A Graveside Test

Today my wife is at the funeral of her uncle. When I spoke with her on the phone, she said her father, who is usually an emotionally reserved man, was nearly inconsolable as he stood at the casket, repeating his brother's name over and over. I do not know what he was thinking, but I can guess.

This relative experienced a tragedy early in life and in some ways never recovered. Although all the family members tried to help this individual over the course of his life, I can imagine that my father-in-law was thinking of what else he could have done to have helped his brother through the years.

With regard to our poverty discussion, I agree that people should work to their full potential. I agree that a person who is able bodied should not take a free handout. Yet I can never imagine a person standing at the graveside and saying to the departed, "I did too much for you." Consider the graveside test one more way of knowing.

Questions on Singer's Solution to Poverty

Money is an indicator of how much society as a whole, however right or wrong, perceives an individual’s worth. To dispute the current impoverished situations of individuals, we must assume that society incorrectly values certain individuals, for example those in the entertainment industry. To propose a solution we must assume that we have a better system of evaluating individual’s worth. I cannot claim to assume or prove either. Yet I can offer some questions.
To focus on poverty in children: Others, such as Singer have pointed out that we ought to try to equalize the opportunities of children, gotten only through “biological luck.” Yet this “biological luck” includes far more than just the wealth of the parents. It is hair color, eye color, I.Q. and a million other characteristics. To equalize all the “biological luck” would produce uniformity and a loss of uniqueness. Is abolishing poverty the same as trying to abolish other signs of “biological luck” or if it is not, what is different about abolishing poverty?
Although, abolishing poverty may not have as an extreme affect as that, the ability of parents to raise their child has long been claimed as a right and to place the state or any other entity in charge of the child’s basic needs seems to infringe upon this right. Although it may be argued that the state or other entity would only intervene in times of extreme need-such as in child abuse cases-the other children would be affected by taxes or the moral obligation to donate. This organization would then influence all children taking from some and giving to others. Whose right is it to raise the child, and therefore who is responsible for the child’s basic needs?
Society gives an individual money, on the basis of a trade for talents or products, or on the basis of entertainment, or on the basis of being valued by someone (inheritance), in a bargain both sides made. Singer suggests that we have a moral obligation to give this money to impoverished children. He implies that the money is not the sole property of the individual but that others, on the basis of need can claim it from him. To give this money is not mercy on the part of the individual but justice on the part of society. Is the money given to an individual for some trade (of money for talent, products etc.) belong only to that individual or does society still have a claim upon it?

Responding to Friday's Discussion

So for some reason Friday I found myself really frustrated with the discussion regarding salary. I think now it was because nobody was making any sort of distinction between what is ideal and what is practical, but most people's opinions were based around one or the other.

Perhaps this is just my interpretation, but it sounded to me like what the presenter was suggesting was at least some degree of socialism: equal pay for equal amount of work (as opposed to equal pay for equal type of work). I think this would indeed be ideal, if everyone who worked hard were rich. However, this is not at all practical. Everyone simply can't be rich, with inflation, etc (I don't think I have to go into the economics of it, it's pretty clear). And as for the suggestion of removing money from the absurdly wealthy to give to the hard-working poor, I don't think that is practical either: the principle of removing anyone's earned money would achieve only uproar from the people about the need to defy a communist government.

Then we move to the practical which is not necessarily ideal (and certainly is not, in my opinion). Those who pay for education and training in effect invest in themselves; they are paying money to receive what they hope will pay off in the future (through a good job and high salary). This unfortunately tends to result in a system where those with money are able to afford a rich future, whereas those without are unable. I think this is where the problem must be addressed, in INVESTING in people early, rather than trying to give them equal results later, which is impractical. Perhaps the answer is more affordable education for all, which may be a step closer to socialism, but at least it's not a dangerous leap into near-communism.

