I don't agree that striving for dignity will run you ragged.

I'm not saying its not worth it to do. I'm saying its often fruitless in all senses but spiritual. Because in these examples, the problem won't ever be "solvable." You are just stuck under its thumb for most of your life, and your dignity is simply not letting it crush you. For most, that pressure and anxiety is stronger than their will. Especially as the populations who most suffer from it, also suffer from the lack of good male role models to learn that stoicism and ability from.

That's why I equated it to a child being whipped bloody. The consequences, even if they were entirely deserved and by their own making, are too crushing for many to get that noble spirit inside themselves out. I'm not saying they should be absolved of them at all, let's not misunderstand, only that relying on purely philosophical and spiritual motives like "dignity and self respect" won't work on many.

You aren't wrong about any of what you say, I simply think the rock has rolled too far down the hill to rely on it as an effective mechanism for solution. Especially as you have people like those on the Left who will undermine it at every turn, making the chain break and often slow to nothing.

I say that because I have many family and people I grew up with who live in the same ruts. Because my father was ghetto trash and most of my family and friend's family was white trash. Even when they pulled up their boot straps and dealt with it, it still beat them down until most of them died pretty miserable and penniless with nothing to show for decades of working hard to escape their past sins. While some of us respected them, most of their circles mocked them for it and you could see that as the straw that often broke them for a while. Seeing all your buddies cash their welfare checks and drink all day is a much greener grass than breaking your back in the oil field just to lose 90% of it to various debts and government thievery.