My Homies

“And He had compassion upon the multitude, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”

The next neighborhood to mine down the “T” (trolley) line is at least one or two steps down the socioeconomic totem pole from where I live. In addition, unlike my borough, it’s officially part of the City of Pittsburgh, which entitles it to all the, ahem, “benefits” of short-sightedness, mismanagement, high taxes, declining tax base, high dependency (on government programs) rates, the illegal drug trade, dysfunctional social programs, and subsidies (to big business, unions, and professional athletics, rather than to ordinary people and small business). And, of course, it, like all other neighborhoods in this area, was originally founded with a strong tone of optimism, hard work, “progress”, “growth”, and all of that. Blighted areas didn’t start out that way, appearances notwithstanding – with the possible exception of the “housing projects” built by the government to warehouse the poor until someone came up with a better idea (like free abortions, for example). In truth, every one of these businesses – business buildings, since most of them are vacant – was once the expression of someone’s dream of prosperity, of “making it”. And every one of these houses was once the expression of someone’s actually having made it – at least to the extent of home ownership. So in this sense, the neighborhood represents the fabled American Dream – on the modest level of the white ethnics who represented the bulk of the city’s growth over the years of prosperity, when steel, glass, coal, and railroads were king. And I daresay that the descendents of the people who built those homes are, by and large, not to be found in that neighborhood any longer – they are probably far afield, out in the suburbs or perhaps out of the area altogether. So the homeowners of today are, by and large, those who bought in when the neighborhood was starting its decline, the main attractions being location and affordability, which are nothing to sneeze at in any large urban environment.

But the neighborhood now is… well, when you get off the main drag it’s a pleasant enough place, although occasionally one comes upon a relic of the glory days – like a huge community pool that has been abandoned for years… or a now-vacant parochial school. The main drag, however, such as it is, could be the main drag of any one of thousands of “marginal”, “transitional”, or “blighted” areas across the U.S. It’s scruffy… littered… and the few storefronts that remain open are uniformly depressing. Occasionally a new business starts up – or is attempted. But typically, they get one nostril above the water and then sink, never to be seen again. If you want to talk about economic “critical mass”, it just isn’t there.

And then there are the people. On my short walk today, which included a stop at the grocery store, I encountered:

· A mixed gaggle of black and white school kids debating as to which sugar-laden treats in the “freezer section” were worth buying;
· A retarded woman being scolded by her mother for who knows what offense in the checkout line;
· A clerk restocking the dairy section who looked like a miniature, inflatable version of Pancho Villa;
· A hollow-eyed gangly man (Vietnam vet?) staggering down the street like one of the zombies from “Night of the Living Dead”;
· A teen-aged girl vomiting in the middle of the sidewalk with the assistance of a friend;
· A guy with steely-blue “high plains” eyes, like Jack Palance in “Shane”, walking along with his wife, both dressed in Steelers gear;
· A school crossing guard who looked like a waitress at the Hofbrau Haus in Munich;
· A little old lady who left the store empty handed, apparently having found nothing to her liking.

A somewhat depressing landscape, you’ll agree – not because of any obvious human tragedies, but because of the hopeless inanity of it all. And I don’t mean to represent these people as the wretched of the earth – not by any means. They all had a place to spend the night… they were not starving (although it could be argued that they were “malnourished” in the qualitative, if not the quantitative sense – but that would be true of most Americans anywhere)… they all had places to go, people to see, things to do. They were not “down and out”, in other words. But their perspectives – their horizons – are severely limited, both by their own choosing and by the environment they find themselves in (whether they were brought up there or not). Their besetting sin – or affliction, to use a more neutral term – is ignorance. And to this must be added: Ignorance as to how ignorant they are, i.e. a kind of empty-headed complacency piled on apathy. “I don’t care, but it’s all right, because there’s nothing to care about anyway.” Call it intellectual nihilism without having to go through the “intellectual” stage. And I’m sure that behind every set of dull, unfocused eyes there is a story, which would tell us how that person got that way, and how they happened to wind up in that neighborhood where so many other people are that way.

