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3/16/2014
Introduction
I argue that the notion of a “meritocracy” is a myth at the heart of American culture, and that
this myth leads to extreme stigmatization of the homeless population in America. This research aims to
uncover how the homeless in America are often times unfairly labeled as lazy, anti-work, antiachievement and anti-success. I am positive that this paper will show that American culture tends to
oversimplify concepts of meritocracy and the American dream. Also, based on that oversimplification,
people who do not achieve their dream or fail to reach the merit assigned by these concepts are,
somehow, different, marginal and culpable.
For the purpose of arguing my thesis I will use the disciplines of Anthropology and Psychology.
First, in order to define the concepts of meritocracy and the American dream, I will use Anthropology
and its approach to American culture. This section's focus will be on explaining how these concepts
were created, developed and, how they became central to the American society. This underpinning is
very important for this paper as it creates the starting point from which many Americans form their
opinions about the poor and the homeless. Also, in this section I will give examples, both current and
historical, of how stigmatization of the homeless and the poor occurs and how it is manifested.
Next, to prove that both of these concepts are not as straightforward as presented, I will talk
about the Conflict Theory and show that the level of success for many of the poor and the homeless is
determined by the outside factors such are inheritance, social resources, education or, even, bad luck. In
this part, the goal is to clearly establish that the mainstream American culture tends to be based on a
false dichotomy. This either-or simplification is purely logically invalid and does not take into account
all of the other factors which determine each individual's success in society. To say that there exists a
set of personal qualities- being hardworking, having right attitudes, possessing moral integrity and
such-, that guarantee achievement is naive and misleading.
Then, to connect anthropological concepts mentioned above with Psychology I will discuss in
detail social stigma and how it affects the homeless. Additionally, I will discuss the Labeling Theory
and how labels lead the homeless to never escape their categorization. This portion of the paper will
explore the feelings and thoughts of people that are being stigmatized. To achieve that I will include
their personal experiences with being looked upon, experiences like this one: “Are you familiar with
the word pariah? It is a social outcast, one to be despised and avoided. I have a situation just walking
down the street, particularly in a residential area, where people will cross the street in order to not walk
past me and I look around and once they pass me they will go back to the side of the street.” (McBride)
The idea here is to exemplify how painful for the homeless people stigma can be.
Justification of Disciplines
Anthropology
American Anthropological Association defines Anthropology as the study of humans, past and
present. AAA also claims that a central concern of anthropologists is the application of knowledge to
the solution of human problems. For this paper, I will mainly use Sociocultural Anthropology which
examines social patterns and practices across cultures. Conflict Theory will be defined and explained. I
will not approach it from the strictly social conflict theory as put forward by Karl Marx. Instead, I will
try to prove that that outside forces prevent the individual or group from achieving a desired goal or
certain aspect of living.
As outlined earlier, concepts of meritocracy and the American dream will be described. Both
will be defined as closely as possible and then explained as they pertain to the homeless population and
their categorization. The goal here is to present meritocracy as a myth and to portray the American
dream as a utopian dream.
Finally, both concepts must be clearly tied to psychological terms of social stigma and labels.
Research in sociocultural anthropology is distinguished by its emphasis on participant observation,
which involves placing oneself in the research context for extended periods of time. Therefore, the
majority of scholarly text used in literature review will involve studies in which researchers directly
interviewed or observed both the homeless and general public and their opinions about the homeless.
While Anthropology is able to identify and explain concepts of meritocracy and the American dream as
cultural phenomena it is limited in scientific knowledge to be able to talk in detail about ways in which
individuals create their negative perceptions of the homeless.
Psychology
Psychology, as defined by the American Psychological Association, is "an academic discipline
that involves the scientific study of mental functions and behaviors."(apa.org) Psychology's immediate
goal is the understanding of individuals and groups, and, as such and by many accounts, it ultimately
aims to benefit society. The discipline attempts to understand the role of mental functions in individual
and social behavior, while also exploring the physiological and biological processes that underlie
cognitive functions and behaviors.
