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> I'm assuming you also agree that the status quo is not working well. I do, insofar as I believe the moralistic emphasis of the status quo is counterproductiv

> I'm assuming you also agree that the status quo is not working well. I do, insofar as I believe the moralistic emphasis of the status quo is counterproductive. > Do you think that this education and empowerment is unnecessary or somehow detrimental? Yes, I believe that such moralistic emphasis is detrimental. I believe that emphasizing personal responsibility while deemphasizing structural factors is hypocritical and morally bankrupt. To those failures who are the supposed targets of the teaching, they learn from the hypocrisy of their teachers that "personal responsibility" is just a cudgel to beat them with while they are being pressed down. To those who succeed, it induces a crippling inability to acknowledge the role of luck and environment in their success, and a corresponding tendency to "other" society's failures. > They further advocated for providing aid that is missing, The only "aid" that they advocate is moral teaching — which does nothing for the homeless, but gives people who are not homeless a narcotic bloom of superiority.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
>Yes, I believe that such moralistic emphasis is detrimental. I believe that emphasizing personal responsibility while deemphasizing structural factors is hypocritical and morally bankrupt. It seems like you are interjecting morality again into our discussion where none was included. A deficit of personal empowerment IS a structural and environmental factor. Not the only one, but it is one of the most important if not the most important in determining outcomes. If you take a poor, abused, and neglected child and teach them they can not and will not amount to anything because of the material conditions of their birth, you are actively damaging their outcomes. If you take the same poor, abused, and neglected child and teach them that that there is hope and clear goals which will get them out of poverty the vast majority of the time, you are actively improving their outcomes. This doesn't require judging anyone. This is actively improving environmental factors which lead to success. The impacts are statistically robust and well understood. Luck and environment played a huge role in my success. A huge environmental factor was parenting and education which made me understand how those 5 factors impact success, and instilling a belief that it was within my reach if I stuck to them.
- rectang 4y ago
  > A deficit of personal empowerment IS a structural and environmental factor. Not the only one, but it is one of the most important if not the most important in determining outcomes. This elevation of personal empowerment over all other factors is indistinguishable from an apologia for the status quo — a system can be corrupt without limit and it still applies. Even if 99.999% fail, it's true that for the 0.001% who succeed, a sense of personal empowerment was almost certainly "one of the most important if not the most important in determining outcomes". > If you take a poor, abused, and neglected child and teach them they can not and will not amount to anything because of the material conditions of their birth, you are actively damaging their outcomes. And if you actively damage their outcomes, by e.g. refusing under any circumstances to even discuss the role that the cost of housing has on homelessness let alone contemplate a policy response, you are actively damaging their outcomes. Dial up the cost of housing, get more homelessness. It's as if an sudden epidemic of "lacking personal empowerment" bolts through the population!
  - mofosyne 4y ago
    In support of your comment. This debate reminds me of the sex education and free condom and abortion debate in the past. It may be a personal choice that causes unwanted pregnancies, but putting the failure of teens to avoid getting pregnant on their moral failing has been a massive fail for decades until we fixed the social infrastructure around it instead to make doing the right choice easier.
    - GauntletWizard 4y ago
      I would like for you to cite the teen pregnancy rate, and then I would like you to compare it to the average age of pregnancy, and marriage, and "unmarried mother" birth rate. Teen pregnancies were very high when many women were getting married at 18 and giving birth at 19. Birth rates for younger teens, <16, have never been higher. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/02/why-is-the-teen-birth-rate-falling/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/02/why-is-the-...
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago

s1artibartfast 4y ago

>Yes, I believe that such moralistic emphasis is detrimental. I believe that emphasizing personal responsibility while deemphasizing structural factors is hypocritical and morally bankrupt. It seems like you are interjecting morality again into our discussion where none was included. A deficit of personal empowerment IS a structural and environmental factor. Not the only one, but it is one of the most important if not the most important in determining outcomes. If you take a poor, abused, and neglected child and teach them they can not and will not amount to anything because of the material conditions of their birth, you are actively damaging their outcomes. If you take the same poor, abused, and neglected child and teach them that that there is hope and clear goals which will get them out of poverty the vast majority of the time, you are actively improving their outcomes. This doesn't require judging anyone. This is actively improving environmental factors which lead to success. The impacts are statistically robust and well understood. Luck and environment played a huge role in my success. A huge environmental factor was parenting and education which made me understand how those 5 factors impact success, and instilling a belief that it was within my reach if I stuck to them.

rectang 4y ago
> A deficit of personal empowerment IS a structural and environmental factor. Not the only one, but it is one of the most important if not the most important in determining outcomes. This elevation of personal empowerment over all other factors is indistinguishable from an apologia for the status quo — a system can be corrupt without limit and it still applies. Even if 99.999% fail, it's true that for the 0.001% who succeed, a sense of personal empowerment was almost certainly "one of the most important if not the most important in determining outcomes". > If you take a poor, abused, and neglected child and teach them they can not and will not amount to anything because of the material conditions of their birth, you are actively damaging their outcomes. And if you actively damage their outcomes, by e.g. refusing under any circumstances to even discuss the role that the cost of housing has on homelessness let alone contemplate a policy response, you are actively damaging their outcomes. Dial up the cost of housing, get more homelessness. It's as if an sudden epidemic of "lacking personal empowerment" bolts through the population!
- mofosyne 4y ago
  In support of your comment. This debate reminds me of the sex education and free condom and abortion debate in the past. It may be a personal choice that causes unwanted pregnancies, but putting the failure of teens to avoid getting pregnant on their moral failing has been a massive fail for decades until we fixed the social infrastructure around it instead to make doing the right choice easier.
  - GauntletWizard 4y ago
    I would like for you to cite the teen pregnancy rate, and then I would like you to compare it to the average age of pregnancy, and marriage, and "unmarried mother" birth rate. Teen pregnancies were very high when many women were getting married at 18 and giving birth at 19. Birth rates for younger teens, <16, have never been higher. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/02/why-is-the-teen-birth-rate-falling/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/02/why-is-the-...
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago