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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Is poverty always bad?
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Here's an ironic quote from William Booth, Founder of The Salvation Army. I can't give the background, the context or the occasion but I just thought it interesting - especially in these days when the general opinion of many is that those on low incomes must be given a living wage in order for them to have what everyone else has.
quote:
While there is no doubt that extreme poverty is an evil...it is also evident that to be poor, when there is not actual want of the necessities of life, is not an unmixed evil."
An interesting thought.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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StevHep
Shipmate
# 17198
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Posted
It's one of those for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so things. Anyone who has an overwhelming desire to have more possessions than they currently, have when that is sufficient for their needs, will be unhappier than one who is content with what they have. Poverty may teach somebody just how many mere things they can do without and so be a blessing. It rarely does have that effect however.
Poverty is only a positive good when it is voluntarily embraced out of love for God and neighbour. When society has enough abundance to relieve involuntary poverty but does not do so, chiefly in order to feed the greed of the few who appropriate great wealth for their exclusive personal use, then IMHO Christians have a moral obligation to work towards a fairer distribution of wealth.
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Posts: 241 | From: Exeter | Registered: Jul 2012
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Depends on the terms and definitions being used.
I'd suggest that an income below the living wage (in the UK) is living in extreme poverty.
extreme - the most poor you can be? Seriously?
What is wrong with having things you cannot afford?
Why is someone who can't afford non-essentials defined as extremely poor? It sounds like middle class patronising to me.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
The difference between -
1) having a shower with warm water in a small flat with little money to spare at the end of the week
and
2)having a shower with warm water in a bathroom with gold taps in a huge mansion with oodles of money to spare at the end of the week
is tiny.
The difference between having no clean, available water and the above is HUGE.
I think I agree with Gen. Booth.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
If you'd looked at my experience of poverty, it wouldn't have looked so bad; I had shelter, food and clothing. What made it uncomfortable was not things like the clothes being out of charity shops, or the food being the cheapest ingredients - it was the precariousness. The knowledge that any crisis - a bill for communal repairs say, or - as so many have found recently - a change in benefit rules, could tip you from having just enough to starting the slide, via debt, into losing that foothold from which you could hope to climb.
Impoverishment is not just material, but social: if you can't afford to out with friends, or entertain them in your home, or go to the match or the cinema. It's becoming steadily shabbier, more peripheral, less able to participate, more preoccupied with how to simply cope.
A secure poverty - a life chosen to live without much in the way of material goods - is one thing: an enforced poverty another.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
When I was a kid, we were very poor, and basically, it was shit. My parents were insecure, living from hand to mouth, coming to the end of the week with hardly anything, struggling to pay the rent, no bathroom, no flush toilet. No thanks. Things got better, and we felt better.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
Depends on the terms and definitions being used.
I'd suggest that an income below the living wage (in the UK) is living in extreme poverty.
extreme - the most poor you can be? Seriously?
What is wrong with having things you cannot afford?
Why is someone who can't afford non-essentials defined as extremely poor? It sounds like middle class patronising to me.
I don't know why you assume only middle-class people would say that, plenty of working-class people would agree. I know you think that being left-wing means you're middle-class but that's just not true.
Not affording non-essentials means having no money to save, and that is a serious problem. It frequently means not eating enough (not just unhealthy food but just not enough food in total) because food is the first thing you spend less on when you have to choose between heating and eating. It means not doing as well at school/college/work because you are hungry and under-nourished, and getting ill from damp unheated housing. Poverty doesn't just mean not affording non-essentials, it literally takes years off one's life. That is surely something that Christians should oppose. Also, a living wage for all is a simple matter of fairness.
I suggest that Booth is doing the middle-class patronising here, and looking at poverty through rose-tinted spectacles. It is easy to romanticise poverty when you aren't living it. I have lived in poverty and it is horrendous. Nothing spiritually enriching about it, more like seriously spiritually draining.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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pydseybare
Shipmate
# 16184
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I suggest that Booth is doing the middle-class patronising here, and looking at poverty through rose-tinted spectacles. It is easy to romanticise poverty when you aren't living it. I have lived in poverty and it is horrendous. Nothing spiritually enriching about it, more like seriously spiritually draining.
Whilst I think you are right in a way, I also think you are being a bit unfair on Booth. It isn't obvious to me who Booth would describe as poor and extremely poor today.
I think there are some spiritual and societal benefits to being poor. I think wealth can often be a spiritual burden and corrodes the soul.
So I do think it depends on what the words here mean.
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"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."
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Majorminor
Apprentice
# 17967
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Posted
Mudfrog, what do you mean by 'ironic quote' from Booth? Do you mean that he was intending to be ironic? Surely we are called to tackle poverty in all its forms? Hence the colonies, etc, etc.
The people who use our food bank, whose numbers have doubled over the past year, see poverty as nothing but a grinding, humiliating awfulness.
Posts: 31 | From: East Staffs | Registered: Jan 2014
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
When there is plenty, why should there be poverty?
(btw, I'm not being ironic)
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
Poverty sucks. And yes, I've been poor, but I've never been impoverished.
The difference, it strikes me, is whether or not you're one bill away from disaster. When I was poor - shared, dingy accommodation, the cheapest food ingredients, no new clothes, no eating out, showering at work - I was still never in the position of being presented with a bill I couldn't pay, and thus have to make the decision as to whether I paid it, didn't eat, defaulted on my rent or walked everywhere for a month.
And there are plenty of people - plenty of parents - who face that, day in, day out. That's the kind of poverty that has no place in modern Britain, or for that matter, anywhere.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I suggest that Booth is doing the middle-class patronising here, and looking at poverty through rose-tinted spectacles. It is easy to romanticise poverty when you aren't living it. I have lived in poverty and it is horrendous. Nothing spiritually enriching about it, more like seriously spiritually draining.
William Booth, a middle-class patronizer? Really?
I have never lived in poverty, by the grace of God. But I have spent a lot of time working with the extreme poor of the world in African countries.
My observation is that one's experience of poverty is partially shaped by the experience of one's peers and neighbors. People who have the basics - enough food to eat (even if they have to grow it themselves) and shelter - tend not to behave as though poverty is demoralizing or miserable when their community is also poor.
But if you move those same people from their home village into the capital city, their experience of poverty changes. They see big buildings and nice cars and houses, and they start to feel that poverty is a really bad thing. Even if in many cases they are materially better off in the city than they were in the village.
In the West, the negative social and psychological impacts of poverty I believe are related to the presence of people who are not poor - on TV, in town, etc. You know how you could be living, so you feel worse about how you are living.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable
I suggest that Booth is doing the middle-class patronising here, and looking at poverty through rose-tinted spectacles. It is easy to romanticise poverty when you aren't living it. I have lived in poverty and it is horrendous. Nothing spiritually enriching about it, more like seriously spiritually draining.
I tend to agree with you, although I am not sure how true that is of William Booth.
Of course, as has been mentioned, we need to explain what we mean by 'poverty'. But, as has also been mentioned, poverty is not just about the basics of life, but about a constant struggle with the stress of anxiety. There is nothing noble about this, and those who lecture the poor about the need to "have faith" need to set an example by choosing poverty themselves , to show us all how it's done (and they must live with no hidden safety net - such as friends or relatives who can bail them out when the "faith experiment" all goes wrong).
I remember when I worked for a Christian publishing company and they published a book about how to overcome financial problems. This is just one of many Christian titles on this subject. After having looked at the manuscript, I remarked to the editor who commissioned the book that it seemed to be advice aimed at people who were already fairly well off. Surely authentic godly advice should be aimed at those who are in the greatest need, because, after all, if God's wisdom cannot help them, then it's pretty useless. I showed him an example in the book about a young couple who were forced to sell one of their two cars (oh dear! What a truly agonising decision!!). But what about people who have to sell their only vehicle, which they desperately need anyway, or what about those who can only dream about owning even an old banger?! I have to be honest and say that I generally regard books like that as just a load of crap. If "God's advice" doesn't work, well, they still have money to fall back on, and they can always spin a story to their fellow believers, that God is still blessing them, albeit 'pruning' them for his service etc etc... You know, the usual pious cant...
