 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]

I think that is true Weebot but only in sentiment, not in substance.
posted by Raoul de Noget at 9:32 PM on February 15

In substance they are two different people from different walks of life who did a vaguely similar thing in two totally different ways.
posted by hermitosis at 9:39 PM on February 15

Oh right, I forgot that Ehrenreich has a Ph.D.
posted by Raoul de Noget at 9:43 PM on February 15

All of social life is organized from the top down through impenetrable hierarchies to make you into a receptacle for the culture that will seduce you into functioning as a robot in the economy.

Half my immediate family died young and poor, either from heroin or alcohol or some combination thereof. According to some here, they made some kind of choice. That's shite.
posted by meehawl at 9:47 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

As someone who lives below the poverty line (*well* below the poverty line) this kind of crap infuriates me.

Challenge to Mr. Twat-head: Try doing it with a special needs child and in the SF Bay area.
posted by vertigo25 at 9:47 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]

Raoul de Noget: Care to explain?
posted by Weebot at 9:59 PM on February 15

Well Ehrenreich essentially became poor to see if she could survive on a poverty wages -- with the assumption that she couldn't, and what a wonderful book that would make. Shepard became poor to see if he could survive and improve his conditions, assuming he could, and what a wonderful book that would make. Same story, different politics.
posted by Raoul de Noget at 10:09 PM on February 15

and if they don't choose to live their lives according to your standards of what a "halfway decent life" is, that's their prerogative.

in other words, if they're living out of dumpsters, talking to themselves on the streetcorner while smelling of piss, that's quite alright with you

after all, it's their freedom to live a slow death in front of us and shouldn't be interfered with

What the fucking fuck are you fucking talking about?

i'm talking about people who can't take care of themselves and whether compassion necessitates that we control whether they are taken care of

Freedom is the default position

proof, please

after all, this much-praised freedom you talk about must have some kind of benefit that would make a life spent homeless on the streets better than actually being taken and given a decent life

yes, they are free to freeze to death on the streets this winter in my town - what wonderful wisdom and compassion we have shown them as a society by letting them be found dead and cold in front of my town's county courthouse, as some symbol of justice, i'm sure

whatever constitutes your version of a halfway decent life

how about food to eat and a roof over your head for starters? or is that too bourgeois for you?

how about actually trying to answer the question instead of mouthing a bunch of platitudes that haven't been working all that well in the real world?

how about actually THINKING about the question i raised?

is it freedom to die of neglect you espouse or simply freedom as a society to not be bothered to find a solution for those who are dying of neglect?
posted by pyramid termite at 10:18 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

How quickly you forget number 5:
5. I was lucky.

Don't believe me? Your own words:

Finally, I got a break

Umm, is it still "luck" when you have to work your ass off for it for four years, followed by four demoralizing months of sending out resumes and getting no responses because the tech sector went tits-up?

I mean, don't get me wrong - things could have turned out far worse than they did, and I will forever be thankful for what I have. But don't you insinuate for one moment that I didn't work my ass off to get to where I am today.
posted by Afroblanco at 10:25 PM on February 15

how about food to eat and a roof over your head for starters? or is that too bourgeois for you?

Of course it's not too bourgeois.

But you seem to be suggesting that people who can't "handle" freedom don't "deserve" it. And by freedom, I mean choices - bad choices, good choices, but choices of their own.

It sounds to me as if you're suggesting that if someone is not living some way that you think they should be living, we, as a society, should make them live some other way. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

But then: in other words, if they're living out of dumpsters, talking to themselves on the streetcorner while smelling of piss, that's quite alright with you

It isn't "alright" with me. But you seem to be suggesting, when you say things like "why shouldn't they just be TOLD what to do? - why should they be free when they aren't capable of building themselves a worthy life with that freedom?", that we should have the right to tell folks how to live if we don't like or approve of the way they're living.

I'd say we have an obligation to help people in need of help: offer medical support, access to housing, drug counseling, etc. It sounds like you're saying we should force people to do these things if we don't like how they're living.

Am I just not understanding you?

And I can't offer "proof" that freedom is the default. It's a way of looking at the world, not something that's quantifiable. Freedom (to make bad choices, to go to college or not, to take this drug or drink that cocktail, to take this job or reject it) is not something you give someone because they've been "good" according to your criteria.

We do, of course, already restrict peoples' freedom when they act in ways that we have decided are destructive to the social fabric. It's called prison. Are you suggesting that we increase the population there?
posted by rtha at 11:15 PM on February 15

As others have mentioned, as a personal life experience this could have some merit, although (as I mentioned before) I do worry about someone stretching social services when they don't really need them. A lot of people have brought up the not so X factor of his upbringing and environment up until his little experiment took place and relating to that subject, what I can offer to the conversation is this:

I am a white male of above average intelligence and social abilities, if various standardized tests are to be believed. I did not complete college due to situations which would take far too long to explain here, but let's just say that my parents and I came to a point where we parted ways while I was in high school. Shortly after this happened, I caught a minor charge (bullshit and it was dismissed) and I was locked up for a short time, because my parents decided that the way to teach me a lesson was to let me sit in jail for 2 weeks until I turned 18. I should have been sent to the same max security facility typically used for housing both those in transition in the correctional system as well as the hardcore long timers, but due to my upbringing I had developed the manners and persuasive abilities to talk my way into an alternative incarceration center, or to know that such a place existed for that matter. In fact, I was able to convince my public defender to drive me there (an hour one way) because no transport was available and I'd have to go to Bridgeport otherwise. Other people in similar situation wound up in real prison because they weren't well spoken white kids who could convince someone that they didn't deserve what they would go through there, even though I'm fairly sure at least a few of them were as innocent as I was.

