I agree with your analysis of the grandparent to some extent, but I think you're seeing condescension that may not be there or even if it is there isn't really

I agree with your analysis of the grandparent to some extent, but I think you're seeing condescension that may not be there or even if it is there isn't really the point. It's absolutely true that poverty has negative impacts on mental health including crushing depression. That defeatist mentality definitely drives the seeking of simple pleasures when they become available. Over generations (and poverty is generational in the US), that becomes cultural. Culture isn't some amorphous concept, it's the set of things which are socially acceptable within the surrounding peer group you find yourself in. It's something you get inculcated into by your parents and your friends. But that is also not the way out, not from a rational perspective. We have to wrangle with the fact that the rationally best actions someone in poverty can take with what little money they have, especially large lump sums like tax returns, is not the way most people behave because human beings are emotional creatures. I don't think it requires looking down upon the poor to acknowledge that their choices are driven by internal factors (mental health, despair) as well as external cultural factors (consumerism, social status among the poor being driven by luxury brands, et al). I'm just as guilty of practicing escapism as anyone else when I was in poor circumstances, it was just a random chance my escapism was into books which in turn helped increase my knowledge and ability to converse intelligently, rather than into lottery tickets, junk food, and entertainment. But it was still a form of escapism, and it was driven by many of the same factors. Books were more valuable in the long-term (knowledge, skills), and they were less costly in the short-term (used market, libraries), and in the end it helped provide me a way out. While my family wasn't wealthy and after leaving home I was even more poor for awhile, I came out of a culture that emphasized reading, literacy, and learning and used the television only for public broadcasting/documentaries. That's just as cultural as other families who emphasize social hierarchies/machismo, strength/being hard, and taking what you want, and uses television for escapism and entertainment. Saying something is cultural isn't an insult, it's an observation. Whether it started that way is irrelevant, it's cultural now that generations have gone by. I'd much rather see a conversation that tries to understand how we can break the cycle of poverty by helping people make better more rational choices and using forms of escapism that lead to positive outcomes instead of those that reinforce negative feedback loops. I think offense-taking and trying to find the worst possible interpretation of someone making a relevant observation isn't going to solve the problem. Maybe it's a touchy point of its own with me, but it seems so many of the really serious problems of our modern life can't be discussed in anything approaching an objective manner because there's always someone who wants to use it as an opportunity to take offense, rather than to understand and empathize, and return with something that changes the perspective of the person by creating empathy for themselves. Offense-taking doesn't build empathy, it just shuts down conversation.