I am, however, somewhat loath to criticise a man who wrote the following words:
quote:
We talk about the brutalities of the dark ages, and we profess to shudder as we read in books of the shameful exaction of the rights of feudal superior. And yet here, beneath our very eyes, in our theatres, in our restaurants, and in many other places, unspeakable though it be but to name it, the same hideous abuse flourishes unchecked. A young penniless girl, if she be pretty, is often hunted from pillar to post by her employers, confronted always by the alternative—Starve or Sin. And when once the poor girl has consented to buy the right to earn her living by the sacrifice of her virtue, then she is treated as a slave and an outcast by the very men who have ruined her. Her word becomes unbelievable, her life an ignominy, and she is swept downward ever downward, into the bottomless perdition of prostitution. But there, even in the lowest depths, excommunicated by Humanity and outcast from God, she is far nearer the pitying heart of the One true Saviour than all the men who forced her down, aye, and than all the Pharisees and Scribes who stand silently by while these Fiendish wrongs are perpetrated before their very eyes.
The blood boils with impotent rage at the sight of these enormities, callously inflicted, and silently borne by these miserable victims.
From In Darkest England and the Way Out by General Booth.
I can't quite understand the contradiction between "outcast from God" and "she is far nearer the pitying heart of the One true Saviour". I can only assume that "outcast from God" is used in an ironic way ("God" being viewed here as "the religious establishment").
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
If we believe what Jesus said about it being hard (how hard!) for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven then, yes, not to be rich must be a good thing.
The question is at what point does wealth become an obstacle to a relationship with Jesus (the point at which we go away sad if we're told we have to give something up, I guess)? And how much clear water is there between being in that position and being impoverished?
As far as I can see, there is a big difference between a secure but simple life (good) and the exigency that removes choice and dignity (bad).
[ 11. February 2014, 11:21: Message edited by: Erroneous Monk ]
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
I think Agur son of Jakeh nails it in Proverbs 30:7-9:
quote:
Two things I ask of you;
do not deny them to me before I die:
Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that I need,
or I shall be full, and deny you,
and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
or I shall be poor, and steal,
and profane the name of my God.
A lot less popular than the prayer of Jabez for some reason...
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
So much depends on the personalities involved. I know that I shall never be rich, because I'm one of those who would instantly put my trust in money-in-the-bank rather than in God. The temptation would be too much for me. I'm a hyper-anxious personality, and I would certainly take to comforting myself with the thought "Ah, well, we have the money to handle it" (whatever "it" is), rather than automatically turning to God.
I think most people are not like this. They may be able to safely handle what I can't.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I can't give the background, the context or the occasion but I just thought it interesting - especially in these days when the general opinion of many is that those on low incomes must be given a living wage in order for them to have what everyone else has.
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
What is wrong with having things you cannot afford?
Why is someone who can't afford non-essentials defined as extremely poor?
Given that a "living wage" is, by definition, the smallest amount of money required to pay for all basic necessities you're not arguing about "non-essentials". You're claiming that it's okay (or possibly even beneficial) for people to not be able to afford what your Booth quote calls "the necessities of life".
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I can't give the background, the context or the occasion but I just thought it interesting - especially in these days when the general opinion of many is that those on low incomes must be given a living wage in order for them to have what everyone else has.
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
What is wrong with having things you cannot afford?
Why is someone who can't afford non-essentials defined as extremely poor?
Given that a "living wage" is, by definition, the smallest amount of money required to pay for all basic necessities you're not arguing about "non-essentials". You're claiming that it's okay (or possibly even beneficial) for people to not be able to afford what your Booth quote calls "the necessities of life".
Yes.
While it's impossible to know what Booth intended w/o the the "background, the context or the occasion" Mudfrog explicitly leaves out, my guess is that Booth is talking about the spiritual discipline of "simplicity"-- eschewing rampant consumerism and being unencumbered by debt, excessive possessions, etc. I think there is some real truth to the notion that there is great joy in that life. What Booth clearly is NOT talking about-- both from the quote itself and from the evidence of the work Booth did-- is the anxious poverty others have described here, where there is food uncertainty, lack of shelter, etc.
