Poverty

Affluence is a drug. It has the ability to erase memories of poverty. It can obliterate empathy for the poor, even in those who grew up in poverty. For those who grow up in relative affluence, most Americans by world standards, poverty is a dim concept with little relevance to daily life. It is something that happens in Appalachia or Africa or Haiti.

Few of us intentionally live humbly when given a choice. The recent financial crisis in the American middle class is a glaring example. Irresponsible people, already living moderately affluent lives, brought down the U.S. economy by reaching for more and more, beyond their means. McMansions, Hummers, bling. All bought on fraudulent credit. Now these willing 'victims' of capitalism are whining about foreclosure, bankruptcy and unemployment.

The most disabling poverty is the lack of common sense, which seems an endangered species of thought in current society. Many people who lived through the Great Depression in America had common sense. Unlike the willing victims of today's financial mess, most of those impacted by the Great Depression were truly innocent victims of the fall-out of bad decisions made by the upper financial class of American society. As the grandchild and child of some of those impoverished survivors of the Great Depression, I cringe at government comparisons of these times to those. Yes, we all suffer when the wealthy unwisely manipulate financial institutions to suit their greed, but this time millions ran to dance to the devils' tune. They bought the myth of Free Market Capitalism hook, line and sinker.

While those of us who are relatively affluent human beings obsess on not having shiny, new things, the majority of the world's families live in deep poverty by comparison. Women in war zones are bearing unsupportable children by brutalizing and raping men. Women, brainwashed by religion, are bringing more unsupportable children willingly into situations of poverty and desperation. Disposable suicide bombers or paramilitaries of the future.

Americans argue over an immense budget for weaponry and wince at foreign aid for education and health. The cries to dismantle social security and health care merge with cries to end all taxation. The selfish do not only ignore poverty; they would support policies that would plunge themselves and their offspring into it. This is the madness of relative affluence in America.

The truly affluent, the 10% of the population in the U.S.who control the vast majority (71%) of its wealth, use the facade of token, tax-deductible charity to mask their total indifference to making progressive political change worldwide. They are still committed to patriarchal, aristocratic wealth transmission. They support Social Darwinist ideals, while mouthing the lyrics to "We Are The World", when it is socially convenient.

As a practical humanist, I feel it is my first responsibility to live within my means and to be cognizant of my privileged life, in comparison to my human brothers and sisters around the world. It is my responsibility to loudly support public policy that fights greed, ignorance and poverty. It is my responsibility to work, in whatever way I am capable, to improve the general welfare of humankind and the planet, upon which we depend for survival. Living with daily recognition of poverty in my environment and in the world is a necessary part of being a humanist, in my opinion. This consciousness is the motivation which can eventually contribute to creating actual change.