Re: if you could tell a local school board member something

["drdanj@earthlink.net" <drdanj@EARTHLINK.NET>]

>In other words, what
works for Joe may not work for Dan.  I suspect Dan is misreading Joe by
viewing Joe's world and work through some rather slanted feelings of his
own.

I am viewing the words through the lens of not blaming the victim. (And
I am not talking about victimization here, which is another issue.)

The whole notion of "If I can, you can" denies the reality of the other
person's life. It sets up a situation in which conditions and context do
not matter. It says directly that if I can you can and therefore if you
can't something is wrong with you. It totally ignores that situations
can be even worse than the ones I (or my forebears) experienced. It
totallt denies social responsibility for creating good conditions. It is
the same "Go West Young Man" nonsense that says only the individual
matters, not the group, not the social context.

If I could do it and so therefore so can you is the only reality, then
society is free to degrade and opporess people all it wants, because
society has no responsibility if success or failure are only in the
hands of the individual.

Context matters, anyone who denies it is harming peole whose context is
opporessive.

Peace

Dan

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