There are a lot of problems with the OP, but perhaps the greatest one is Mudfrog's assumption that the goal of ensuring a living wage is "for them to have what everyone else has" rather than the desire to give everyone "the necessities of life"-- a goal Booth obviously endorsed.
[ 11. February 2014, 14:07: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
The question is at what point does wealth become an obstacle
At the point where what I have is deemed more important than what you need.
Yes, I clipped Jesus out of the quote. This is encompasses more than Christians.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Given that a "living wage" is, by definition, the smallest amount of money required to pay for all basic necessities you're not arguing about "non-essentials". You're claiming that it's okay (or possibly even beneficial) for people to not be able to afford what your Booth quote calls "the necessities of life".
Mudfrog, I'd be interested to know whether or not you approve of Newcastle City Council's decision to raise all of its minimum wage workers to the living wage, and whether or not you think that paying a living wage, which leads to "easier recruitment and retention of staff, better attendance and reduced sickness absence, better productivity, motivation and loyalty, better quality of service for customers" a general good, or morally neutral?
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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pydseybare
Shipmate
# 16184
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Posted
It seems to me that until you have an agreed measure of what one expects everyone to have, it is not really possible to decide the point at which poverty is really grinding, absolute, poverty.
Obviously everyone in the UK has access to free healthcare and school education, clean water and proper sanitation - so in some sense we're all 'rich' compared to a majority of the population of the planet.
We also have a safety net which is (supposed to) prevent people from experiencing the kinds of slum conditions that Booth campaigned against. Again, on a world scale that makes everyone rich.
On the other side, though, our lifestyles involve certain costs that others may not have. In short, we have bills to pay, our food costs are far higher than others have and so on.
Having been on, and observed others on, the minimum wage, I do not believe that it is enough to support an individual living alone in a stable lifestyle - even if he/she economises.* It is possible, but with all the goodwill in the world, it is a perilous existence and liable to tip even the most organised person into a downward spiral. For many who lead chaotic and unorganised lifestyles, I believe the minimum wage is a killer. Of course their situation can be improved with support and education, but the simple reality is that even with such things, the minimum wage is not enough.
I support the living wage, not because it allows people to have Sky TV, to keep up their drug or drink habits or whatnot, but because I'm not prepared to live in a country where some people have to worry how to feed themselves and put school-shoes on their children.
*I accept that the Salvation Army and others pay wages which might well approximate the minimum wage, but at the very least SA officers get a large amount of support to enable them to live like this.
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"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Given that a "living wage" is, by definition, the smallest amount of money required to pay for all basic necessities you're not arguing about "non-essentials". You're claiming that it's okay (or possibly even beneficial) for people to not be able to afford what your Booth quote calls "the necessities of life".
Mudfrog, I'd be interested to know whether or not you approve of Newcastle City Council's decision to raise all of its minimum wage workers to the living wage, and whether or not you think that paying a living wage, which leads to "easier recruitment and retention of staff, better attendance and reduced sickness absence, better productivity, motivation and loyalty, better quality of service for customers" a general good, or morally neutral?
And what do you think about Newcastle City Council when they have only made that decision now when the economy is picking up and those workers will be able to find higher paid jobs?
Why didn't they do that in the middle of the recession? Because they didn't need to to retain staff.
Take the blinkers off - the council is paying the market rate to it's staff, but now they need to pay more to keep them. They are the same as any other employer.
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
And what do you think about Newcastle City Council when they have only made that decision now when the economy is picking up and those workers will be able to find higher paid jobs?
Economy picking up? Newcastle? ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
You need to get out more.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
And what do you think about Newcastle City Council when they have only made that decision now when the economy is picking up and those workers will be able to find higher paid jobs?
Economy picking up? Newcastle?
You need to get out more.
Yes. On trains and things. I believe they run to Newcastle... and out of it again.
Perhaps you are too localised in your thinking Doc, and don't realise that there are jobs outside of Newcastle.
Perhaps the council realises that their employees might decide to "get out more" if there are higher paying jobs out beyond Newcastle.
