And were you unwise and smelly, unclear of eye and assisted by chemicals? Maybe you were, but “the preponderance” is not the same as “only in comics (are they otherwise)”. I led with “over-generalization” for that reason, which I see as demonization.
Frankly, given that a substantial proportion of the homeless are mentally ill to a greater or lesser degree, “freedom from chemical assistance” isn’t necessarily a good thing; if you can function while taking your meds, you can cease functioning quickly if you go off them, and once you’ve started downwards it’s hard to reverse. (I’ve been there too, but caught it in time.) Substance abuse can lead to mental illness, but mental illness can also lead to substance abuse (“self-medication”). Both can lead to poverty, but poverty can easily be fallen into without either, as well. (Likewise, many of the middling-to-wealthy are no more sane or chemically free than the homeless, especially considering that alcohol is the most-abused and most-destructive drug out there.) It’s been said that all too many of us are no more than two (or even one) paychecks away from homelessness, and many of the homeless simply are not capable of holding down a job, and to paint them with the broadbrush of “filthy, lazy, insane and addicted” is to cease to see them as human beings. To accordingly write them off is to risk losing one’s own humanity.
And were you unwise and smelly, unclear of eye and assisted by chemicals? Maybe you were, but “the preponderance” is not the same as “only in comics (are they otherwise)”. I led with “over-generalization” for that reason, which I see as demonization.
Frankly, given that a substantial proportion of the homeless are mentally ill to a greater or lesser degree, “freedom from chemical assistance” isn’t necessarily a good thing; if you can function while taking your meds, you can cease functioning quickly if you go off them, and once you’ve started downwards it’s hard to reverse. (I’ve been there too, but caught it in time.) Substance abuse can lead to mental illness, but mental illness can also lead to substance abuse (“self-medication”). Both can lead to poverty, but poverty can easily be fallen into without either, as well. (Likewise, many of the middling-to-wealthy are no more sane or chemically free than the homeless, especially considering that alcohol is the most-abused and most-destructive drug out there.) It’s been said that all too many of us are no more than two (or even one) paychecks away from homelessness, and many of the homeless simply are not capable of holding down a job, and to paint them with the broadbrush of “filthy, lazy, insane and addicted” is to cease to see them as human beings. To accordingly write them off is to risk losing one’s own humanity.