My Own View-A Look at Laziness

For me this may be one of the most difficult topics to deal with. To come to a conclusion i have to combine viewpoints from both sides as well as address certain emotional ways of knowing from experience.
I do think we have a definite responsibility or rather should feel a responsibility to others around us not so blessed as most of us are. However, this responsibility should only go so far. There is a significant difference between helping someone and crippling their desire to work. I understand that most people on welfare have to get a job as a part of their program but the difficulty and performance at these jobs is extremely sub par. What makes me more upset than anything is someone who is in need of help, is getting help, but is not working their hardest at whatever it is they do to deserve and compensate for the help their receiving. It doesn't matter what you're doing a person should take pride in their work and try to do whatever they can to be the best at their job. When i worked as a busboy i knew that the job might not be the most prestigious job or that i had to work harder than anybody to keep my job or earn more or less but something within me wanted to be the best i could and work my hardest every night to deserve whatever money i was receiving because i know there are many people out there that would work even harder to get half of what i was getting. Why people in need or close to it don't adopt this attitude, i simply don't understand. So many times i receive help at all sorts of work establishments and the people either lack the desire or just don't do their job well. Why should i want to help someone that isn't willing to take their opportunities and do what they can with them.
These are my conflicting feelings of obligation and frustration with the condition of many of our people. From my experiences i see people that just want to get by doing as little work as possible and i just don't support that. And the sad thing is i don't know if there is any solution to how i feel about this at all but it definitely makes me hesitant to fully support either side of this debate. The point i will leave with is that there are some people that deserve legitimate help but there are MANY more that deserve to be where they are and they pass it on to their children by not instilling the right attitude in them from the beginning. While this may not seem fair to the kids, it is if you look at the fact they will probably do the same thing to their kids and continue the cycle. Somewhere the inherited laziness needs to stop and until it does on a large scale i can't fully support more or even the current funding and help we provide through the government and other organizations.

West Wing Quote

This quote from The West Wing (Season 2, before Sorkin left)
comes from one of the White House senior staff, explaining why
a certain line (Tax cutsto the rich fund faster private jets
and bigger swimming pools) won't appear in a speech.
"Henry, last fall, every time your boss got on the stump and said,
"It's time for the rich to pay their fair share," I hid under a couch
and changed my name. I left Gage Whitney making $400,000 a year,
which means I paid twenty-seven times the national average in
income tax. I paid my fair share, and the fair share of twenty-six other
people. And I'm happy to 'cause that's the only way it's gonna
work, and it's in my best interest that everybody be able to go to
schools and drive on roads, but I don't get twenty-seven votes on
Election Day. The fire department doesn't come to my house twenty-
seven times faster and the water doesn't come out of my faucet
twenty-seven times hotter. The top one percent of wage earners
in this country pay for twenty-two percent of this country. Let's
not call them names while they're doing it, is all I'm saying."
Just some food for thought.
EDIT: Yeah, the formatting's weird. Whatever.

Now You've Got It!

The past few posts, some with comments, have captured the very essence of the 21st Century Agora. I am absolutely delighted by the high level of discussion, none of which was initiated or mediated by me. So pleased was I with all this that I forwarded these posts to several friends, both in and out of NC.

Keep up the great discussion on this and other topics! :)

I think I need to clarify what I said in my last post. I do not believe that we have an "obligation" stemming from some overarching ethical code to redistribute income in order to assist people in poverty. I do, however, believe that a realistic approach to modern society requires that we provide assistance to those living at exceptionally poor levels. If we want to fight crime and the other problems that follow poverty, a pragmatic outlook leads us to address the problem at its core. The "moral necessity" I spoke of is not a moral necessity to assist but one to protect the rights of all Americans (in all classes) who are threatened by the effects of poverty. If this requires money, it is no more inappropriate or contradictory to a capitalistic ideology than any other funding dedicated to programs like law enforcement, defense, and public works. To me, all of this is necessary to maintain a "social system that leaves men free to achieve, to gain and to keep their values." Dreams of total individual independence are utopian ideals which cannot be realistically cast upon a functional, modern society.

one more:

"...This does not mean that he is indifferent to all men, that human life is of no value to him and that he has no reason to heolp otheres in an emergency. But it does mean that he does not subordinate his life to the welfare of others, that he does not sacrifice himself to their needs, that the relief of their suffering is not his primary concern, that nay help he gives is an exception, not a rule, an act of generosity, not of moral duty, that it is marginal and incidental--as disasters are marginal and incidental in the course of human existence--and that values, not disasters, are the goal, the first concern and the motive power of his life."

