Thus far in our series on poverty and wealth we have noted that A) most arguments posited for alleviating poverty in America through social policy are based on religion, without any strong secular reasons being offered; and B) that wealth (and the contradictions surrounding it) is not only fraught with excess, it is at times grotesque in its blindness. So, too, are wealth's critics.
Let me admit right away that I am no economist. Far from it. But I have a general sense of how things work, and I want to share one thing that does not work.
What does not work is guilt.
I remember the first time I walked through Harvard Square in 1980†, a mere freshman. It was the last days of August: the streets were alive with vendors and musicians, jugglers and mimes. There were countless students milling about, many from countries I'd never see. Many students zipped through the Harvard Coop grabbing up books; others slipped into the Wursthaus for a Bavarian draft or bounded down the stairs to 33 Dunster Street for a pint of Guinness on tap. There was wealth and ambition and genius and haughtinesss everywhere – outside WordsWorth or Algiers or Grendel's. In many ways, it was the coolest place on earth (at least to me).
But there were also the signs of abject poverty: the man with no legs begging by the newsstand; the Vietnam veteran absent-mindedly rubbing his crotch on the platform of the T. Just walking the block from Church Street down Mass. Ave to Brattle Street was a reminder of disparity between the haves and the have-nots as numerous beggars loitered in wait of a handout.
Of course, I was vulnerable. I often felt waves of shame and guilt come over me for having money. Not loads of money, mind you. I felt shame for having any money. Months would eventually pass before I could harden myself to these alms-seekers, having too many times emptied my pockets of coins to a hail of alcohol-misted praise, "Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir." I was not the only one to steel my heart against them.
But my inner torment was powerful. In fact, it would reach such fervor that I imagined giving everything away, tossing even my dreams aside to help the homeless, the drifters, the alienated. My sense of injustice was heightened; my sense of economics black-and-white and simplistic: Surely we can all get on to help these people. If I could have, I would've become poor myself in order to alleviate poverty, convinced, as I was, that my having X meant that someone else could not possess Y. I was idealistic, passionate, righteous, and angry. There were reminders of my guilt everywhere. And I could hardly have fun in a place that was considered by many to be the cultural center of North America.
I even recall asking God to come down and smash the lot of capitalist looters that left in their wake the detritus of so much poverty and aimlessness.
My guilt knew no measure. I was a fool.
Contratimes
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
†It should be noted that I did not attend Harvard. I'd hate to mislead anyone. But I did frequent Harvard Square as often as possible.
(The series continues tomorrow, in Part IV, I promise.)
2 comments:
I don't think compassion is foolish. The inner torment you went through to me suggests a very sensitive mind, in the sense that you did not live like a blind man in a city of dispossession and extravagance. It almost reminds me of Rilke's piety, who upon at a young age being slapped and slightly beaten by a group of kids at his boarding school in Germany said something to the effect of (to his tormentors), "If Christ can endure his torments, than so I", I believe he was 12 or 14 at the time.
What an amazing sensitivity, albeit amusing at the same time. But, I think the connection you felt to the poor is deeper and is more than I've ever heard from any other person, conservative or leftist.
Perhaps you mean you were a fool, because you didn't realize the balance of things. Of how some may always have, and some not. But, even if saving the poor is an impossible task, it is a righteous one.
I don't see you as a fool, to me that represents a spiritual maturity. Your spiritual suffering which is the most noble kind is praiseworthy (to me).
As Eliot says in the Four Quartets we must grow ever sicker "to be restored".
In Zen Buddhism I've heard that one tries to work without expectation. What do you think of that? Doing what is right without needing the results to be a certain way. This I saw explained in the context of working with the homeless in San Francisco where despite your best efforts there are going to be overdoses, deaths, and relapses.
"A clap is felt galaxies away."
A small act of kindness for the tortured extends infinitely.
Salam A Malaikum
I agree with CMM. I don't think you were a fool for wanting to help the "poor".
What you were foolish for, and I think this is where you're going, is how you tried to help them.
Giving a poor person money doesn't help them in any permanent sense. Essentially, what you were doing was giving a hungry man a fish, rather than a fishing pole and the knowledge needed to catch his own fish.
Actually, my view is that simply giving money to a poor person perpetuates a cycle of dependency. If someone actually wants to stop being poor, they need to have the means to generate wealth for themselves.
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