Patronising

A while ago, the concept of personal responsibility came up in conversation with my most entertaining colleague when it comes to political discussion (we'll call him Lewes Leftie). When I said that I thought people were responsible for their own actions, he only just managed to stop himself from saying that was a very 'Tory' viewpoint. Fortunately for the conversation he said enough for me to realise what he was about to say and I pulled him up on it. Essentially his argument boiled down to the fact that because we are not responsible for our circumstances, we cannot be responsible for our actions. I pursued this line of reasoning and discovered that he seemed to view it as an absolute, that he was a pure determinist. We didn't get a chance to go further, but I'm sure that he saw this as an inherent part of his 'socialist' philosophy.
I forget who it was, but recently a Labour politician argued against the policy of London boroughs buying social housing outside London on the basis that it would disrupt children's lives. Both Ms P and I poo pooed this in unison: we both moved towns in the middle of our childhoods and it did neither of us any harm. Sure, at the time it felt like quite an upheaval, but in the grand scheme of things it was of no consequence. What the politician should have pointed out is that the policy of moving the poor out of London is just another step on the road to London becoming a ghetto of rich people entirely separate from the rest of the country; a state of affairs that no one should be encouraging.
Conservatives often paint progressive policy as patronising, as the nanny state interfering in people's lives because it thinks they're too stupid to look after themselves. From the rhetoric of many politicians, this appears to be the case, which is unfortunate because no one likes to be patronised. However, the attitude of conservatives is that the poor are poor because they are too stupid to get rich, which really isn't much better, yet somehow appears more acceptable because it is a form of honesty.
This is a genuine problem that is faced by all those who wish to help their fellow humans, or at least that's the way I see it. The desire to extend compassion to others is a good thing, yet can easily appear patronising, which in many senses it is. The words 'patron' and 'patronising' are based around the same concept, but the latter has gained negative connotations whilst the former hasn't and with good reason.
A society should be capable of helping those who require help, but it should not assme that those who need help are helpless or incapable. Circumstance can place a person in a situation where they need help, but that does not mean that they are eternally condemned to the whim of circumstance. People can help themselves if they have the means and the belief. Of course some people are constrained by ability, but that doesn't mean we should assume that those constrained by circumstance lack ability. To look at this another way, you cannot simply say only help those who cannot help themselves, as that requires us to decree from on high that certain people need help, stigmatising them and potentially convincing them that they are beyond self-help.
When I was a teenager and people told me that I was acting like a child, I usually felt that my action was merely a response to being treated like a child. My argument was that we act up to expectations. It was perhaps a slightly childish argument, but is nevertheless probably at least partially true. If we tell people that we are helping them because their circumstance renders them incapable of self help, we should not be surprised if they conclude that they are incapable of influencing their circumstances.
I am not saying at all that we should leave the helpless to help themselves. What sort of society would we be if we did that? We just need to take more care over how we view that help and how we present it.