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
They might find it difficult to get in and out of Newcastle, since the government subsidises transport projects in the northeast to the tune of only £5 a head compared to over £2000 (yes, two thousand) per head in London.
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Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
It's pretty cheap with an advanced purchase ticket on the nationalised railway line that runs to Newcastle. Quite a lot more if you pay on the day, though.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
And what do you think about Newcastle City Council when they have only made that decision now when the economy is picking up and those workers will be able to find higher paid jobs?
Economy picking up? Newcastle?
You need to get out more.
Yes. On trains and things. I believe they run to Newcastle... and out of it again.
Perhaps you are too localised in your thinking Doc, and don't realise that there are jobs outside of Newcastle.
Perhaps the council realises that their employees might decide to "get out more" if there are higher paying jobs out beyond Newcastle.
Okay, so I've completely holed your argument below the waterline, and this is the best you can come up with?
The North East has the highest regional unemployment in England, coupled with pretty much the lowest average house prices. Newcastle City Council didn't have to pay their workers the Living Wage, but did anyway because they thought it the right thing to do - nothing to do with retention of workers, because there are many more applicants per job than there are jobs.
C'mon Deano. Engage with the actual topic.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I suggest that Booth is doing the middle-class patronising here, and looking at poverty through rose-tinted spectacles. It is easy to romanticise poverty when you aren't living it. I have lived in poverty and it is horrendous. Nothing spiritually enriching about it, more like seriously spiritually draining.
William Booth, a middle-class patronizer? Really?
I have never lived in poverty, by the grace of God. But I have spent a lot of time working with the extreme poor of the world in African countries.
My observation is that one's experience of poverty is partially shaped by the experience of one's peers and neighbors. People who have the basics - enough food to eat (even if they have to grow it themselves) and shelter - tend not to behave as though poverty is demoralizing or miserable when their community is also poor.
But if you move those same people from their home village into the capital city, their experience of poverty changes. They see big buildings and nice cars and houses, and they start to feel that poverty is a really bad thing. Even if in many cases they are materially better off in the city than they were in the village.
In the West, the negative social and psychological impacts of poverty I believe are related to the presence of people who are not poor - on TV, in town, etc. You know how you could be living, so you feel worse about how you are living.
Erm, no, the negative side effects of my poverty was not being able to heat my home and getting ill from the cold, and not having enough to eat.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I suggest that Booth is doing the middle-class patronising here, and looking at poverty through rose-tinted spectacles. It is easy to romanticise poverty when you aren't living it. I have lived in poverty and it is horrendous. Nothing spiritually enriching about it, more like seriously spiritually draining.
Whilst I think you are right in a way, I also think you are being a bit unfair on Booth. It isn't obvious to me who Booth would describe as poor and extremely poor today.
I think there are some spiritual and societal benefits to being poor. I think wealth can often be a spiritual burden and corrodes the soul.
So I do think it depends on what the words here mean.
Please explain how dying from cold because you are too poor to afford heating gives one spiritual benefits.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Please explain how dying from cold because you are too poor to afford heating gives one spiritual benefits.
Gets you to Heaven faster? Assuming that's your ultimate destination, of course. If not, at least you'll be warm again! ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
It's pretty cheap with an advanced purchase ticket on the nationalised railway line that runs to Newcastle. Quite a lot more if you pay on the day, though.
If you've been paying attention to the thread, you'll have noticed that the difference between a minimum wage and a living wage is that on a minimum wage you cannot afford to advance purchase anything.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
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Posted
As ilustrated by Dafyd, the primary moral benefit to poverty is that , when you do get to a place that is comfortable, you at least have the experience to answer questions like that. And when you are on paycheck away from homelessness, you tend to be more inclined to look that homeless guy in the eye and give him a nod.
One thing that blew me away on mission trips to Mexico was how people in plywood houses scraped it together when someone's house burned down, or when visitors came. Even if the lady of the house had to go out in the yard and cut open an agave and smear the innards on a stale tortilla, visitors always got a snack when they visited a shack on the hills of Ensenada. That's the kind if attitude that comes from knowing you're probably next to be hit with something down the line.