No "obligation"

I agree with Mr. Perkins; I LOVE THIS TOPIC! I completely disagree with Erik. I think that we have absolutely no duty to help those in poverty. Those in poverty have no right to demand our help or even expect it. The thing that bugs me about the debate over how to solve poverty is that those who might agree with me are accused of being "un-American" or "arrogant" or "un-feeling" or "ignorant" or "selfish." I help people and give money to organizations I trust that help people in poverty because I WANT TO. It makes me feel good to help people that have not been blessed as much as I have. I am extremely grateful for the opportunities I have had because of the hard work of my parents AND because of my own efforts. All of us want to end poverty; ALL OF US want to help those in need. The debate is over HOW.
To respond to Erik's position over our "obligation" to help others:

From Ayn Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness":

"One's SOLE obligation towards others, in this respect, is to maintain a social system that leaves men free to achieve, to gain and to keep their values."

"In the normal conditions of existence, man has to chose his goals, project them in time, pursue them and achieve them by his own effort. He cannot do it if his goals are at the mercy of and must be sacrificed to any misfortune happening to others. He cannot live his life by the guidance of rules applicable only to conditions under which human survival is impossible."

"It is medically possible to take the corneas of a man's eyes immediately after his death and transplant them to the eyes of a living man who is blind, thus restoring his sight (in certain types of blindness). Now, according to collectivized ethics, this poses a social problem. Should we wait until a man's death to cut out his eyes, when other men need them? Should we regard everybody's eyes as public property and devise a 'fair method of distribution'? Would you advocate cutting out a living man's eye and giving it to a blind man, so as to 'equalize' them? No? Then don't struggle any further with questions about 'public projects' in a free society. You know the answer. The principle is the same."

Cyclical Poverty

During the last class we discussed the differences between cyclical and situational poverty. We came up with a definition for cyclical poverty that i dont think is correct. I believe that cyclical poverty is more personal and is essentially a events that transpire that force an individual deeper into poverty. For example a man who is in poverty but is working is laid off work, because hes laid off he cant afford his car payments, without transportation he cant find another job, cant find another job he cant pay the rent, he cant pay the rent hes evicted and because he cannot trace back and get a job to own property again he is now homeless. Now this example though extreme shows that poverty simply builds and builds. It may even build to the next generation, now lets say the man has no job, he cant send his kids to school, they dont get the proper education (what the U.S. maintains as equal opportunity in education) and they too are in poverty, all because of him being laid off. I believe that there is no difference between situational and cyclical, instead situational is one aspect in the circle of poverty. Poverty in the economic sense is cyclical in that it continues and transcends generations. The situational aspect could be the initial reason for the start of the cycle (the man being laid off, the example of Hurricane Katrine in class)...i dont think you can ever end these examples, however if people are open-minded and proactive early enough these cycles can stop very quickly.

Why we can't avoid welfare

Ben makes a valid point regarding the necessity of welfare programs even in the face of freeloaders who take advantage of the system. Though most of us would prefer a "fairer" system in which only the people who truly deserve aid receive it, this is not a practical possibility in modern America. I'll go even farther about the necessity of welfare -- not only is it impossible to draw a line between laziness and necessity or between poverty within or outside one's own control, it is necessary to provide welfare to all of these people, even if they don't deserve it. In the end, we have to support everyone in our society, no matter how lazy, hated, or evil they are. America has always been about protecting the disliked and disadvantaged -- we are careful to ensure rights to even the most despicable criminals and reviled hate groups, because as soon as one person's rights are revoked, everyone's rights are threatened. We have to support people in poverty, no matter the cause, in the same way we have to pay for healthcare for someone who comes into the hospital having a heart attack, regardless of whether they caused it or whether they can pay for treatment. It is a practical and a moral necessity -- we cannot feasibly simply send people out on the streets if we want to maintain a peaceful and civilized nation, and we cannot morally lock them up or leave them to die -- even more than free money, this outcome would be distinctly un-American.

...the "e-mail"

Top Ten Poorest Cities (250,000 or more population)

City, State, % People Below Poverty Level

1. Detroit, MI- 32.5%

2. Buffalo, NY- 29.9%

3. Cincinnati, OH- 27.8%

4. Cleveland, OH- 27%

5. Miami, FL- 26.9%

6. St. Louis, MO- 26.8%

7. El Paso, TX- 26.4&

8. Milwaukee, WI- 26.2%

9. Philadelphia, PA- 25.1%

10. Newark, NK- 24.2%

The following facts come from an article by Glenn Beck of CNN.

-What do the top ten cities with the highest poverty rate all have in common?- Democratic Leadership

-Detroit, MI (1st on the poverty list) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961.

-Buffalo, NY (2nd) hasn't elected on since 1954.

