Beyond Woke with Peter Boghossian

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Woke in Plain English: "Unhoused" or "Houseless"
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Woke in Plain English: "Unhoused" or "Houseless"

Nov 3, 2021
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Woke in Plain English: "Unhoused" or "Houseless"
boghossian.substack.com

Unhoused (or sometimes) Houseless. “Unhoused” means having no house. If you’re older, like me, you probably remember people living on the streets being referred to as “bums.” The word “bum” means these individuals don’t want to work, and thus they are living on the streets. The word “bum” was replaced with “homeless.” If someone is homeless, that’s description. A person without a home is homeless. There’s no judgment stating a person’s homeless; it’s a description and it leaves blame and choice out of the equation. The word “unhoused” has a different meaning. If someone is unhoused, that means the system is responsible for their living on the streets; the system caused them not to have housing. The prefix “-un” suggested something intentional changed in their circumstance, like “untied” or “unearthed.” It is helpful to compare these words. We have moved from “bum,” which means someone’s lack of housing is their fault (usually due to laziness) to “homeless,” which describes the condition of not having housing, to “unhoused,” which means the system is at fault for one’s lack of housing.

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Woke in Plain English: "Unhoused" or "Houseless"
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Socrates Thalassos
Writes Socrates Thalassos Writes Nov 3, 2021

when all the financial incentives are for owners to automate and now AI, send jobs overseas, pay as little as possible, while investing in real estate, meaning they can put a down payment on a building, charge as much as possible and have the tenants pay off the mortgage, who consequently will never be able to save enough money to own thenselves, then the system is the problem.

There will always be bums. There are also a large number of mentally ill people and a large number of damaged vets plus a large number of untechnical people who, if they could just make a few bucks pushing a broom or moving boxes and get a bed in a flophouse, would be still be able to maintain some semblance of a life.

Instead unrestrained capitalism with absolutely no morality has been allowed to destroy Society.

The system is the problem

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Socrates Thalassos
Writes Socrates Thalassos Writes Nov 3, 2021

when rents explode and wages stagnate it is the system's fault

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