Tag: social problems

The Mythology of Poverty

Whoever said “There’s honour among thieves” obviously hadn’t met many thieves.  This is one of those modern day truisms that simply isn’t true.  Thieves steal things; that’s their job.  When there’s no one else about, they will steal from each other.  Haven’t you ever seen The Sting?  Our world is chock full of these pseudo aphorisms — all widely accepted and all utter crap.  For the most part, they’re harmless, even cute.  But lately they’ve been creeping into our fundamental thinking, causing trouble, distorting our ability to handle problems.

For example, “Honour among thieves” suggests that there’s some kind of a Rogue’s Code out there that governs the little bastard who stole your iPhone™.  There isn’t!  He doesn’t belong to a fleet-footed fraternity of contemporary Robin Hoods, dedicated to redistributing technology to the less fortunate.  The only creed he lives by is economics – straight up and down.  He stole your phone for money: that’s it!  We attribute a modicum of honour to his profession because most of us simply can’t fathom an ordinary person following a moral compass that has no dial.  However, the reality is the gentleman thief is a fiction, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law to amuse his Victorian friends.  Unfortunately, it has somehow gotten stuck to our psyche, with disastrous results.  And it’s not the only one.  There are others way more serious.

There is a general misunderstanding that poor people have a moral leg up on the rest of us.  It is widely believed that if you are struggling to make ends meet, you’re absolutely bursting with integrity.  Not only that, but if, for whatever reason, you jump off the moral balance beam, the assumption is you were forced into it by an unforgiving society.  Let me set the record straight.  People who take the early bus to menial, minimum wage (or below) jobs do not necessarily have either honesty or empathy hardwired into their DNA.  Yes, they are working hard and, quite probably, getting the shaft on a daily basis, but I doubt very much that moral intrepidity is based on an unfavourable income tax bracket.  The “Poor but honest” stories we all grew up on are wonderful tales for children.  However, unless you’re seriously into economic profiling, there’s no reason to believe that poor people are any less corruptible than your average middle-class, 80K-a-year systems technician (No offence, systems technicians!)

And while we’re at it, the other prevailing myth about poor people is they all want to live together.  There is an unshakable belief among NGOs, city planners and politicians, that the cure for homelessness, slumlords and squalor is social housing (sometimes euphemized as affordable housing.)  Surprisingly, this legend is still with us, even after half a century of building gigantic, high and low rise concrete bunkers to warehouse the poor.  These urban battle zones are low rent Mogadishus and probably contribute as much to our low income social problems as cheap, hardcore drugs.  The real head scratcher, however, is the biggest proponents of social housing all live in tidy little neighbourhoods with painted fences, dogs on leashes and manicured lawns.  Either that, or they’re in gabled condo communities with assigned underground parking and more security than the Green Zone in Bagdad.  Is it just me, or is the disconnect here so wide you could sail the USS Abe Lincoln through it?

These are just two examples of truisms about poverty that just aren’t true.  There are piles more.  Think about it.  Poverty is not one homogenous entity.  It covers a huge area of land and has millions of people in it.  It’s also a relative term.  Poor in Detroit is quite a bit different from poor in Seattle.  The below average family in Biloxi has more in common with their wealthier neighbours than they do a statistically similar family in Newark.  Yet, we continue to think, talk and act as though poverty were a one-size-fits-all affliction you throw money at.

Furthermore, some of those most willing to perpetuate these myths are those socially and politically active people who are walking examples of exactly what I’m talking about.  Ever since Bob Geldof couldn’t figure out what to do with Tuesday, wealthy activists have been making a part-time profession out of poverty management.  Sometimes, they’re celebrities but mostly they’re just people with money and time on their hands.  Unfortunately, extended amounts of leisure do not qualify anybody to dabble in economics, education, social or urban planning.  Their opinions are no more valid then the local drycleaner.  In fact, the very success that gave them this free time is actually a detriment to their thinking.  For the most part, they are isolated from the real world and some have become so cocooned they wouldn’t know how to cope with reality (poverty-stricken or otherwise) if it bit them on the bum.  I’m sure these people truly care, but that doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about.  Sympathetic does not equal smart.  That’s just another truism that isn’t.

Our society has some serious problems, and most of us sincerely want to fix them.  Unfortunately, we’re never going to come close to solving any of them as long as we keep taking mythology as our starting point.