Conversely, people who have never really "been there" can have striking tunnel vision. For instance:Preschool teachers have been living below the poverty level in the US since the 80's. It may be the only field in which you can get a degree and still be making minimum wage. The assumption seems to be that the field is dominated by married women or women who are going to be married.Even by people in it.
I had a director once-- well-married, decent director's salary-- who responded to a comment I made about suffering "baby blues" and regretting that time was running out by saying, "Oh, you could always adopt. Or go for artificial insemination."
To which i replied, "You're the one who signs my paychecks, do you really think I could do that?" (No to mention they could only afford to keep me half time, and I was uninsured.)
In other words, one benefit to me being stinking poor is that, if I ever become a director, you will never catch me making a dumb remark like that. And my teachers would get a living wage, if it killed me.
[ 12. February 2014, 00:22: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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dv
Shipmate
# 15714
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Posted
Anyone ever heard a sermon on
2 Thessalonians 3:10 ?
Posts: 70 | From: Lancs UK | Registered: Jun 2010
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by dv:
Anyone ever heard a sermon on
2 Thessalonians 3:10 ?
Sure. It's about folks who are so worked up about the eschaton that they neglect the work of caring for the least among themselves.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
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Posted
Observations of poverty from the outside are one thing, experience of it is another entirely.
If:
-there is not enough to eat and maybe you don't for 4 days in a row,
-you must walk everywhere you go,
-you must turn down the heat at night because you can't afford it,
-you wear all the clothes you own because you're cold otherwise when you walk outside,
-if you go into fast food restaurants to steal ketchup, sugar and salt to make sandwiches out of when you have bread or just eat the packets when you don't have bread,
-when you go dumpster diving to find things people have half eaten.... I could go on and on. It's terrible and unimaginable.
They call it grinding. I call it terrible. And then you see the people even worse off than you, and they are having sex with strangers to, they hope, get $20 a throw, getting beaten and ripped off other times. Shivering in the cold, smoking the baccy from discarded butts. Many of them needing mental health care, basic education and simply some warmth, both human and practical.
So yes, poverty is bad. And people who say it isn't, well, I don't know what to think, except what they think is poverty isn't. The children particularly don't seem to experience what Mr. Booth considered unmixed.
[ 12. February 2014, 01:44: Message edited by: no prophet ]
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
So yes, poverty is bad. And people who say it isn't, well, I don't know what to think, except what they think is poverty isn't. The children particularly don't seem to experience what Mr. Booth considered unmixed.
Mr Booth was talking about a situation in which "there is not actual want of the necessities of life". I assume he means being able to feed oneself, heat one's house, and clothe one's children. This being Victorian England, I would guess, out of context, that what Booth means by 'poor' as opposed to 'extreme poverty' would be something like 'unable to pay a servant'.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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pydseybare
Shipmate
# 16184
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Mr Booth was talking about a situation in which "there is not actual want of the necessities of life". I assume he means being able to feed oneself, heat one's house, and clothe one's children. This being Victorian England, I would guess, out of context, that what Booth means by 'poor' as opposed to 'extreme poverty' would be something like 'unable to pay a servant'.
Having read biographies of Booth, I think that is highly unlikely.
There were obviously various degrees of poverty in Victorian England, I doubt very much that anyone who employed servants (at all) would be considered by Booth to be poor.
There was a pecular use of imprecise language at the time - referring to the 'worthy' and the 'unworthy' poor, the latter being widely held to be ferral/sub-human/criminal/incapable of anything good. It is striking that Booth broke through these popular divisions by insisting that the poor had some dignity and that people were not (necessarily) prostitutes because they were low and disgusting scum who deserved nothing better, but because they'd been crushed down by circumstance.
I suspect that Booth was referring to the poor as people above the 'criminal' classes who had regular employment, aspirations, perhaps a career and prospects but remained in what everyone else might consider 'substandard' housing (given that housing at the time was a measure of wealth and position in society).
Such people would still be offensive to the wealthy middle classes who would not sully themselves with interactions with these people who are considered below them. I think Booth is asserting that honourable, uptight and higher-status people would do well to experience a little more poverty in their lives.