Labeling Theory will be directly tied to anthropological concepts. This theory explains how the selfidentity and behavior of individuals may be determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or
classify them. Labeling can mold the way someone behaves in their lives especially if they cannot
shake off that label. There are many in the society who view the poor and the homeless as at fault for
their status, and the stigmatized and labeled individuals often times cannot escape that categorization.
Social stigma is a concept that can easily be applied to the categorization of the homeless. Social
stigma is" the extreme disapproval of a person or group on socially characteristic grounds that are
perceived, and serve to distinguish them, from other members of a society. Stigma may then be affixed
to such a person, by the greater society, who differs from their cultural norms."
For this paper, I will rely on qualitative methods of research in Psychology. I will not be
interested in numbers, but more in opinions and personal feelings of the homeless persons and, also,
persons that expressed their view of the homeless. Psychology tends to be involved with individuals
and personal feelings, emotions and behaviors. Because of that, it is sometimes hard to generalize
psychologists' findings and apply them to general population.
Interdisciplinary
“Today, interdisciplinary learning at all levels is far more common as there is growing
recognition that it is needed to answer complex questions, solve complex problems, and gain coherent
understanding of complex issues that are increasingly beyond the ability of any single discipline to
address comprehensively or resolve adequately. (Repko, 2006) The link between society and human
psyche will be established from the perspective of Social Psychology. This branch of Psychology is
defined as the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the
actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. This link is crucial for this paper because it explains
how people that are not poor or homeless create thoughts and feelings of the other side and whether
those feelings and thoughts are actually true or imagined. Additionally, it is absolutely essential to
engage interdisciplinarity because “it consciously integrates separate disciplinary data, concepts,
theories, and methods to produce an interdisciplinary understanding of a complex problem or
intellectual question. (Klein&Newell, 1997, p. 393)
Literature Review
In the first sub-section of my paper I will, first, through statistical data show that homelessness
as a phenomenon is a significant problem worldwide and in the United States. The estimates of how
many people are homeless in the world will come from the United Nations Center for Human
Settlements, an agency that offers a range between 100 million homeless and over one billion,
dependent on how the term homelessness is defined. Also in this part I will briefly talk about numbers
of homeless in the United States. Second, I will, from the technical standpoint, explain what it means to
be homeless. There is no consensus between scholars, politicians and other individuals involved with
homelessness what it, really, means to be homeless but I would like to use the one that says that the
homeless are: “Those who lack access to adequate personal accommodation and are unable to access
and maintain an adequate personal dwelling from their own resources, and are unable to maintain
personal accommodation unless secured with community care (Avramov, 1995)”
Given the numbers of the homeless, it is obvious that homelessness needs to be dealt with.
Many experts agree that “homelessness as a term only gained currency in the 1980s (Schneider &
Remillard, 97) but in the last three decades the numbers are on the rise and are, usually, more
pronounced when there is an economic crisis in the society. Sadly, in the American society parallel to
valiant attempts to remedy homelessness, there are cultural concepts that are preventing many
Americans from getting involved.
In this portion of the paper I will put emphasis on explaining concepts of the American dream
and meritocracy. Quite contrary to the notion that both of these have been around for a long time, and
in spite the fact that they have been firmly rooted in the national culture, both concepts are relatively
new. I will start this section by talking about historian James Truslow Adams and his 1931 book Epic of
America in which the term American dream was popularized. Next, I will broadly describe the concept
as an ideology mainly using the excellent article “The Meritocracy Myth” by Stephen J. McNamee and
Robert K. Miller Jr. from 2004. In this text they say that “America is the land of limitless opportunity in
which individuals can go as far as their own merit takes them.” The concept, set out as that, implies that
any individual can achieve. Also implied is that, since most people are average in terms of skills,
abilities and efforts, most will consequently reach the social status that places them somewhere in the
middle. However, according to McNamee and Miller, “despite the widely held perception that America
is a middle class society, most of the wealth is highly concentrated at the top of the system.”
