The previous chapter was meant to provide a metaethical framework within which the determinations of social actors and institutions make both logical and moral sense. Within a materialist, behaviorist, or strictly biological paradigm, the odd mannerisms, the seemingly incoherent babble, or the angry diatribe against the established order point to individuals who have not been properly socialized or who have fallen prey to a supervening mental or emotional obstacle. As we have suggested, not everyone who demonstrates these characteristics is a mouthpiece of archetypal forces or an agent of the divine will that summons the prophet to utter a stern protest on behalf of all left to forage for crumbs in a world with so much rampant excess. Neither is the sting of adamant protest or the looming presence of the schizophrenic, often in the unkempt attire, and, not uncommonly, odiferous state of hygiene of the homeless, a cause for alarm simply for agents of social control or for the medical community. There is no need to reduce either the overt or the inchoate desire to remove from view those most find offensive to a single explanation. The fact, however, is that hundreds of thousands have been expunged from day-to-day societal affairs and it will be our task in this chapter to discuss what I believe to be the main reasons why this nefarious exodus has taken place. We do not, of course, speak of an Exodus of liberation, as found in the book of the same name, but a deportation into dungeons of misery and, all too commonly, abuse, with crippling, and, often, lifelong debilitating effects. To that end, the present chapter will locate this ethos of harm within three broad categories: the socioeconomic, the psychological, and the theological/ spiritual. Since issues relating to the latter are very much a part of the presentation on both social and psychological determinants, they will be included in the sections addressing those two classifications.

Socioeconomic factors

Neoliberalism

The rise of Social Darwinism in the late nineteenth century, as Richard Hofstadter pointed out some years ago, has been a recurrent theme in the American ethos, although it is hardly unique to the United States.