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It seems to me that homelessness is a desired state by the far-left progressives. I don't get the sense from talking to people here in Berkeley/Oakland that the

It seems to me that homelessness is a desired state by the far-left progressives. I don't get the sense from talking to people here in Berkeley/Oakland that they want to eradicate homelessness. If you offer a few discussion points about possible solutions, you get sneered at and shot down. The arguments are weak and don't hold up, so they are varnished with emotional appeal (be kind to homeless) and other soft-tactics of altruism. I disagree with this whole premise. You can still be kind and try to solve homelessness and clean up our streets. There is nothing wrong with that and infact the only right thing to do. Like every city in the world. No one should be afraid of calling homelessness a problem that we want to get rid of. Methods of doing that can be debated but resist the appeal for this so called wokeness that is endemic in places like Universities.

swearwolf 5y ago
Desired state seems like a stretch, but the cynical part of me does wonder sometimes whether having visible homelessness around is seen as inevitable proof that the capitalist system is irredeemable and must be replaced. A more likely explanation is the way that paternalistic administration of care is anathema to the current way of thinking. That is to say that one should never presuppose how to solve someone else’s problems, but rather one should listen to their lived experiences and give them what they say they need to solve their own problems. This is a good principle to follow in most situations, but like all prescriptive outlooks it fails when exposed to certain edge cases. In this case, the edge case is people who lack the executive function to know how to better their situation, or even to take advantage of situations that will when they’re presented.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  > Desired state seems like a stretch, but the cynical part of me does wonder sometimes whether having visible homelessness around is seen as inevitable proof that the capitalist system is irredeemable and must be replaced. I think these are two separate variables and Capitalism when properly regulated works extremely well (it has moved millions from poverty in China and did the same in the US - wages went up by 350% from 1930-1970).
  - swearwolf 5y ago
    Agreed, but I’ve noticed that over the past few years there’s been a shift away from talking about implementing some socialist policies into capitalism and towards the irredeemably of the capitalist system. At least that’s been my experience among my liberal circle. I think it’s the influence of the growing far left movement, who are now the cool kids on the left. The word “liberal” is a pejorative to them; synonyms with someone who defends the status quo, which is deeply uncool.
m0llusk 5y ago
The social problem of homelessness is thus an issue of the intentions of a specific political group? And their manners? They sneered, did they? Not nice, but that seems like a distraction. Political groups and intentions are apart from the business of dealing with the problem. What you are dismissing as "wokeness" might just be familiarity as this problem has festered for a while now. There is some evidence that this just clean up the streets approach is part of the reason so many ended up here after having been cleared out of wherever else they started. In Berkeley/Oakland cleaning up the streets just shifted people around at great cost so now the focus is on cleanup and portable toilets for basic sanitation.
int_19h 5y ago
The far-left position on homelessness is simply "let's build enough houses by whatever means necessary" (depending on where one is on the authoritarian/libertarian scale, the list of acceptable means varies). The difference is in the language. "Clean up our streets" puts the emphasis on the homeless as the problem for everybody else, as opposed to homelessness being a problem for the homeless.

swearwolf 5y ago

Desired state seems like a stretch, but the cynical part of me does wonder sometimes whether having visible homelessness around is seen as inevitable proof that the capitalist system is irredeemable and must be replaced. A more likely explanation is the way that paternalistic administration of care is anathema to the current way of thinking. That is to say that one should never presuppose how to solve someone else’s problems, but rather one should listen to their lived experiences and give them what they say they need to solve their own problems. This is a good principle to follow in most situations, but like all prescriptive outlooks it fails when exposed to certain edge cases. In this case, the edge case is people who lack the executive function to know how to better their situation, or even to take advantage of situations that will when they’re presented.

systemvoltage 5y ago
> Desired state seems like a stretch, but the cynical part of me does wonder sometimes whether having visible homelessness around is seen as inevitable proof that the capitalist system is irredeemable and must be replaced. I think these are two separate variables and Capitalism when properly regulated works extremely well (it has moved millions from poverty in China and did the same in the US - wages went up by 350% from 1930-1970).
- swearwolf 5y ago
  Agreed, but I’ve noticed that over the past few years there’s been a shift away from talking about implementing some socialist policies into capitalism and towards the irredeemably of the capitalist system. At least that’s been my experience among my liberal circle. I think it’s the influence of the growing far left movement, who are now the cool kids on the left. The word “liberal” is a pejorative to them; synonyms with someone who defends the status quo, which is deeply uncool.

m0llusk 5y ago

The social problem of homelessness is thus an issue of the intentions of a specific political group? And their manners? They sneered, did they? Not nice, but that seems like a distraction. Political groups and intentions are apart from the business of dealing with the problem. What you are dismissing as "wokeness" might just be familiarity as this problem has festered for a while now. There is some evidence that this just clean up the streets approach is part of the reason so many ended up here after having been cleared out of wherever else they started. In Berkeley/Oakland cleaning up the streets just shifted people around at great cost so now the focus is on cleanup and portable toilets for basic sanitation.

int_19h 5y ago

The far-left position on homelessness is simply "let's build enough houses by whatever means necessary" (depending on where one is on the authoritarian/libertarian scale, the list of acceptable means varies). The difference is in the language. "Clean up our streets" puts the emphasis on the homeless as the problem for everybody else, as opposed to homelessness being a problem for the homeless.