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Olive, a bright young woman, commented on the tendency of privileged Westerners to romanticize poverty. I think this is likely because the struggle to survive can make people feel a lot more “fulfilled” than the struggle of waiting in traffic or dealing with your in-laws. Various “first-world problems” like your cell phone dying or getting a computer virus seem big, but really in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal. We can try to be grateful just for having food on our table, which is the origin of Thanksgiving. But really, we’re still dealing with an obesity epidemic rather than problems with hunger.
A lot of people who were born and raised upper middle class don’t really appreciate what they have because they’ve never known anything else. Even when they travel to remote places, they know they can get back to the comfort of civilization. They’ve never had to, for instance, live in 40 degree celsius heat (over 100 degrees F) without air conditioning while undergoing a drought. They’ve also probably never really faced death.
I grew up in China pre-development, and lived in what would be considered by American standards to be dire poverty. My mother and I also survived on very little when I was younger. My husband volunteered in a developing country in Africa, lived alone for over a year, lost like 60lbs and had to be hospitalized. Those early life experiences make us feel less inclined to go “discover ourselves in another country.” We’ve already sought out spirituality and gone through a lot of hardships. We also know there are people who have gone through way worse, and it gives us perspective.
These issues run quite deep, and I don’t think they can be solved by a mere return to “traditional values.” Without traditional conditions like brutal hardships, close-knit families and communities, constant threat of disease, starvation, and death, those values are merely lip service. We don’t really want to give up our modern conveniences and goods, throw out our microwaves, electronics and automobiles, or move out of large metropolitan centers back to small huts in villages. So what next?
The other day I listened to an NPR radio program about a guy who was a huge Apple fan, loved Apple products and bought the newest and latest gadget every time. Then one day he heard about some pictures taken by Chinese factory workers who put together these Apple products, and decided to see the factories in person. What he found was quite astonishing. There are people who work like slaves to produce our electronics. They work crazy hours and live in squalor.
Suppose that people boycott Foxconn, which is even reputed to be one of the better Chinese factories for working conditions, and stop buying electronics. Is this realistic? Can it even happen on a widescale basis? If it does, won’t that hamper China’s economic development, which is now tied to the world’s economy, fiat currency and economic models of constant growth? And who are we to say they can’t modernize just like the West has done? So on, and so on.
The situation is quite complicated, and there are no easy solutions. So we keep on doing what we have been doing until something derails these tracks. If you ask me, I think the real problem is not material poverty, but spiritual poverty.
Olive
Great comments, Hope! I majored in environmental studies in college, and we talked about these issues a lot. There’s a branch of environmentalism called “sustainable development,” and it’s strictly associated with teaching people in developing countries to develop without hurting the environment and whatnot. Strangely, the teachers are usually from countries that were allowed to develop in unsustainable fashions. It’s the weirdest kind of hypocrisy I’ve ever witnessed, and it’s the primary reason why I decided the environmental movement wasn’t for me.
I wrote a paper about how joining movements (environmental, political, whatever) often allows people to avoid introspection and spiritual/personal growth. Maybe I’ll post it on my blog one of these days.