Giving a shit about recycling is mentally taxing. One of the worst parts of being poor is the mental strain of uncertainty inherent in your life which makes long-term planning and delaying gratification increasingly difficult. Any ounce of willpower you have needs to be spent maintaining or improving your situation, not used up doing things that have literally no impact on your life.
This is why veganism is typically seen by poor people as an extravagant virtue signal of wealthy people. Poor people may choose to eat fewer animal products because they are expensive - but few would turn down a free well cooked steak. Caring about animal rights or the environment is something only the wealthy have the mental bandwidth to do - telling a poor person that they should do these things only serves to alienate them.
cabinet_sanchez@midwest.social 1 week ago
I’ve been pretty poor - I was just reviewing my social security statement and I made less than $15k two years in a row. I’ve been the overemployed kind of poor (working multiple jobs) and the underemployed kind (out of work). I’ve been a vegetarian throughout, and I’ve always managed to put my recycling into a bin.
I also have ADHD, and there are times when I get overwhelmed and do have to compromise my morals on something like throwing stuff away instead of donating to get through a move when I don’t have the bandwidth.
But those are stories about me, not generalizations about everyone who is poor or everyone with ADHD. If you want to talk about your own struggles, that’s great, we’ll listen. But you don’t get to generalize about everyone else you have decided must be just like you. Being poor sucks, but if you are bound and determined to wallow and to bring everyone else down with you, that’s on you. These generalizations are not making some kind of classist point you think they are.