Good Lord, Charles, you've always wanted to travel ..looks like you've finally gone 'round the twist. Is the junkie and dopers lifestyle what you'd be happy with for your kids?

Junkies have flaked on me, stolen from me, abandoned me, puked on my shoes, tried to drag me down to their level, almost gotten me fired from my job, tricked me into being an accomplice to felonies, broken my heart, and died on me. I've squandered too much empathy on junkies in my lifetime and I don't have anything left for them but disgust. Don't be a junkie.

I'm shocked at the lack of existential empathy publications like The Stranger have for median income people who want to find affordable and comfortable housing near their places of work in the downtown core.

Perhaps the two junkies engaged in a Sunday afternoon skull-fucking as I walked my dog through Kobe Terrace Park last year really do have it all figured out. Perhaps all the elderly Chinese residents of the ID who witnessed it in utter disgust should've thought twice about "hating" on'em.

Imagine the utopia we'd have if we all just shot up drugs and traded skull fuckings for drugs. We might not have any government revenue or, say, TP to wipe our asses with, but at least we wouldn't be turning circus tricks as 9-5 job-holding drones.

So in order to be a truly coconscious human being - those of us whom are successful and happy at what we do for a living must be less so in order to give deference to the down-and-out?

Good news, Charles: The sad dream of the working schmucks to save up to buy a home is failing. Your celebrated laissez faire lifestyle of living on the streets sleeping in puddles of shit and stealing to buy drugs is now much more realistic.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/harvar…

Charles, please let me know which pot shop you bought the strain you smoked before writing this article. Because if it can turn the sight of people blackout drunk or shooting up (and leaving needles behind as little bio-hazardous gifts) into a vision of a semi-desirable lifestyle, then it MUST be the premier pot strain.

The wisdom of junkies and "all that is solid melts into air?" Are you fucking kidding me?! How many of those people living on the streets have a good relationship with their families? How many are on the street because their lives were full of the types of soul crushing misery from childhood abuse (physical and sexual)? How many ended up there because they squandered the assets they had and threw away the potential to be an artist, a teacher, a musician, any career choice that you think is better than taking "soulless job." What is there to envy about a lifestyle that will destroy your health and leave you dead decades before you would otherwise have died?

My work is soulless from your point of view - I gather information for doctors from my little office cubicle. Nothing but staring at databases, spreadsheets, and reports. Of course, the information I gather helps doctors track their effectiveness in checking for heart defects in newborn infants, some of which can be treated. I challenge you to find greater contribution in a thousand lives spent in the wisdom of "all that is solid melts into air."

Finally, take a look at an artists accomplishment of producing this documentary about a household of addicts. Let me know what wisdom you see in their lives.

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Metal-Veins-…

Good post, Charles.

the Utility of Uselessness! nice work Charles.

When America cast off the chains of the British they seized freedom from religious and financial persecution. Now, we have become the oppressors; heavily taxing and frequently imprisoning fellow citizens for victim-less behavior deemed "immoral" by a religion they don't even follow. Unfortunately, there's nowhere left to run now; no new country to form. Our only choice is whether this type of persecution is right, and if it's how we would have ourselves be treated.

The only difference between empathy and fear is understanding.

I like the post too. If you can't empathize with these folks, that's your loss, and our loss as a society.

I guess living close to the void is fine and dandy if it doesn't come at such a high cost for everybody else. First, it's an expensive habit to maintain. Between the numbing mindlessness comes the crash where you eat, poo, drink, do various things to get the cash to buy the fix. Next, and I see plenty of this, is what happens when things don't go quite right. There you are body ethereal laid out, intubated, narcaned, and on a versed drip in an ER or ICU bed cared for by mindful drones like me (you know characterless, uncool people who are being squeezed out of this dense city because we can't work any harder because we need to sleep, eat, read to our kids, volunteer at the local food bank, commute to work, feed the cat, pay our ever increasing taxes and lol, read your stuff).

Me like Bizarro Charles logic. He am big time double plus good thinker. Me think we need more stories like this. This am Bizarro Charles best story ever.

#s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7- i don't see any of the points you're arguing against being made in the article. The wonderful awesome article shows once again that seattle is great, and so much art that comes out of this city inspires me. 💖

I empathize with junkies the way I empathize with racists, in that I'm 100% behind getting them the help they need to overcome their issues or at least reduce the harm they cause themselves and others. I recognize that the situation they find themselves in is often not entirely of their own making. I will not stop judging their antisocial actions, even as I oppose retributive criminalization.

