Comment by s1artibartfast
2 years ago
I would say that the circle of influence people have is by far the most impactful on their happiness and that of their family. The individual choice to try meth or not will vastly outweigh any genetic or environmental factor on personal outcome. Beating ones children is much more influential than your socioeconomic class.
No a mount of political action can compensate for dissolution of individual responsibilities.
Ideally, they are complementary, but they can easily be antagonists.
Teach a generation of juveniles that they have no agency, and their individual efforts and work, and they will never succeed.
> I would say that the circle of influence people have is by far the most impactful on their happiness and that of their family.
This is factually wrong. Otherwise there wouldn't be such a strong correlation between socioeconomic class and later success in life.
> The individual choice to try meth or not will vastly outweigh any genetic or environmental factor on personal outcome.
Drug use and poverty wouldn't be so strongly linked if that were a free choice.
Maybe you should tell all the drug addicts to just not do drugs. Problem solved.
Are you telling people with depression to "just snap out of it" as well? Drug addiction is a serious medical illness. It requires a whole support network of people to cure in most cases.
> Teach a generation of juveniles that they have no agency, and their individual efforts and work, and they will never succeed.
You empower them by teaching them that it a systemic issue, that it is NOT their fault. That they can organize together and lift each other up. Individuals are weak, groups are strong.
Individual responsibility only works for the rich. Collective responsibility is what breaks the cycle of violence of poverty. It takes a village to raise a kid after all.
You may see correlations between socioeconomic class, but they are still by far weaker than correlations with Individual behavior and choice, which is my point.
Telling someone not to be born poor isn't actionable advice. Telling them their chance of success is 1000% better if they don't do drugs IS actionable advice. Telling them to live in misery and wait for the collective to solve a social problem in decades isn't actionable or useful advice either.
>You empower them by teaching them that it a systemic issue, that it is NOT their fault.
It is a big difference between a higher statistical risk factor isn't your fault, and telling them their choices and behavior have no impact.
Individual responsibility and effort is the foundation of collective responsibility. You can't have collective action with personal action. It isn't one or the other. The boat won't move if there is individual responsibility to paddle.
Everyone and their dog knows not to do drugs. Still people do. This is not actionable advice.
Knowing about the effects of poverty means knowing more about yourself. Understanding yourself leads to being able to take more effective actions increasing the control you have over your life.
You seem to think it is about victim mindset vs whatever you toxic middle-class self help "individual responsibility" thing is. Real change can only happen once you understand and accept yourself, including being a victim of circumstance and birth. After that there can there be healing and proper action.
> Telling them to live in misery and wait for the collective to solve a social problem in decades isn't actionable or useful advice either.
That is not the point. The point is for them to educate themselves on the issues they are facing, to politically organize, to organize in the neighborhood, to help each other out and ideally become leaders and role-models in their community. It starts with seeking help and community, not trying to lift yourself up by your bootstraps which often is not realistic.
> Individual responsibility and effort is the foundation of collective responsibility. You can't have collective action with personal action. It isn't one or the other. The boat won't move if there is individual responsibility to paddle.
Yes, obviously collective responsibility includes a form of individual responsibility. They only work together when your are poor.
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