diversity of opinion
Jan. 14th, 2008 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
healingmirthThis guy (I'm trying to get away from referring to them as "kids" in fairness to my wanting to not be called "old") in class today, at the beginning of the lecture on homelessness, asked, "Why is it the government's responsibility to provide housing for homeless people?"
My initial reaction was that he was challenging the assumption with a rhetorical question, but as class went on, it seemed that maybe he was assuming a statement of fact that it was the government's responsibility, and asked because he just didn't know any of the reasons.
Most of the classes that I have taken in college and graduate school have been composed of a pretty homogeneous group of people, as far as the subject matter was concerned. Either we all generally agreed on an opinion, or there wasn't really an opinion to be had, like in math classes. Of course there's an argument there that the majority drowned out any opposition, either in fact or in my memory of it. Ethics last summer and the ecology course last semester were reasonably diverse classes designed to bring out opposing viewpoints, and were propelled by discussion between the students.
The way that "discussion" works in this class is that a student says something and then the professor responds. This time his response was, "if you still have that question after the next 4 lectures, ask again," so we didn't really get into it. Later, a light bulb went off over the guy's head while when someone mentioned Vietnam veterans with disabilities (or who were otherwise "damaged" as a result of their service). He seemed to be content with the "answer" that if the government requires one to do something, that the government is then responsible for taking care of negative consequences.
Of course, now the question of "why does the government have to help [homeless] people?" is stuck in my head, churning out answers. If I'm considering a career around human services, I really ought to have an answer.
1) Because government ought to protect people's rights
There's debate as to whether housing is a universal human right, or whether it's one of those "rights and responsibilities" type of rights; a privilege, that by some action or combination thereof you can lose, or whether there's no assumption of a right to housing: you can either afford it or you can't.
The article that we read this week referred to the musical chairs aspect of affordable housing. There are some things that the market fails at, for one reason or another, and sometimes that is providing adequate housing stock to match the range of incomes earned in an area. The gray(-er) area is where to hop in and break the cycle of homelessness, unemployment, and their associations with lack of access to services, mental health, education, and what to do with people who decide to work the system.
2) Because we live in a democracy (sort of), and we say so.
As for the more general issue of why is it the government's responsibility to help anyone - does it have to be? I am all for social services being provided. There are certainly people who need help, and I can argue that it's both our obligation, as well as a good idea, to do so, but given that government programs are chronically underfunded relative to the scope of their vision, maybe there's a better way to get at it.
Maybe rather than a relative handful of thinky people responding to a void with legislation, we ought to be concentrating on how we foster community to keep people from slipping through the cracks, and have the community, or enough members of it, directly fund the efforts, without funneling the money through however many tiers of government.
It's probably a fact of life that many people will be more interested in the quality of their own life that in someone else's (and I mean that in the politest possible way), so maybe we really do need the thinky people dragging the less-motivated masses along the road to funding social services, or art and music education in schools, or medical research, or whatever by way of taxes.
To be continued, no doubt.
My initial reaction was that he was challenging the assumption with a rhetorical question, but as class went on, it seemed that maybe he was assuming a statement of fact that it was the government's responsibility, and asked because he just didn't know any of the reasons.
Most of the classes that I have taken in college and graduate school have been composed of a pretty homogeneous group of people, as far as the subject matter was concerned. Either we all generally agreed on an opinion, or there wasn't really an opinion to be had, like in math classes. Of course there's an argument there that the majority drowned out any opposition, either in fact or in my memory of it. Ethics last summer and the ecology course last semester were reasonably diverse classes designed to bring out opposing viewpoints, and were propelled by discussion between the students.
The way that "discussion" works in this class is that a student says something and then the professor responds. This time his response was, "if you still have that question after the next 4 lectures, ask again," so we didn't really get into it. Later, a light bulb went off over the guy's head while when someone mentioned Vietnam veterans with disabilities (or who were otherwise "damaged" as a result of their service). He seemed to be content with the "answer" that if the government requires one to do something, that the government is then responsible for taking care of negative consequences.
Of course, now the question of "why does the government have to help [homeless] people?" is stuck in my head, churning out answers. If I'm considering a career around human services, I really ought to have an answer.
1) Because government ought to protect people's rights
There's debate as to whether housing is a universal human right, or whether it's one of those "rights and responsibilities" type of rights; a privilege, that by some action or combination thereof you can lose, or whether there's no assumption of a right to housing: you can either afford it or you can't.
The article that we read this week referred to the musical chairs aspect of affordable housing. There are some things that the market fails at, for one reason or another, and sometimes that is providing adequate housing stock to match the range of incomes earned in an area. The gray(-er) area is where to hop in and break the cycle of homelessness, unemployment, and their associations with lack of access to services, mental health, education, and what to do with people who decide to work the system.
2) Because we live in a democracy (sort of), and we say so.
As for the more general issue of why is it the government's responsibility to help anyone - does it have to be? I am all for social services being provided. There are certainly people who need help, and I can argue that it's both our obligation, as well as a good idea, to do so, but given that government programs are chronically underfunded relative to the scope of their vision, maybe there's a better way to get at it.
Maybe rather than a relative handful of thinky people responding to a void with legislation, we ought to be concentrating on how we foster community to keep people from slipping through the cracks, and have the community, or enough members of it, directly fund the efforts, without funneling the money through however many tiers of government.
It's probably a fact of life that many people will be more interested in the quality of their own life that in someone else's (and I mean that in the politest possible way), so maybe we really do need the thinky people dragging the less-motivated masses along the road to funding social services, or art and music education in schools, or medical research, or whatever by way of taxes.
To be continued, no doubt.
