Re:Re The Problem You Refer to Is Pandemic

I agree that there are some glib and even harmful elements to the culture of psychotherapy and its use as a tool for social progress aimed at the upper and middle classes. However, on an individual level, helping bring people back into communities by removing the stigma and despair of unemployment can only help.

Importantly, in the U.S., the middle class has been shrinking since about 1970, most wealth has ended up with those already affluent, and the ranks of the desperately poor has increased at the expense of the former middle class, regardless of race. Technological literacy has become the primary distinguishing factor of those who have managed to enter or remain in the American elite. People who do not have skills and education relevant to technology are at a distinct disadvantage. I don't say this as if it were a good thing, I say it with more than a little dismay.

American culture is notoriously individualistic and "self-reliant," which means among other things that we tend to blame the poor for being poor. This isn't just a result of "survival of the fittest" ideology, it is also consistent with the subset of Protestant mentality that professes "the Saved can take care of themselves."

The U.S. culture of independence and self-reliance has fueled the growth of economy and technology, at the expense of social connection and civic involvement, and this is probably a big part of what allows the increasing disparity of income among the haves and have-nots.

I've followed the arguments for American virtues all my life, and often used them myself, but I honestly think the evidence is overwhelming that they are also helping to generate an increasing number of alienated, poor, and excluded people.

Thank God for people like Monica who work to help include the excluded. It probably isn't enough, but I admire the effort.

kind regards,

Todd

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Re:Re The Problem You Refer to Is Pandemic, by , 12/06/03

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