-Cincinnati, OH (3rd)-...since 1984.

-Cleveland, OH (4th)...since 1989

-Miami, FL (5th) never had a Republican Mayor

-St. Louis, MO (6th) ...since 1949

-El Paso, TX (7th)...has never had a Republican Mayor

-Milwaukee, WI (8th)...since 1908.

-Philadelphia, PA (9th)...since 1952

-Newark, NJ (10th) ...since 1907

Einstein once said "The definition of insanity  is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"

It is the disadvantaged who habitually elect Democrats - yet remain disadvantaged.

Poverty

My mom sent me an e-mail today not knowing that we were talking about poverty. I thought this was very interesting and might spark up some good conversation between people in our class.

Welfare and American Ideals

A large part of middle class America's aversion to welfare comes from what we discussed today as a "fear of laziness." For a class driven by the idea that rewards come only with hard work, letting our hard earned taxes pay for someone else to sit idle is an horrifying idea. Unfortunately, we let our instinct to defend the American work ethic get in the way of defending another American ideal that may be just as important - a fundamental of our legal system and our view of the individual. We consider an individual to be innocent until proven guilty, ostensibly because we feel it is worse for an innocent citizen to be punished than for a guilty citizen to be spared. If in tightening up welfare, we successfully reduce the amount of fraud, we haven't necessarily made an improvement. It's better to have some freeloaders weighing down the system while every person in need has access to aid than to make welfare so air-tight that the people who need it most are locked out.

Riches on different Levels

Can a "level of poverty" be established for the whole world to refer to? Absolutely not. World wide aid organizations can do what they are meant to do by supplying basic goods and services to impoverished people, but for some, the goods mean nothing. People who use these organizations to their advantage may see themselves as poor, but what about the populations in the world that do not even know they exist? Uncontacted Amazon tribes do not even know such organizations because they have never seen beyond their proximal areas.

Say for example a member of one of these "uncontacted" Amazon tribes found out about the development and advancements in our world. This Amazonian has now been exposed to the real world. He now knows that he does not have what others in the world have and take for granted. He is now labeled as poor by what we would see him to be.

Now what if he had stayed in his sheltered area and not have undergone that exposure? He was very respected in his tribe due to the number of wives he had and his hut was also one of the largest in the village. In this culture, that means this guy has it all. It all depends on the cultural perspective when determining poverty levels.

The use of relative/absolute measurements to gauge poverty can be used only within a culture. Perspective plays a very important role when discussing this issue of measuring poverty. Therefore, comparisons cannot be made across cultural boundaries unless one knows what the perspective would be like from each individual culture being compared.

universal language

Can I respond to a previous question/student's answer??? I don't think this qualifies as starting a "new discussion"....ah but anyway, on the question of MATH AS A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.  I think that math is absolutely a universal language.  It's not necessarily the numbers and symbols we should be concerned with, but the concepts behind them.  One may reply, "well, that applies to language, too, as all words represent concepts...what's the difference with math, then?"  Yes, languages are, to a certain extent, translations.  We can now master many languages in the world because of these translations.  The word "book" in English represents the same object as a "libro" does in Spanish.  But not ALL words can be exactly translated.  Different cultures treat different objects and subjects differently, and so their words--although listed together in a language-to-language dictionary--may have slightly different connotations.  The "words" of Math, however, always represent the same concepts....in ALL languages and cultures, no connotations needed.

Are there aspects of mathematics that one can choose whether or not to believe?

I think this is a poorly worded question by IB [no offense to the IBO]. By asking whether someone is able "choose" to believe something is evident. One can choose to believe something or not, whether in mathematics, science, or art. The ability to choose is human nature. I believe that 1+4=5 yet someone else might reject that [despite its truth or lack of]. I think the problem is whether people accept the belief or not. There have been several theories, not only in math, where the theory isn't believed by most people, despite its recognition as truth now. The culture of the people causes them to adopt certain faiths. In addition, the more complicated a problem, the less people will choose to believe its validity. For example, in any math class there will be, at some point, 2 people who disagree on the answer to a problem:

6x-8=4

In this problem, x=2. However, someone may believe that x is some other number. Until they review the problem, they will insist that they are correct. Anyone can choose to believe or reject whether an aspect of mathematics. It just so happens that sometimes this choice is the wrong choice to make [assuming all of our commonly accepted mathematical knowledge is true].