I did my 2 weeks and I went to court on my 18th birthday and I was allowed to leave. My time in AIC or alternative incarceration was pretty easy, thanks in large part to the manners I learned from growing up in a relatively stable and nurturing household. Other people there did not have this advantage, and as intelligent as many of them were their time in AIC was far more difficult because no one had taught them what I knew. I was able to leave on the condition that I convince a judge that I had a stable living situation to go to, which I was able to arrange due to my skill set and most importantly the fact that my upbringing provided me with friends who had parents that fit the bill. I was the exception to the rule in that regard as well, no one had ever left AIC in 12 days before I did.

Once I left, I finished high school, moved out on my own, and started working. I've never stopped since. I've got a long way to go to reach what almost anyone would consider the "American Dream", but I'm doing fairly well for myself. I've convinced employers, landlords, and almost anyone else I needed to that I was worth taking a chance on, and I did it using skills I got from a good upbringing.

I'm sure you've sensed the trend here.

I think that any life experience can be a good one, including the adventure that this gentleman took. But I think it's really important to realize that what he did is just that: An adventure. He was obviously taught a good set of basic values. He also grew up financially stable. His family obviously valued education enough to put him through college. If something went wrong, he had fallbacks. It was mentioned earlier that as soon as harsh reality (a family illness) struck, he fell back.

His adventure is noble in ways, but his conclusion is utterly bunk. He had the same golden tickets many of us have had, and to use his experience to theorize anything besides what happens to upper middle class kids who want a tourist's trip through poverty would be misguided.

A terrible analogy: To pull yourself up by your bootstraps, it's a huge advantage to have been taught what bootstraps are, and why they're important.
posted by rollbiz at 11:16 PM on February 15 [8 favorites]

Raoul de Noget: I think that's a mischaracterization of Ehrenreich's book: the questions she posed were not whether you can or can't survive on poverty wages. The existence of a working-poor already answers that question. Her book is more interested in what you had to do to survive on those wages—which seems to be that you suffer through a endless stream of indignities (on good days) or lurch from crisis to crisis (on bad ones.) The conclusion she gets to isn't novel, but there is a universe of difference between her and the patently offensive self-absorption that Shepard seems to bring with him. Only one of these two authors has a subtext saying that the poor are that way because they're all fucking failures. I don't see how these two projects would be morally equivalent, nor do I think a few glib ad hominem lines would convince me otherwise.

And you say politics as if that didn't matter one whit—as if they were neutral and interchangeable. Those are some really broad strokes you're painting with, man.
posted by Weebot at 11:22 PM on February 15 [6 favorites]

But don't you insinuate for one moment that I didn't work my ass off to get to where I am today.

"Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men." -- E. B. White

"Luck? I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it, and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work -- and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't." -- Lucille Ball

"Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Diligence is the mother of good luck." -- Benjamin Franklin.

"Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get." -- Ray Kroc

"Luck is preparation meeting opportunity." –- Harriet Raygor

"Do you feel lucky, punk?" -- Clint Eastwood
posted by panamax at 11:34 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]

Those are some really broad strokes you're painting with, man.

I was going to paste him for posting the typical internet glibertarian BS, but I find your response so much more intelligent.
posted by panamax at 11:35 PM on February 15

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

you certainly are

Freedom (to make bad choices, to go to college or not, to take this drug or drink that cocktail, to take this job or reject it) is not something you give someone because they've been "good" according to your criteria.

where did i use the description "good"?

i didn't - but you're more interested in protecting your idealogical beliefs and abstract ideals than dealing with the question, it seems - one of which seems to be that we shouldn't use criteria to evaluate how people are living

well, then i guess homelessness, poverty and addiction aren't things we should talk about because those are criteria - it's just an alternative lifestyle and why should we evaluate it?

I'd say we have an obligation to help people in need of help: offer medical support, access to housing, drug counseling, etc.

wait - if we don't have the "right" to tell them how to live, how do they or you have the "right" to place us under any kind of obligation to help them?

again, you're contradicting yourself - you can't argue that people are so desperate that we have an obligation to help them and then suggest that they have no obligation to accept that help under certain terms - or certain circumstances - obligations run both ways, don't they?

and essentially that's what we've done for decades - said that we're willing to help self-destructive people but we're not willing to do anything if they refuse the help and destroy themselves

it's not working very well, is it? - we still have an underclass and it's getting worse, not better

We do, of course, already restrict peoples' freedom when they act in ways that we have decided are destructive to the social fabric.

homelessness, addiction and poverty aren't?

It's called prison.

or a nursing home - or a halfway house - or a government housing center

there are many alternatives here
posted by pyramid termite at 11:59 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]