{"id":1360,"date":"2003-11-20T10:38:34","date_gmt":"2003-11-20T14:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2003\/11\/20\/response-and-response\/"},"modified":"2003-11-20T10:38:34","modified_gmt":"2003-11-20T14:38:34","slug":"response-and-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2003\/11\/20\/response-and-response\/","title":{"rendered":"Response and response"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s a response from a friend regarding the NYT letter:<\/p>\n

Hey Nate,<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
Excuse me, BUT:<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
If you were being paid minimum wage (or heck, anything that was somewhere\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
between minimum wage and a living wage by any reasonable standard), were\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
fighting to hold onto any benefits (if you had any to begin with), were
\nmade <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
to feel lucky for having any “real” job (as opposed to the sub-minimum-wage\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
welfare-to-“work” type thing that is increasingly common), and didn’t have
\na <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
language for figuring out, or better yet, complaining about, why the
\nso-called <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
American dream is increasingly just that, a ridiculous fantasy, you might
\nnot <\/div>\n
\nfeel like your normal cheery self, either…\n<\/div>\n
\nAnd here’s what I wrote back to her:<\/p>\n
You’re right, and those are exactly some of the points that the
\narticle raises.<\/p>\n

BF and I talked about this last
\nnight, and the problem for me is that horrible old question: “What can I, as one
\nperson, do?”  And I don’t know.  Going to a store where they treat their
\nemployees better is one possible solution, but all it really does is make me
\nfeel better about myself.  Doesn’t help the wage
\nslaves.<\/p>\n

We’ve all been alienated by this state of
\naffairs.  I can’t do anything to help the workers, they can’t help themselves. 
\nAnd so I’m left to deal with the interpersonal interaction level.  But since my
\nencounter with the human worker feels pretty far away from interpersonal
\ninteraction (because, since the worker is a cog in the machine and has become
\nsome sort of machine, the interaction is pretty much about as one would have
\nwith a machine), I move to the more pleasant of the two nonpersonal
\ninteractions.<\/p>\n

But I don’t know what I as one
\nperson can do, and I guess that I’m just not optimistic about the line of
\nthinking that goes, “If enough people think and act like I do, then things will
\nchange.”  Perhaps it’s pessimism, but I don’t
\nknow….<\/p>\n

What would you do\/do you do?<\/p><\/div>\n

\n<\/div>\n

What do you do, dear readers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a response from a friend regarding the NYT letter: Hey Nate, Excuse me, BUT: If you were being paid minimum wage (or heck, anything that was somewhere between minimum wage and a living wage by any reasonable standard), were fighting to hold onto any benefits (if you had any to begin with), were made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-lW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}