Dreher asks the successful to stop condescending to the less fortunate:
I had an obese acquaintance once who overate compulsively as a neurotic reaction to fear of male attention; she had been molested as a young girl, and this was her involuntary way of protecting herself by making herself unattractive. Hers is an extreme example, obviously, but the point is you really never know what’s really going on with people that keep them from living up to an ideal. You never really know what invisible burdens they carry that they did not choose for themselves. This is why it’s so hard to know where the line is between laziness and self-indulgent excuse making, and a sense of mercy and realism on the other.
The ideology of meritocracy, though, depends on the fiction that there are no meaningful differences, in terms of nature or nurture, among us, and that we’re all starting from the same place, and have the capacities to excel equally, no matter what. It’s this ideology that can lead people to think that if you’ve failed, it must be your own fault. Sometimes it really is your own fault. It’s the must be that’s problematic.
The Dish 