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The more you need help, the less likely society is to be willing to help you. (www.youtube.com)

submitted 1 day ago by DisabledAceSocialist@lemmygrad.ml to c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml

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I can't find a link for it but I remember an article where they got a dishevelled, homeless looking man to go into restaurants and ask for leftover food. He was rudely turned away every time. Then they got a man dressed in a smart, expensive business suit to go into the same restaurants and ask for free food (saying he'd lost his job/forgotten his credit card or whatever). He was treated politely and given free food every time.

The link above is to a youtube video, in which an able bodied woman asks for help zipping up her dress and people help her. But when a disabled woman asks for help doing up her buttons, people refuse.

You see the same thing with millionaire celebrities being given free things while poor people are refused the basics of life.

Why is human society like this?

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[–] amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 1 day ago

In modern class-stratified societies, I don't think the socializing has changed all that much from full-on monarchies. People get told that the wealthy (who are kinda like royals) are providing value and that the poor are leeching, even though that's complete bullshit.

Someone can be poor and still have this internalized sense of elitism, where they crave to climb the ladder (or I spose just want the material benefits from being higher on it). From there, well, if you befriend someone who appears to be higher on the ladder, they might bring you into their circles and get you higher in status. But if you befriend the lowest on the ladder, the rich might think you're like those low status people and not want to have anything to do with you.

I don't think most people are consciously thinking of it like this and would probably be grossed out if they made it that conscious, cause it's a pretty gross way to think about people, as nothing more than transactional benefit and loss on a social ladder. But I think there's some of this going on unconsciously. And it occurs to me while writing this, the nebulous and fleeting "middle class" conception may come in some part from people who are working class trying hard to pose as rich with the goal of becoming rich for real. Though again, I don't think they necessarily realize this is what they're doing and so they just become poorer by spending beyond their means (get into debt, etc.).