Continuing this section, I will focus in detail on the concept of meritocracy. As with the American
dream, this concept is very recent too. Meritocracy was first used in Michael Young’s book Rise of the
Meritocracy (1958).
In the book, Young talks about a society where those at the top of the system ruled with the
feeling entitlement and those at the bottom of the system were incapable of protecting themselves from
the merit elite above. As a result, instead of a fair society, the meritocracy was cruel. Young, clearly,
wanted to describe meritocracy from the satirical standpoint, yet, over time the concept assumed
positive attributes. I claim that meritocracy found a perfect fit in the concept of the American dream in
which merit takes you wherever you want to go, given you have the merit to get there. McNamee and
Miller contend that individual merit, is generally viewed as a combination of factors, or should we call
them right ingredients that guarantee one's success. What those factors are varies, but most definitions
include hard work, right attitude and moral integrity among others.
Combined, meritocracy and the American dream create utopian symbiosis based on which
members of society are, subsequently, deemed as either pro-success or anti-success. For the poor and,
especially, the homeless this combination is almost lethal as it puts them on the far margins of society
and treats them as anomaly. It is not uncommon to hear, mainly from politicians and lawmakers,
negative remarks about the bottom layer of society. Very recent example of a former vice-presidential
candidate and a current member of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan is a perfect one in that
sense. Ryan said that "we have got this tailspin of culture in our inner cities in particular of men not
working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the
culture of work so there’s a cultural problem that has to be dealt with."
(http://www.weeklystandard.com) He, and many others, clearly blame the poor and the homeless for
their status and dismiss any possibility that there are other factors involved in individual success.
 ”Those who lack access to adequate personal accommodation and are unable to access and
maintain an adequate personal dwelling from their own resources, and are unable to maintain
personal accommodation unless secured with community care (Avramov, 1995)”
 “Americans not only tend to think that is how the system should work, but most Americans also
think that is how the system does work” (Huber and Form 1973, Kluegel and Smith 1986, Ladd
1994).
 “Today, meritocracy is often used with a positive connotation to describe a social system that
allows people to achieve success proportionate to their talents and abilities, as opposed to one in
which social class or wealth is the controlling factor.”(Alvarado, 12)
 “According to the culture of poverty argument, people are poor because of deviant or
pathological values that are then passed on from one generation to the next, creating a “vicious
cycle of poverty. “According to this perspective, poor people are viewed as anti-work, antifamily, anti-school, and anti-success.” (McNamee&Miller)
 “Put simply, the ideal of meritocracy presumes that opportunity is awarded based on individual
merit rather than inherited status. The meritocracy ideal is congruent with other fundamental
American values: upward mobility and individualism are both core values of the American
Dream; they legitimate our democratic ideal of equal opportunity for all.”(Harvard Law Review,
2158)
This oversimplification of merit and the American dream will lead me into the second sub-section
of my paper. Here, I will employ Conflict Theory to show that there is very little simple about the
concepts discussed in the previous sub-section and that overall picture is far more complicated. From a
classical social conflict perspective, explained by Karl Marx, the ones at the top control social
institutions, education and laws and set them up in favor of their success. At the same time, ones at the
bottom are held down without much opportunity to advance their position in the society. While it would
be irresponsible to claim that American society is purely based on this notion it is necessary to note that
some non-merit factors indeed play a significant role in determining one social position and the level of
success.
McNamee and Miller argue that because of the existence of outside factors the meritocracy is really
a myth. They say that it is a myth “because of the combined effects of non-merit factors such as
inheritance, social and cultural advantages, unequal educational opportunity, luck and the changing
structure of job opportunities, the decline of self-employment, and discrimination in all of its forms.”
They call these factors social gravity, or the forces that keep people in places they occupy regardless of
their merit.