What @2 said, don't be a junkie.

Great thinking, Charles. When I see people wasting time, they're probably making up for a lot of my sins. Being hyper productive and successful under capitalism actually isn't all that good for humanity or its relation to nature. When I see ills associated with poverty, drug addition or homelessness I think about how these are not natural conditions but rather caused. I also take a moment to consider what my surplus producing job does to this world, jetting about from country to country in the name of profit. Who is the bad guy in society here, I'm not sure.

Ah, Seattle. The city that screamed at a suicidal person to kill herself because their commute was spoiled now wishes the homeless to cease to exist. How surprising.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/C…

...and being utterly useless to employers...

At least you have that piece nailed, Charles.

@0, I think all rational people want the homeless to cease to exist. Doesn't everybody wish to end homelessness for all? Is not turning the homeless into the homed a worthy ideal to strive for?

@17, your number changed. My apologies.

Good lord. Mudede manages to come across as even more mean-spirited and nasty than the asshole white wrote the crap article in the first place.

@19 Rational people want *homelessness* to cease to exist. NIMBY's want homeless people to wink out of existence. And it's not really the "homeless" part that bothers them, you could give them a home in the form of a rent-free apartment and the NIMBY's would fight tooth and nail to make sure that it wasn't anywhere near where they live, because they hate the unlucky/unsuccessful poor.

@17: I wish the homeless ceased to exist, because then they'd be the housed.

frustration is a normal emotion for a lot of animals, particularly the great apes.

@14, Charles is romanticizing the lifestyle of being homeless and struggling with addiction. When he says we miss "the virtue of checking out of society and being utterly useless to employers and the whole market order" he is confusing a conscious choice to abstain or remove oneself from society with self-destructive behavior that devours virtually every positive aspect of a person's life, and frequently life itself. It is like saying that an agoraphobic person never leaving their house is equivalent to a monk that chooses self imposed isolation.

@19: I owe you a coke.

@24, when I saw the skull-fucking junkies in Kobe Terrace Park I didn't "hate on them" for being unlucky/unsuccessful poor, I "hated on them" for skull-fucking in Kobe Terrace Park.

The other lovely job I get is treating STDs. Never mind rape kits, debriding and irrigating infected wounds. You know how painful it is -despite the amazing pain meds I can give you- to pack dressing to a wound big enough to stick your foot in from an old infected IV site. Should I even mention hepatitis, MRSA and all the uber antibiotic resistant bugs out there? More stuff for true artists to illustrate this euphoric nirvana in jarring colors on canvas while listening to Marianne Faithful crooning sister morphine. Makes it's all so romantic, angsty, and edgy.

The very very, very worse part of all this is telling your nearest and dearest afterward and watching them break down in pain.

Aren't there enough advocates for the homeless/junkies in Seattle to each take one person from the streets into their homes until said person got off drugs and back on their feet? I'm sure many of you would jump at the chance.

choices, choices

what has a drunkie done for you lately?

I won't hate on Mudede for writing this, because I get it. I'm retired, and so no longer am I performing tricks and I am not particularly useful, either. I bought my freedom the hard way, by showing up for work on time, pleasing my bosses, earning my pay, settling my bills, and even splurging a little on the side...and due to more than a little bit of good luck. But I never assumed that it was all "supported by the ground." I've been close to homelessness, and have worked low wage jobs, and I know what it is like to not know how I am going to pay the rent. It has not gotten any easier since, but I couldn't imagine choosing drugs over a rent payment- but I also know that at some point, for some people, there is no longer a choice. What I want from the City isn't more parking (what kid of bullshit entitlement is that anyway?), but a safe place for homeless, alcoholics, mentally ill and addicts to sleep at night, that isn't under a freeway, or in an overcrowded jail, and where they can get what they need. If I don't want them to crap in my yard, or leave their needles on the street, it doesn't mean I lack empathy. It means I want the City (and the State) to do the job I pay them to do- which is to manage our common problems.

@28 Right, because as soon as they stopped "skull fucking" you empathized with their plight. Hate the sin, not the sinner, got it.

I'm with 14 16 17 32 etc. This is a great piece by charles. People seem to think that every internet article is a policy proposal (if only indirectly) and never consider thinking along the lines of Baudelaire and just fucking letting their mind wander openly about a topic.

