| Like Ken's description of his cousin's life, some people who have that kind of adversity get stronger because of it, and some use it as an excuse to be weak. Some who grow up with all the advantages become bums, while others go on to even greater triumph than their parents. Many people who find themselves on the street, are there because of mistakes they've made. But just as many are there because of either mental or physical illness. And these days too many people who did everything right, but still lost thier job/home/stable life, are left with the blame by society.
If we lived in a utopian society then the social safety net would take care of those who are mentally or physically ill. And it would recognize the difference between those who are mentally ill but functional, and those who aren't. Personally I'm not one of those people who think drug addiction or alcoholism is a mental illness. I think it's a personal choice, and that many people can be either or both and still be functional in society. The choice is in letting the addiction consume you to the point that you can't function.
Where society's safety net really fails is in helping those who have lost thier jobs through no fault of thier own. And in not demanding that companies take better care of their employees, that people not dollars are the bottom line. Our society spends too much time hashing over fault and dollars, and not enough time simply extending a helping hand when the need is obvious.
What society owes us is a fair shot. Companies should have to pay thier employees a living wage, and not be allowed to lay off people who are close to retirement so they can reduce thier pension. People who are fighting disablities should either be helped with disability payments, or have help finding companies willing to work with them, or training for jobs they can do. Let me give you an example of this that's close to home. My husband was a supervisor for a newspaper here. He'd been working for them in some capacity for almost 30 years, since he was 12. He was doing a good enough job to win a trip to Hawaii, even after having been in the hospital in intensive care with complications from diabetes (type 1). Shortly after he got back from Hawaii, he was laid off, given a severance package. Seems his diabetes was driving thier insurance premiums up, so they laid him and all the other insulin dependent diabetics in circulation off. He tried getting other jobs, but found that most companies have the same problem with hiring someone with a chronic illness. He applied for social security disability, but was turned down. They want you to die before you collect if possible. It took him three years with a lawyer fighting to collect social security, and in the mean time he went back to work for the paper, doing what he had done when he was 12 for more than another decade. You see newspaper carriers aren't employees, so the paper doesn't care if you are sick, dying, drug addicted or what ever. As non-employee's they aren't responsible for insurance, workman's comp, taxes, or anything else. You are just a warm body filling that position. And sadly that is the direction most other companies in the country are heading, and where they want to be.
A country without compassion, without a safety net, where workers are just slabs of meat, and only the upper echelon CEO's and boardmembers/stockholders really matter. People with mental or physical illnesses don't fit into this kind of society at all. And increasingly neither do regular people.
We have lost our appreciation as a society for good honest work. It's no longer good enough to be a waitress, or a janitor or a construction worker, or plumber or whatever. People who do regular jobs are seen as losers. Honest work has been devalued. Only those who are on top matter. And that's where our society fails all of us. |