Comments on: Blueberry solar panels, and blue urine http://www.mikegerber.com/2006/12/14/blueberry-solar-panels-and-blue-urine/ Check out new content at Yalerecord.com Sun, 03 Jul 2011 06:47:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: Chris http://www.mikegerber.com/2006/12/14/blueberry-solar-panels-and-blue-urine/comment-page-1/#comment-20 Chris Sat, 16 Dec 2006 14:33:00 +0000 http://www.mikegerber.com/wordpress/?p=730#comment-20 Oddly enough, I've just been learning about the attitude prevalent amongst the Victorian upper and middle classes that self-help was the way out of poverty - improve your lifestyle and your moral character and you'll get yourself out of this mess that you've been inflicting on yourself. Then some slightly more sensible people like Dickens, Booth and Rowntree came along, the latter two showing that, statistically, the upper and middle classes needed to remove their heads from their arses.<br /><br />Not quite the same thing you're talking about, I know, because poverty is a social condition rather than an actual inherent way of being, but I remember most of my history class being pretty dumbfounded that such an attitude <em>was</em> prevalent. Yet, we still get that kind of thing today. And not just among the old-school British. I could probably name more than a few religious institutions around the world, for example, who have exactly that kind of attitude towards homosexuality.<br /><br />(Nice to see the blog working again, by the way. I promise I don't usually try to be this academic.) Oddly enough, I've just been learning about the attitude prevalent amongst the Victorian upper and middle classes that self-help was the way out of poverty – improve your lifestyle and your moral character and you'll get yourself out of this mess that you've been inflicting on yourself. Then some slightly more sensible people like Dickens, Booth and Rowntree came along, the latter two showing that, statistically, the upper and middle classes needed to remove their heads from their arses.

Not quite the same thing you're talking about, I know, because poverty is a social condition rather than an actual inherent way of being, but I remember most of my history class being pretty dumbfounded that such an attitude was prevalent. Yet, we still get that kind of thing today. And not just among the old-school British. I could probably name more than a few religious institutions around the world, for example, who have exactly that kind of attitude towards homosexuality.

(Nice to see the blog working again, by the way. I promise I don't usually try to be this academic.)

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