Incidentally, I read a very interesting book about a particular slum in London a while ago, and it turned out that several Lords in Parliament who were keenest to clear the slum (to remove undesirable and criminal elements) turned out to be the very same slum-landlords whose extortion kept people in grinding poverty. It was all a scam designed to offer compensation to the rich for exploiting the poor.
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"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Erm, no, the negative side effects of my poverty was not being able to heat my home and getting ill from the cold, and not having enough to eat.
My point was very clearly about having your basic needs met but feeling worse about poverty when others around you have more.
That has nothing to do with freezing to death or starving.
I was addressing the psychological impact of poverty when living in a poor community compared to living in a mixed community. If you wish to respond please address that specifically.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
My point was very clearly about having your basic needs met but feeling worse about poverty when others around you have more.
That was indeed your point, but it's not one that many anti-poverty campaigners like to tackle directly. Even on threads like this, where the assumption that basic necessities such as heat and food are available and affordable is in the OP and has been repeated several times, the talk inevitably goes back to people starving or freezing to death.
The question implicit in the OP of this thread is about how much society/government should provide to the poor beyond the basic necessities. I think that is a very interesting question, and one worthy of discussion. I also predict that within a handful of posts we'll be back to talking about people starving or freezing to death...
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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pydseybare
Shipmate
# 16184
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
That was indeed your point, but it's not one that many anti-poverty campaigners like to tackle directly. Even on threads like this, where the assumption that basic necessities such as heat and food are available and affordable is in the OP and has been repeated several times, the talk inevitably goes back to people starving or freezing to death.
I'm not sure that is inevitable. And I'm not sure that I agree that heat and food are available easily to someone supporting themselves on minimum wage. Possibly not enough in itself to kill an individual, but certainly a major factor in the unpleasantness of poverty that often leads to death.
quote:
The question implicit in the OP of this thread is about how much society/government should provide to the poor beyond the basic necessities. I think that is a very interesting question, and one worthy of discussion. I also predict that within a handful of posts we'll be back to talking about people starving or freezing to death...
No, the question is fundamentally what are considered to be bare necessities - given that we are rich on world standards with access to free healthcare, schooling etc.
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"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Oh dear, I've probably left it too long to resond and I shan't answer the points that have been raised.
My comment about General Booth's opinion that not all poverty is an unmixed evil, is irony was due to the fact that he worked so much for and with those who suffered the types of poverty that the Nineteenth Century world was subject to...
As far as the living wage is concerned, I don't support it; not because I don't believe that people should have enough to live on, but because I don't believe that it is the state's job to ensure, as the living wage proposes, that people can afford 32" televisions and a holiday in a holiday cottage in the country.
It is the state's job to create a thriving economy, to keep law and order, maintain health, education, defence, etc, etc, etc so that in a prosperous economy people can work for a living. It is the task of the state also to protect those who cannot work with emergency basic relief.
I was a teenage in the 1970s and we were, by the government's standards, 'poor'. I remember Christmases when our presents were all provided by the grandparents; I remember being given an evidently second hand bike for my birthday - having been told in advance it was in fact going to be such, I remember walking to my public school (yes I had a privileged education via a direct grant scheme) in the rain without a coat because we couldn't afford one. I remember not being able to afford to join the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme ... I had free school meals.
Oh, I could go on.
Were we 'poor'? Well we never went without food, we never were cold (apart from the fact there was no central heating in the house - but that was quite normal even for richer people at the time). We had a television (black and white) and a telephone. We had no car.
I went to the pictures occasionally, went swimming a lot, had richer friends, did loads of stuff that kids did together
We didn't have family holidays and the only time my sister and me went away was Sunday School camp.
So were we 'poor'?
NO. Not really - there were things we could not afford; and that, I think is the problem.
We now have such a consumerist, materialistic society, that the middle classes feel guilty if the poorer people can't afford to do the things they themselves enjoy. Oh, the poor dears can't afford to dine out at posh restaurants, let's raise their wages artificially so they can come and sit with us!
Fine. I can't afford to go to posh restaurants on Newcastle's quayside even now - the Toby Carvery at £5.99 is an expensive meal out for us! But I don't winge and say I need a higher wage so I can go to eat at Hester Blumenthal!!