"You should feel bad for being successful or in any way well-adjusted! Everything ugly is actually beautiful you unenlightened bigot! Drunks and street junkies are like the salt of the earth maaaaaaaan. They're so, like, AUTHENTIC!"

This is your brain on liberalism.

@33, I have a strict one strike policy when it comes to skull-fucking in public.

@34, that's a good way to put it. There's a lot of value in this kind of discourse, it's just not black and white like people tend to like or expect (especially online)

I loved this. Thanks, Charles.

To spell it out: what's awful about this piece isn't that it fails to offer a workable policy proposal. It's awfulness stems from

a) correctly diagnosing a lamentable and condemnable lack of empathy on the part of the crosscut author, and then immediately and completely failing to treat that author with any empathy at all. We're all worthy of empathy, drug addicts and frustrated rules followers dealing with confusing and unwanted change alike.

b) creating a dichotomy that virtually everyone in this thread has embraced regarding our treatment of the homeless/mentally ill/addicted other--either we're romanticizing them or we're dehumanizing them. It's needlessly Manichean, and it's obviously going to be very bad for those people, because (as Charles knows) most people will choose the latter. That gives people like Charles and similar dreamy philosopher types an opportunity to feel morally superior, but it does fuck-all for those people.

There's also the out-of-context abuse of Marx's finest moment of social commentary, but that's so common I'll let it pass.

I most appreciate what @39 has said. Thanks.

Dogs, however, and birds, are beyond redemption in Mudede's woldview ... even though most of them don't have jobs either.

I'm dense today. At first, reading this, I thought Charles was penning a satire. But then the urban planning commentary peeked through and that befuddled me.

Mind wondering with Baudelaire or Rand in college dorm is fine. But there's a trend here on SLOG. It's becoming less gray, more black and white.

I don't usually read crosscut, but I went there. This guy wrote about what he sees living on the Palatine hill and is all for density and caring for homelessness and addicts in proper housing and programs instead of leaving them in his and your doorway. For this crime, he's made to be some uptight, unsympathetic twit.

If this piece was just about how addiction epitomize existential living, fine I guess if that's how you want to be the armchair philosopher king. But somehow Charles turns that Crosscut piece into an existential bit wrapped in awesome, free and be free lifestyle of addicts vs. anti density, anti bus, anti parking, anti walking, anti bike nimbyist. This is where it lost me. Is this another arrow aimed at those who disagree with current growth planning, a la HALA or Ballardites against tent city? Is wanting something better than tent city for homelessness and addicts is now a commentary about existentialism and lack of empathy? I don't like the use of addiction to score points here.

I'm dense today. At first, reading this, I thought Charles was penning a satire. But then the urban planning commentary peeked through and that befuddled me.

Mind wondering with Baudelaire or Rand in college dorm is fine. But there's a trend here on SLOG. It's becoming less gray, more black and white.

I don't usually read crosscut, but I went there. This guy wrote about what he sees living on the Palatine hill and is all for density and caring for homelessness and addicts in proper housing and programs instead of leaving them in his and your doorway. For this crime, he's made to be some uptight, unsympathetic twit.

If this piece was just about how addiction epitomize existential living, fine I guess if that's how you want to be the armchair philosopher king. But somehow Charles turns that Crosscut piece into an existential bit wrapped in awesome, free and be free lifestyle of addicts vs. anti density, anti bus, anti parking, anti walking, anti bike nimbyist. This is where it lost me. Is this another arrow aimed at those who disagree with current growth planning, a la HALA or Ballardites against tent city? Is wanting something better than tent city for homelessness and addicts is now a commentary about existentialism and lack of empathy? I don't like the use of addiction to score points here.

I actually liked this article quite a lot (and I usually despise Mudede's writing), but I also appreciate your points, @39. In a way, indigence and intoxication is as arbitrary and self-deceiving as buying into the sham of capital and accomplishment. I thinkost of us try to split the difference, to extend those times during which we feel pleasure and contentment, embrace pain and stare into the abyss asuch as we can manage without falling in, and trying to find work (and play) that is as meaningful and balanced as possible. It's probably pointless, but if we're gonna push that boulder up the hill anyway, we may as well invent a purpose.

