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https://theconversation.com/why-are-the-poor-shunned-the-reasons-are-complicated-194808>
Review: Aporophobia: Why We Reject the Poor Instead of Helping Them – Adela
Cortina (Princeton University Press).
"In a study of 19th century ideas of poverty, the German historian Beate
Althammer observes a strange dichotomy. On the one hand, “there existed a
deep-rooted tradition of ascribing to the poor a special proximity to God”. As
a Hamburg teacher wrote in 1834:
Who obliges us more to sympathy and reverence than he who faces the
inescapable blows of an erratic fate with manly steadiness, pious
resignation and wise abstinence? What a dignified appearance is the
neediness simultaneously ennobled and keenly veiled by an indestructible
love of honor, which will bear suffering rather than pity!
Yet the same teacher sounds a dissonant note when writing about the “depraved,
ignominious poverty” of the beggar, “who has rid himself of all shame and
discipline on the way to impoverishment”.
“Where idleness has become a trade and begging a fraudulent art,” he continues,
“all human feeling has died.”
The idea that the poor are impoverished morally as well as materially, that
they lack humanity as well as means, has a long history. It is expressed most
mordantly in Jonathan Swift’s
A Modest Proposal, a 1729 satire on British
attitudes to Irish poverty. Starvation among large families could be averted
with a simple solution:
A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious
nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled;
and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.
Swift’s suggestion that poor children could become a commercial food source is
mocking heartless responses to poverty. His “proposal” rests on a dehumanising
equation of people with animals or consumer goods. A new book argues that this
animus is an enduring feature of contemporary society."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
