Instead of the obvious empirical fact that the homeless don't have reliable shelter (whatever this means), isn't the condition better characterized as a person who has no world, who is never at-home no matter the language or language-game.
This characterization would help the cases where we do not feel the same degree of pity for a homeless person who nonetheless has a world, has an assortment of friends, activities, &c.
2007-02-10 05:54:34 · 5 answers · asked by -.- 3 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
I'd be a greater fool to side with political correctness, which oddly enough isn't PC.
I don't ultimately care about particular homeless people. I just want to know in what respect do they lack a home. What is the phenomenon? Not: let's classify people this way to change power structures.
On this view, the mentally ill could have a meaningful life, have no shelter, and not be homeless. Of course homelessness would then be a mental illness of a sort, but the arrow doesn't go both ways. And the conditions for this illness would just be a large degree of alienation or near-total despair.
So while mental illness might explain why a person behaves badly, which then leads to the fact of unreliable shelter, ontology explains homelessness in an essential way -- since someone can easily have a mental illness and have reliable shelter, but someone without a world is lost no matter where they are.
2007-02-10 06:28:23 · update #1
Well it doesn't stop me from having sympathy for them but I have heard that many homeless people, in a sense, become accustomed to their circumstances, to the point that they no longer want a home. Whatever situation brought them to that point (loss of job, shelter, love, a breakdown, alcohol etc) they get used to being outside & begin to feel claustrophobic inside so that even if you were to offer them a place to stay, they will leave. If you give them money, they will spend it on alcohol rather than food etc. They abandon the "normal world" out of necessity & become part of an alternate universe which has no way out because they have given up & are no longer interested in a normal life.
If a person didn't have a house, but enjoyed a gypsy life travelling with friends & making a way as they could, they may not be considered "homeless". Someone living in a mansion that didn't feel like a home, someone living in misery without love may feel "homeless" if they had lost everyone close to them & never felt safe or feel that they belonged anywhere.
Maybe home isn't just a shelter. Maybe it is a state of being. A life. A feeling of belonging & happiness. A feeling that you have a place in the world & have found it. Some people never have this. On the surface they may appear successful but they may be tortured inside.
The homeless people on the street were overcome by problems that they could not find solutions for. Some of them will fight adversity, overcome obstacles & get back on their feet. Others have dropped out of the race, given up. They no longer have an interest in being part of ordinary society.
2007-02-10 06:12:21 · answer #1 · answered by amp 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, I do not think so. I know that there are people (educated, industrious and very smart) who are homeless in the USA simply because they refused to be dehumanized. I know that in the USA having and keeping a decent job has nothing whatsoever to do with one's skills, education or abilities. All that is needed is for one to be a yes-yes person!
Although homelessness is a terrible state to find one's self in (especially if one is in one's own nation/country), homelessness can actually become a state of mind - such as in one not having the resources (regardless of causes of financial hardship) and therefore giving up completely in life. However, I know that one can be homeless and, yet, not be homeless: You know, as in not having the necessary financial resources, yet seek out and make good use of whatever available resources there is, while doing one's best and hoping for a financial turn around.
Whenever I see a homeless person, my immediate question is why did the person become homeless? Was the person productive at one in his or her life? Then what happened? Or where are his or her the relatives?
2007-02-10 14:51:56 · answer #2 · answered by itoothink 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
your question only leads us to ask what is home .when i camp seeing my tent over the hill after a hard day hiking feels like coming home .home is were you hang your hat .as for the word homeless it is a nice why of saying bum
2007-02-10 14:05:36 · answer #3 · answered by henryredwons 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
what i think you describe her is a mentally ill homeless person
2007-02-10 14:02:41 · answer #4 · answered by Nora 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I am not homeless, I'm residentially challenged.
And you are a fool.
2007-02-10 14:02:40 · answer #5 · answered by wildbill05733 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