Homelessness: The other as object

In a phenomenological analysis, the authors seek the meaning of the homeless, which may tell scholars much about the society that gave such a designation by using Kramer's theory of Dimensional Accrual/Dissociation, which he expanded from Jean Gebser's work on comparative civilizations (Magic World, Mythic World, and Perspectival World). There are three types of homelessness, according to the authors. The first kind is carefree heroes who drift around town to town in action adventure movies. They are homeless wanderers/vigilantes who articulate a militaristic version of the world and who make no domestic commitments. They are the ultimate modern individualists. The second type it the pathetic refugee. Unlike the hero drifter, this form of homeless person is powerless or moneyless. The third form rejects the habitat of normal social intercourse. This homeless type shuns all contact. In essence, the homeless communicates the absence of home, that which people take for granted and have come to understand as something that everyone should have. Homelessness, the authors argue, comprises a state that occupies a space outside the realm of common sense to the point that portrayals of homeless people takes place within the context of culturally established meanings, meanings derived from place within the system. Television, for example, often reduces and equalizes the homeless to the status of signs, like everything else.