Now, am I trying to say that ignorance per se is a sin? That seems a bit harsh. I would rather say that, at some point in their lives, each of these people experienced a wave of despair – perhaps a dramatic one, enough to cause an episode of clinical depression, or perhaps something subliminal – and that was enough to cause them to basically give up on the search for meaning – not only of their own life but of life in general. And once that decision is made, the rest is just one plodding step after the other. The body refuses to die – at least not all at once. So they have to keep getting up each morning and going about their duties, in an attempt to at least minimize their pain and discomfort level, while at the same time seeking out, from the vast array on offer, narcotics (TV, cars, clothes, recreational sex, alcohol, drugs, etc.) that will ease the existential pain.

And yet, on this same street are found, in front yards and windows, campaign posters for the presidential as well as local elections. But how many of these people can, or will, raise their sights enough, even for a moment, to try to comprehend what these campaigns are about? Because to do that, they would have to grapple with principles, and concepts, and ideas, and all those things that are simply not found in their everyday existence. And to be an “informed voter” also involves having a sense of history, and a grasp of elementary economics, and world affairs – and how many, if any, can claim that? So when, or rather if, they do vote next month, on what basis will they be voting? I wish I knew. Actually, maybe I’m glad I don’t. Not that I expect every American citizen to become a political “wonk”, but our system was designed on the premise of a certain minimum level of information and judgment – wisdom, even – on the part of the citizenry. But what we have here is people groping about in the ruins, and only occasionally going through the motions of voting in what is, arguably, a post-democratic system, thus adding to the farce and the folly.

But – you might ask – what, then, should be done with, or for, these people? If society “made” them that way, can society also turn around and improve their lot? Well, if by “society” you mean “government programs”, I agree that those had a lot to do – the lion’s share, I would say – with how these people got to be the way they are, and with their image of themselves, and of the larger society in which they operate. But can a government program fix what it caused? I have yet to see an example. And to begin with, one can only do so much to alleviate the effects of ignorance; a real cure would have to start in the cradle (or at the pre-natal stage, if we’re talking about nutrition). And no matter how successful we might be, there will always be people whose self-actualization skills are meager to nonexistent. Christ said “the poor will always be with you”, but He might just as well have said “the ignorant will always be with you”. The Church has ever had compassion for the “sheep” of this world – which it, frankly, considered the overwhelming majority – and has, traditionally, made provisions to care for, catechize, and assist when needed. Much of this, however, has been co-opted and overshadowed by the exertions of secular utopian “planners” and government bureaucrats, so that the Church, while at one time the fountainhead of charity, has become, as often as not, a voice crying in the wilderness for true charity, not the ersatz kind doled out by collectivist regimes. And what the people I’m talking about need more than anything is not so much corporal mercy as spiritual charity and moral assistance – and yet those are the last things they’re ever going to get from the government. So their lives are simple and unthinking – not sinful for those reasons – but also despairing, to a greater or lesser extent, and this is a fault that can be marked down not only to the individual (who may have perfectly good “reasons” for feeling the way they do) but to the system, or the society, that has in turn been shaped, overwhelmingly, for the past few generations by the forces of secularism, materialism, and socialism. To make things worse, in a society whose primary measure of value is wealth, or “stuff”, these people are painfully aware that they count among the “poor”, the impoverished, the underprivileged, the “losers”. Never mind that their standard of living would be the envy of 99% of the residents of Calcutta. We’re talking subjective attitudes and memes here, not objective reality.

So to turn the situation around, what is needed is, first, a spiritual revival, followed by a readjustment of values and priorities (and that may be forced on us, whether we like it or not, by the current economic crisis). At some point, a redefining of the purpose of life and of human worth would be a good thing – there is nothing inherently non-respectable about these people’s lives – what one sees in their faces and in their postures is not abject failure but simply a lack of joy.