The Necessity of Success

I’m tired of success not being an option.  There’s a gathering idea in our society that, no matter what we do, there are certain things we’re just going to have to live with.  This attitude has been floating around our world like an airborne social virus for some time.  However, recently, like its contagious cousin the flu, it’s become a regular feature of our everyday life.   (Remember, not so many years ago, when we didn’t have to make the annual pilgrimage to get stabbed against a recurring seasonal disease?)  My point is that more and more people are thinking that successful solutions to our problems are just so many Chimera, wandering in herds in the distance.  We can vaguely see them out there, but we don’t actually believe they exist.

For example, my city has an outrageous drug problem.  I’m not talking about Carol, Bob, Ted and Alice getting together, rolling a joint after dinner and watching The Hangover on Blu-ray.  The stuff going on here is life threatening.  It’s destroying people — wholesale.   Entire neighbourhoods are falling down stoned, and they can’t get up.  It’s a complex situation that just begins with a Hydra-headed set of problems and then gets worse.  But the major obstacle that prevents us from reclaiming our city and its people from drug dealers and criminals is our own attitude toward drug abuse.  The prevailing wisdom is that there will always be people who abuse drugs – full stop.  Therefore, any strategy (we don’t even call them solutions anymore) we attempt to deal with our drug problem has got to be based on that one overwhelming fact.  And make no mistake: that fact does overwhelm us.  We have never taken the long-term view that we must focus our energies on eradicating drug abuse and the soul eating misery it causes.  Instead, year after year, we expend our limited resources trying to mitigate the here and now effects of individual drug use.  We do this because there will always be people who abuse drugs – full stop.

Similarly, because of our mild climate, my city has more than its fair share of homeless people.  I live in one of the most affluent countries in all of history, yet as incredible as it seems, we still have people — who are, but don’t want to be — homeless.  Meanwhile, across the street from Shopping Cart Estates we’re building six-storey condo units, as fast as we can pour the concrete.  We have the wealth, equipment and expertise, yet our chances of solving the homeless crisis in this country are as bleak as a northern Manitoba winter. (No offence, Herb Lake.)  Why?  Because once again, we simply don’t have the will to solve the problem.  It’s long since been decided that the destitute among us must be warehoused in urban atrocities called “social housing”; either that, or they will naturally remain part of the landscape.  So, since there’s never enough “social housing,” the attitude (although nobody ever out and out says it) is, “Ain’t it awful!  You can come and see us for some blankets next winter, but sorry, buddy: you’re on your own.”

In that same vein, there is more poverty in this country now than ever before, but instead of helping poor people get on the Gravy Train, we’re throwing money out the window at them, as we go by.  And the kicker is, after forty years of The Just Society, we know it doesn’t work.  Our attitude seems to be that people who have enough to live on have somehow taken that money away from people who don’t, and they must give it back.  This is not a solution.  We’ve just hired a bureaucratic Robin Hood to maintain the status quo and perpetually keep the poor on the cutting edge of down and out.  It’s an unfortunate fact, but robbing employed Peter to pay unemployed Paul is only good in the short term.  Eventually, given that trickle down, neither one of them is going to be eating regularly.

These are just three examples.  There are hundreds more.

The problem is, as a society, we no longer believe we can succeed – at anything.  We don’t think we can identify a problem, agree on a solution, turn our collective strength to that purpose, and with resolve and hard work, solve it.  We are becoming convinced that our problems are permanent and our best course of action is to throw money at them promiscuously in the futile hope they won’t get any worse.  That’s why, for example, we waste our time and resources looking for terrorist bombs instead of terrorist bombers.  We don’t believe we can win the War on Terror, so the next best thing is to minimize the damage.  It’s why our kids have become fat, dumb and unhappy.  It’s why we’re choking on our own waste and why Climate Change is going to make Armageddon look like a Wiener Roast gone wrong.  And it’s why, if we don’t change our attitude tomorrow, over breakfast, things are going to get a lot worse.

Here’s the deal.  We’re it.  We can’t shuffle our problems off anymore and there’s nobody left to download them to.  We need to succeed because, if we don’t, the consequences will be terrible.  We can do this.  It’s not hard, but success must become our first choice again.  As Galadriel said to Frodo, “This task was appointed to you, Frodo of the Shire.  If you do not find a way, no one will.”