Furthermore, it is questionable whether inside components of the American dream like hard work,
right attitude or moral integrity are, indeed, as straightforward as it seems. We witness everyday people
working very hard and yet being poor or, even homeless. When we talk about hard work do we refer to
long hours of work, or hard physical work because many jobs in the society are physically exhaustive
and yet lowly paid. Similarly, the length of work is relative too. Millions of Americans work two jobs
and put in long hours and are still not making much progress on the social ladder. On the other hand,
there are others that own and not work at all while making a lot of wealth. Especially problematic is
moral integrity as there are numerous examples in which successful and, “meritorious” individuals
acted in a less than exemplary and moral way. White collar crime and under-the-table economy of
pornography, drug trafficking, loan sharking and gambling are creating a lot of “merit”. Finally, it is
hard to appreciate someone's merit if the social status they attain comes from inheriting from their
parents or ancestors.
All these questions and doubts in the concepts of meritocracy and the American dream are starting
to become increasingly front and center in American society. Daniel Golden writes about this trend in
his book The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges—and
Who Gets Left Outside the Gates: ”A growing body of evidence suggests that the meritocratic ideal is
in trouble in America,’ The Economist reported in a special issue in January 2005. ‘Income inequality
is growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, around the 1880s. But social mobility is not
increasing at anything like the same pace … Everywhere you look in modern America—in the
Hollywood Hills or the canyons of Wall Street, in the Nashville recording studios or the clapboard
houses of Cambridge, Massachusetts—you see elites mastering the art of perpetuating themselves.
America is increasingly looking like imperial Britain, with dynastic ties proliferating, social circles
interlocking, mechanisms of social exclusion strengthening and a gap widening between the people
who make the decisions and shape the culture and the vast majority of ordinary working stiffs.”
 “In The Meritocracy Myth, we do not suggest that “merit” is a myth. Rather, we argue that
meritocracy the idea that societal resources are distributed exclusively or primarily on the basis
of individual merit is a myth. It is a myth because of the combined effects of non-merit factors
such as inheritance, social and cultural advantages, unequal educational opportunity, luck and
the changing structure of job opportunities, the decline of self-employment, and discrimination
in all of its forms.” (McNamee & Miller)
 “The phenomenon of homelessness is a product of societal stratification and social inequalities.
Ideologies of social stratification and its effect on poverty were originally proposed by Karl
Marx who contended that the capitalist society produces two prominent classes that are in
conflict with each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. The bourgeoisie are the oppressors who
own the means of production and the proletariat is the oppressed workers who labor for the
bourgeoisie.”(Marx,124-130)
 “The recent spate of alleged corporate ethics scandals at such corporations as Enron, WorldCom,
Arthur Andersen, Adelphia, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Duke Energy, Global Crossing, Xerox as
well as recent allegations of misconduct in the vast mutual funds industry reveal how corporate
executives often enrich themselves through less than honest means. White-collar crime in the
form of insider trading, embezzlement, tax fraud, insurance fraud and the like is hardly
evidence of honesty and virtue in practice.”(McNamee & Miller)
 “There are two obstacles to overcome in order for a person to lift himself by his own bootstraps:
first he needs boots and straps; second he need to lift himself over the thousands of pounds of
pressure called social gravity.” (Bird, 102)
 “The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
George Carlin (2005)
In the third sub-section, I will transit into Psychology and bridge the negativity created toward the
homeless rooted in concepts of meritocracy and the American dream with psychological ideas of
stigma and labels. Discussions of stigma nearly always begin with a reference to Goffman’s (1963: 3)
classic work on the topic, and his definition of it as “an attribute that is deeply discrediting.” Generally
members of stigmatized groups are devalued and discriminated against by the general public and often
suffer from social exclusion and status loss.
In a chain reaction, stigma, then, leads to labeling of the homeless. This phenomenon is explored
by Labeling Theory which is explained as the theory of how the self-identity and behavior of
individuals may be determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them. So far, this
paper mentioned numerous labels that are being used to describe the homeless: lazy, anti-work, antisuccess, anti-achievement, and so on. There are many others still to be put forward. Another term with
seemingly little negativity attached to it is the claim that the poor are present and not future-oriented.
