I realized the other day about how much I’ve internalized the violence of capitalism. I was driving down the road and there was a man with a sign that said he was hungry and needed help and my first reflexive feeling was annoyance.
That’s insane, that’s monstrous, that made me stop.
Here is a human being, standing there just holding a sign and I’m annoyed, even angry at them. The system is set up so that there will be people that can’t be exploited by capital and that’s their lot, to stand on the side of the road begging for scraps.
You see it so frequently in capitalism that your choices are to be sad for them, be angry at them, or ignore them entirely.
Maybe I wasn’t annoyed or angry at that man, but at myself for hardening my heart to his plight, and at the system we are stuck in that put him there.
I realized the other day about how much I’ve internalized the violence of capitalism. I was driving down the road and there was a man with a sign that said he was hungry and needed help and my first reflexive feeling was annoyance.
That’s insane, that’s monstrous, that made me stop.
Here is a human being, standing there just holding a sign and I’m annoyed, even angry at them. The system is set up so that there will be people that can’t be exploited by capital and that’s their lot, to stand on the side of the road begging for scraps.
You see it so frequently in capitalism that your choices are to be sad for them, be angry at them, or ignore them entirely.
Maybe I wasn’t annoyed or angry at that man, but at myself for hardening my heart to his plight, and at the system we are stuck in that put him there.