18 May 1983

The poverty of poverty

Poverty is depressing -- to its "sufferers" that is -- not because of anything in poverty itself, but rather because of the way it is interpreted -- I am of course talking about the case where the basic survival and the basic happiness requirements are available. The reason poverty is depressing is that it is perceived as the lack of something one should have; more exactly, it is perceived as the lack of something that would supply part of the purpose of one's life. If the purpose of one's life, therefore, were defined so as not to include those "extras," their lack would of course be, at the very least, no cause for the downheartedness -- in fact, such a "lack" would not be felt at all -- an Indian farmer does not in any sense feel his life has not achieved its purpose as he doesn't own a Rolls Royce. Now as far as the genealogy (or "archaeology") of the need for these extras -- it doesn't just happen. As one begins to realize that society does not automatically provide one with the means to satisfy ones psychical needs, such as companionship of the right kind, "love," and so on -- and that even one's physical survival could possibly be endangered by a lack of food or proper shelter -- a surge of animal fear, very similar to the exultation of religious "salvation" from the dread of existence, pours forth, and crystallizes in a grasping for anything that would relieve this fear of deprivation. To summarize, the need for the extras originates in one's realization of the precariousness of one's psychical and physical survival -- that is, the first semi-conscious clue to the role of the law of the jungle in a society where economics, rather than ethics, is the basis of individual and mass conduct.

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