This notion is nonetheless a mockery of the poor. They are most of the time forced to be present
oriented as they do not know where the next meal will come from. Many children of the poor and the
homeless are, also, forced to leave school and work just to be able to survive. In that regard the
homeless are never able to move up the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. They always stay at the first level
and are not sure that they have their physiological needs of food, water and sleep fulfilled. For them,
self-actualization, being at the top of Maslow's pyramid appears to be so far and unattainable.
Next, I will turn my attention to language the majority members of society associate with the
homeless population. Words such as 'tramp', 'hobo', 'vagrant', and 'deviant' are some of the most
familiar. Other terms aim to be more overarching and talk about the homeless in pluralistic frame. They
are defined as an underclass, or undeserving poor. All, however, have strong echo of detachment,
dissociation and disconnectedness from society, reflecting, at the same time, negativism and exclusion.
Finally, in this sub-section I will spend a good deal of time on reaction the homeless have on all these
characterizations and labels. After all that was said in this paper, it would be highly optimistic to expect
the homeless population to be positive about their state and the way they are treated by individuals,
institutions and the society at large.
The homeless reactions that I will present are, for the most part, filled with disappointment,
sadness and hopelessness. I already mentioned that some see themselves as pariahs. Others are highly
unhappy with services that are available to them in community. Other stories are just sad:” "It makes
me cry some nights. That is why I go back to the liquor or to the bottle.. Just to get through the pain,
and the next day I wake up, alright, start again.”(McBride, 56) Overall, their main feelings and
thoughts can be summarized with words such as alienated, misunderstood, anonymized, stigmatized,
judged and isolated.
 “Participants provided a clear account of their experiences of being homeless and their
contact with the health and social services. In particular, they described seeking help
through both formal and informal channels and highlighted some of the barriers to care,
including a rejection of diagnoses, declining support, and finding services overly rigid
and rule bound”(Ogden & Avades, 503)
 “Language used to describe homeless people in the literature is broadly construed. It includes
media images, which are defamatory, and sometimes rhetoric, as well as policies and programs
that convey mainstream society's message of power, influence and authority. The messages that
raise a number of ethical dilemmas can become tools of manipulation. Homeless individuals
may be silenced by such power relationships, control mechanisms, and messages contained in
popular media. (Daly, 9)
 “Indeed, two related discursive threads are apparent in these stories. First, participants shift
responsibility to do something about homelessness to the homeless person who is expected to
take appropriate actions and use the provided resources to alleviate their state of homelessness.
In other words, bundled with the act of good will is a judgment about how such gifts should be
received and used by the homeless person.”(Schneider & Remillard, 104)
 “The issues of dissociation, distancing, stigmatizing, labelling and disconnectedness all clearly
emerge from the meanings and interpretations given by the homeless street people, as well as
the conventional meanings. What stands out clearly is the detachment and disconnectedness of
homeless people in the shelters and on the streets.”(Olufemi, 464)
 “The shelter movement began in earnest in the 1970s, as a response to the growing
homelessness rate spurred by high unemployment, rising housing costs, and
deinstitutionalization of people with severe mental illness. At the time, homelessness was seen
as a temporary problem on both an individual and societal level. However, as homelessness
rates continued to rise through the late 1980s (represented increasingly by women and families),
shelters became permanent community fixtures. With this development came heightened shelter
bureaucratization and institutionalization, perceived as a way to facilitate communal
living”(DeWard & Moe, 116)
Conclusion
In conclusion I will summarize all that was said in this paper. I will develop a narrative that will
start by talking about American culture and deeply rooted concepts of meritocracy and the American
dream in it. I will explain these concepts and show that they are a myth and a dream, respectively. Next,
I will talk about non-merit factors that determine whether a person will be successful or not in life. This
will lead me to the concept of unfair social stigma toward the homeless population. Finally, I will show
that efforts underway now in American society to alleviate homelessness and its stigma are, sadly, short
of goal. Also, I will give some suggestions how the issue of homelessness could be dealt with.
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