There is a difference between poverty (cold, hungry and naked) and being on a low wage where luxuries are few.
The problem is that they say that poverty is not a state of being unable to feed your kids, poverty is the state of saying to your kids, 'sorry we can't afford that'.
My view is that there is no shame and no degradation in living on a low wage. Just because you can't afford everything you want does not make you poor.
Talk to most people my age and above and they'll all tell you the same.
Oh, and another thing.
One of Booth's remedies for poverty was to get people off the drink.
A lot of poverty is caused by bad and selfish spending choices.
My advice to some people would be this:
Stop smoking (£50 a week for a 20 a day habit) and feed your kids!!
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
The question implicit in the OP of this thread is about how much society/government should provide to the poor beyond the basic necessities. I think that is a very interesting question, and one worthy of discussion. I also predict that within a handful of posts we'll be back to talking about people starving or freezing to death...
No, the question is fundamentally what are considered to be bare necessities - given that we are rich on world standards with access to free healthcare, schooling etc.
Yes, that too. Some of the things that are considered basic necessities these days would have been seen as extravagant luxuries a few centuries ago.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
As far as the living wage is concerned, I don't support it; not because I don't believe that people should have enough to live on, but because I don't believe that it is the state's job to ensure, as the living wage proposes, that people can afford 32" televisions and a holiday in a holiday cottage in the country.
Frankly, I'm ashamed to share a conurbation with you.
£7.65 an hour for a 45 hour week works out at a shade under £18k a year. It's enough to live on. It's enough to put something aside to cover when the washing machine blows up. It's enough, God forbid, for a week's holiday self-catering with the family.
We keep on being told that work should pay. And here it is, paying. At £18k a year, wages are still being subsidised by taxes, but it's just about okay. It's enough to give people some dignity.
Whereas you, apparently, want to keep people earning poverty wages and see them sick, worried, and continually battling the system in order to survive. Is that really what the Salvation Army stands for these days?
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Whereas you, apparently, want to keep people earning poverty wages and see them sick, worried, and continually battling the system in order to survive.
Well the living wage campaigners aren't helping themselves by publishing stuff like this on their website:
quote:
Lacey Green, said: “This has made a big difference to me and my 5 year old son Tyler. I can now send Tyler to karate and football after school. We couldn’t afford to do that before.”
Living Wage Foundation
Meanwhile I know middle class families who have to limit their children's activities to one sport each because of cost.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Mr Booth was talking about a situation in which "there is not actual want of the necessities of life". I assume he means being able to feed oneself, heat one's house, and clothe one's children. This being Victorian England, I would guess, out of context, that what Booth means by 'poor' as opposed to 'extreme poverty' would be something like 'unable to pay a servant'.
Having read biographies of Booth, I think that is highly unlikely.
There were obviously various degrees of poverty in Victorian England, I doubt very much that anyone who employed servants (at all) would be considered by Booth to be poor.
Perhaps I should have punctuated more clearly. I wasn't saying he considered people who employed servants to be poor. Rather the reverse: being able to employ a servant meant you're not poor. But I would suppose that there's a range of income levels between people who can afford servants and people who had to routinely worry where their next meal was coming from.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Marvin: quote:
Some of the things that are considered basic necessities these days would have been seen as extravagant luxuries a few centuries ago.
Many of the things considered necessities nowadays did not exist a few centuries ago. Take computers, for example; it is still just about possible to get by without a computer at the moment, but with the advent of Internet banking and "e-government" it is becoming increasingly difficult. A lot of employers expect you to submit job applications by email, so if you're unemployed and looking for a job you need access to a computer and the Internet. Online banking is cheaper than traditional banking. Many self-employed tradespeople are asking for payment by bank transfer and refusing to accept cheques, because their banks make a charge for processing them. Schools expect children to do homework online.
Thirty years ago hardly anyone had a home computer and those who did were regarded as geeks. I remember watching a TV programme about home computers as a teenager and wondering why anyone would want such a thing.
[ 12. February 2014, 11:29: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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