Also ... While I did enjoy this article, and think it's indicative of a sad (and deadly dull) trend in our culture that waxing Baudelairian (and, one imagines, everything else interesting) is thought best consigned to the dorm room, can we generally agree that comparing anything by Charles Mudede to Baudelaire is a bit like comparing any Michael Bay film to Andrei Tarkovsky?

@32: I do believe you win Humanity.

People should take pride in the non-evil effort they make to get by or better, but there is an unfortunate need in many to find people to be better-than (hereafter 'the preterite') , and then to consider the walls between themselves and the preterite to be definite and adamantine, the better to feel that their state were entirely earned or otherwise deserved, and secure. That is to say that they need to believe that they 're good people and that being at the bottom only happens to bad people, so they don't have to worry about that.

And nothing separates better than callous fear, hate, and disgust; kinship implies a possible common fate.

@30 maybe take in a foster kid and prevent some problems down the road?

What, not sarcastically bitter enough for you?

Great Scott!

Both articles are written from a safe vantage point. "Mean people suck" in 500 words too many. Take a risk and share a cig with a junkie in exchange for specific gems of wisdom, some insight on the horror which drove them to self-medicate. Interview a Glick and record his "real solutions." Bet those will be heartwarming. If you are going to shame the new common man of Seattle, then do it like a boss lest you be mistaken for another stoned old clucking-tongued gentry.

All right. Mudede is clearly a conservative spy at the Stranger. Marxist loony who will watch his neighbors house burglarized while sipping tea? Nutcase who thinks the nonproductive are the real movers and shakers in society, and should be given a free ride in life? Himself racist who sees racism in others where it simply doesn't exist? And now admirer of broken men and women destroying their lives and breaking the hearts of those who love them with substance abuse?

Nah. His cover slipped this time. Satire requires a more delicate touch. He suffers the Stranger writers (or is intensely amused by their immature half baked ideas) so he can make them and other lefties look bad with his bizarre writing. He parodies lefty though generally with these weird little exercises in navel gazing. He and any thinking person knows socialist bs to be muddled, adolescent, ill conceived, and proven entirely wrong by history- so he slams leftist lunacy by pretending to be one of them.

Nice job, Chuck. I salute you.

Well, I think I can certainly say that this was a really weird article. The best I could take away from this is that we should observe homelessness people like we would wildebeasts in nature - from a distance and look upon them with awe and pity that they cannot or will not cast off their homeless nature to join us normal folk. Or we're supposed to respect them for NOT doing that. Or something? Fuck, what is the purpose of this article? To let us feel bad for people who are downtrodden? Well, 99% of people feel that way; only the sociopaths truly hate downtrodden folk. Now, if only the city funded their homeless shelters and drug treatment centers effectively so that people could get off the streets and put their lives back together.

Charles, NO homeless person or addict wants to be homeless or addicted. Respecting their closeness to the void is the biggest pile of tripe to ever spew forth from the hole underneath their nose. Observing their closeness to the void is, really, a classic "seattle freeze" mentality for homelessness. Let's not DO anything, let's just talk about it and feel good about ourselves for thinking about something so hard! WAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!. Solutions are tough, but bitching and moaning is super easy.

Good Evening Charles,
I didn't read Glickstein's article so I won't criticize or endorse him. I reside in the city and am quite use to its perks & warts. However, I did read your post 2X. "Existential empathy"? Interesting term.

The inner humanist in yours truly does have empathy for all. I can appreciate someone's plight and release. I pretty much have seen it all. Sure, drunks or addicts can act weird and usually benignly. But once they accost or destroy, all empathy (existential or not) is lost at least for the moment. I don't care whether it is a stranger, acquaintance, family member or friend. I can choose not to love, not to be humanistic or even hate because of an action or series of.

Look, I've been accosted recently. I didn't go bonkers. But, I was quite irritated. The fellow who happened to be quite large, tall and Native-American was relentless. I could barely understand what he wanted. I was merely waiting for my bus home. It was broad daylight and I had just finished swimming at my health club. Positively nothing warranted his uncivilized behavior towards me. Only time, another commuter and the eventual arrival of the bus stopped stopped this hassle.

No Charles, I had no empathy for him. And it isn't embarrassing. It's "water under the bridge" now. But how would another human in my stead act? Even you? I don't think vandalism, assault etc. warrants "existential empathy". That's not part of the deal with my pact with my fellow humans.