Criticism and Self-criticism

Sometimes I feel that what we criticize in the world is actually something we hate about ourselves, but that it's so deep inside we cannot manage to get rid of. So we keep fighting it externally as a means to become better people, all that unconsciously. I've just got this insight today about something I've hated for very long: Brazilian upper-middle class habit of solving collective problems individually.

For example, public education was good when my mother was a student. But for political reasons I don't wanna discuss right now, public schools didn't get the funding they needed, and in about 20 years, these state schools became low quality. Private school market flourished with the money from middle and high class families who could afford paying for their children to get good basic education.

Anyways, this was always something I've hated. Using the games theory approach, it was an individually sound decision to switch to private when things got sauer. But in the end it actually turned out destroying public schools which had taken many years to be established as quality education institutions in the first place. And when the good public schools were actually gone, middle class people became hostages from the private school market, forced to spending and increasing share of their income to provide their precious offspring with something they used to have as a social right.

And while I was not aware of the impact rehabilitation had in every single life decision I've made, in the end I have done a similar thing for most of my life. I've bet on my own means to beat the social mechanisms that exclude disabled people in different degrees, depending on how well these people can adapt to a world that's willing to change very little to grant them the right of full participation in life.

Similarly to what has happened with the upper middle class folks,  my solution of choice has proven to be a bad one, both socially and individually. At the individual level, I've managed to offset part of the nasty effects of exclusion by investing full throttle in rehabilitation, not minding the others whose physical conditions would make that harder or truly impossible (or even recognizing their existence or importance in any way).

So at first one can say I did well on that dimension, while letting others that shared a great deal of the pain I've faced to struggle alone. On the other hand, like what happened to the upper middle class people education example, I've also eventually ended up with a very unstable an suboptimal solution, even individually. That is, denying my condition in order to be better accepted has had this beneficial effect for me to some extent. But the weight of living in constant rejection of who I ultimately am implies in really high vital energy consumption. That coupled with prejudice and other adaptation impossibilities that were never recognized by anyone, having thus become hidden costs, has major impact in my quality of life and also in the lives of people I could have joined forces with to pursue a better collective solution together. As a result, my gross income relative to able bodied people with the same qualifications and credentials is also substantially lower.

Therefore, my point is that if something in the world really bothers you, to an extent that makes you want set things on fire, take a breath and a good look inside. The reason for you to burn stuff will likely have a strong presence deep inside you. And contrary to the middle ages widespread beliefs, fire won't set you free from these demons. But dialogue, awareness and social mobilization well might.