"You can just"

[firecat]

About providing food for your family when you don't have a lot of money, and the thoughtless advice that people sometimes give if they don't know much about a difficult problem you have, especially if they give the advice using the adverb "just" (with the "it's so simple" connotation).

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/08/31/you-can-just/

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

A good essay, but unfortunately the world is divided into people who already know it and people who will think up other arguments, as specious as the "you could just," to supposedly refute it.

[firecat]

I switched from being the second kind of person to being the first kind of person. So I signal-boost essays like this in the hope that maybe they would help another person make that switch.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Thanks, it's good to know that it can happen!

[mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com]

It can. It did with me. I grew up well-to-do and couldn't understand WHY poor people WASTED their LIMITED money like they did.

'Course the Vimes Boots Theory of Economic Unfairness (http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/vimes) explains it pretty well, but I had learned a bit before then.