When Prof. Moglen was discussing the wide chasm separating between what we know about the penal system and what really transpires behind prison doors, it occurred to me that this divergence between reality and unreality certainly isn't unqiue to the criminal "justice" system, and that the failure to bridge that gap often leads to a distorted understanding of human behavior in other contexts as well. In the case of the penal system, we witness some alarming absurdities: the father who thinks jail time will "shape up" his son, the politician who pads his resume with convictions, the prosecutor whose political ties pervert her duties as a public servant, and a community which thinks itself safer despite rising rates of incarceration and crime. These symptoms are no doubt worrisome, but I believe the same social forces operate in other cases as well.

One example that jumps to mind is homelessness. As a student at UC Berkeley, much of my morning treks to campus consisted of walking past people living on the streets (or, as many of us would call them, "beggars, hobos, tramps, bums," etc). The views of my peers can be captured by any of the following:

- These are people who deliberately refuse to find jobs

- Panhandling is a conman's day-job; the homeless actually lead comfortable lives beneath the rags

- Their reluctance to find shelter is voluntary

- Giving them change will only further solidify their dependence on others

It takes only a few days on the streets to understand that these are nothing but mere myths. Homelessness is not a voluntary, instantaneous decision but a slow downward descent laced with drugs, behavioral health issues and sheer bad luck - any one of us could fall prey to it given the right circumstances. But like Robinson's example, there exists a massive disparity between what we believe about homeless people and what actually transpires in the life and mind of a homeless man.

One could argue that the root cause of this ignorance is simply an inability to empathize with an experience none of us have ever had. If lack of empathy were the issue, however, I see no reason why the disparity between reality and unreality would grow to such a point that our reaction to shivering old men would turn from sympathy to disgust. Human nature, I believe, is not so pitiless. There is certainly something else at work here.

My hypothesis is that we project onto homeless people qualities that accentuate (and justify) the difference between our opulence and their poverty. We choose to believe that homeless people made a conscious decision to fail (in addition to other myths) to bolster our own belief that we've achieved success through hard work and perseverance. Ignorance, I suppose, is the price we pay for self-determination.

I know this topic sounds like a far cry from what we read about in Robinson's Metamorphosis, but my intuition tells me that the same social forces are at work in both cases. I dunno, what do you guys think?