Someone needs to fight for poverty. Not against it or its causes. No, someone somewhere needs to get up in the mornings and dig themselves a trench from which they will defend their poverty. Where are all the people who eat soup out of styrofoam cups too often? That can't be real meat in there...
This is where the "problem" arises. Lying to one's own self, a poisonous inner deceit, is a largely unrecognized trend hiding in the forest of trends. It is not farfetched to imagine a character that had to gather loose change in order to access public transportation while wearing an article of clothing that costs a week's pay. This is an extreme yet realistic portrayal of consumerism. We are well dressed mice playing at being unaware of our reality.
The stupor seems impossible to awake from. You will rarely find the person one can describe as being proud and poor simultaneously, or living in poverty with dignity. No American draws inspiration from the lower rung of society: their innovation, will to survive, and ability to survive in an ecosystem shared with affluence is unimportant. Even worse, the poor are written off as vulgar, uneducated and undeserving people who are poor because they never tried hard enough. In the rulebook you abide by, which allows you to read this on a computer or phone while in your warm home, there is simply no space for dignity within poverty. We all look up the pyramid, never below towards the base.
Historically, poverty has a strange trajectory influenced by a schizophrenic society always abiding to the power in place. Most of the religions in existence today began by exalting the poor. For example: "it's easier for a poor man to get into heaven than it is for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle." It seems that people no longer care about getting into heaven as long as they have a great, yacht-filled time while breathing. Thus the overthrow of nobility and the transformation of feudalism into capitalism. Feudalism was a comforting time for the poor, who were a very large majority, due to the fact that it was literally impossible to become wealthy because the acquisition of wealth was a nepotistic phenomenon. Capitalism was simply a quick wardrobe change that instilled culpability in the poor: shame in their poverty because wealth could be had by anyone if they put their mind to it. Ironically, the poor opened doors with revolution and imprisoned themselves in discomfort at the same time.
We have arrived at the age of Much but Never Enough in terrible form. The culture of Sharing has permitted the rise of a public inner deceit: you are never in dire straits, or it is never documented. While whining online is annoying, the outward expression of inner deceit is troublesome. We are all capable of lying to ourselves, and do so often, but lying to others with ease in an attempt to impress demonstrates a lack of self confidence in a quest for approval. There may be more peace of mind in the acknowledgment of your true state, and reacting gracefully to this realization, than in the constant struggle to obtain applause.
- Alex Moran
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