Because I live in a beautiful old apartment building in Adams Morgan, a Washington, D.C. neighborhood as dependably leftwing as, say, Berkeley in California, I am surrounded by lefties, most of them quite pleasant. I had dinner with a group of neighbors the other night. Some of them professed a desire to go to New Orleans and help "the poor" there. A fundamentally decent impulse, but something disturbed me about this. I suggested that one of the problems is that we've already done a lot to help "the poor" develop bad habits. I think that Theodore Dalrymple is disturbed by the same thing in the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas' otherwise admirable concern for those at the bottom of the economic ladder:
"What Habermas fails to recognize is that self-destruction-which he correctly implies has reached epidemic proportions among a segment of the population-grows out of attitudes to life, beliefs, and mentalities; it is not a mechanical response to a mechanical problem. And one of the beliefs that favors self-destruction is that no alternative to it is possible, because the world is so constituted, at least until the people's saviors gain power, that one's choices make no difference to the course of one's life."
2 Comments
Lisa | January 13, 2008, 5:26pm | #
Many will always remember the destruction Katrina brought on New Orleans and its citizens. Many of us will continue to reach out and help in some form or another. But, at what point does the assistance come to an end? I agree that the problem with assisting is that we have done everything to keep "the poor" in the same situation they are in. Continuing to assist "the poor" will not uplift them to become productive citizens of society.
Benjamin Franklin once said "I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."
We all feel the need to help "the poor", why not show them how to help themselves.
Tony | January 14, 2008, 3:46pm | #
The poor poor!!! We have to face the truth even if it hurts.
The facts are clear, we are not all equal, we are in the sense of being human beings and that all deserve respect, but the reality is that intellectual capital is different, and desire, drive and resolve is not equal.
That is the real cause of poverty, there are people that are born in a poor environment and take advantage of opportunities and grow out of it, others sit down to complain and wait for the government to do something for them.
It is a state of mind, either you want out or not, and blaming others and growing envy of the success of others is never a solution.