ordinary human poverty
Posted by admin on 25 Sep 2008 at 07:49 am | Tagged as: cooperation, sane words
Another excellent post by Sharon Astyk.
The question becomes how do we turn this story into one where most of us can say “We were poor, but we had enough – just enough, but enough.” And where our kids may grow up not really realizing just how poor we were? How do we accustom ourselves to the ordinary human unhappiness (which, after all, isn’t unhappiness every moment, merely a recognition that most people aren’t happy all the time) that is our shift in wealth, without allowing ourselves to fall through the floor, into the deeper stages of collapse?
There are three answers to this. The first is to reduce your needs. I expect that for a long time, the stigma that attaches to any kind of poverty will keep many of us struggling to keep up appearances. We are likely to feel ashamed the first time we have to ask for help, ashamed that our clothes are no longer as fine, that dinner is plainer and that we now share our homes. The best way, I think to get over these feelings is to get over them in advance – to change your values as so many here have. Thrift shop clothes and patches should be sources of pride, symbols of your independence from industrial manufacturers. The food on the table – and the people who share it – are the point – not whether high-social value elements like wine and meat are present. The need to speak out against the culture that tells us that poor is dirty and bad becomes paramount – because the more resources we waste keeping up appearances the harder it will be to adapt.
The second is self-sufficiency of the kind most of us are trying to achieve. The garden, the sewing needle, the saw and hammer, the ability to make and repair, to grow and produce and nurture things – these are things that demonstrate, as Jeremy Seabrook has contended, the opposite of poverty is not wealth, it is self-sufficiency. None of us will ever be wholly self-sufficient – but to be able to say that it doesn’t matter if you can afford shoes this year because you can repair last year’s boots, or to not have to spend much of your money on food means that you have a much better chance of covering that emergency medical bill or the property taxes.
But these things alone are not sufficient. One’s self-sufficiency can be taken away too easily when we lose access to land. You can lower your standards to allow “poor but decent” but when we get to “filthy and rat infested” that’s not such a good idea. The only way to live in the world of ordinary human poverty is to live there in a world where your pocket isn’t picked constantly, where you aren’t the victim of endless resource conflicts, where your government doesn’t sell your future out. And the only way to be a nation of reasonably self-sufficient, ordinarily poor people living decently is this – to remember that the reason we use the word “ordinary” here is that there are a lot more of us peasants than there are of the powerful. The truth is that repressive governments, of the sort we have had and are rapidly entrenching are scary – but they never have enough troops, enough power to stand up against the unified dignity of those who are simply ordinary, and simply want enough. But that requires that we trust each other, that we work together, that we create the institutions of ordinary poverty, the ones that have fallen into disuse – Granges, Unions, Consumers Unions, neighborhoods, voting blocs, and larger groups that can be used to pull us together. These things too are ordinary and human – and it is getting to be time to build them.
Most of us have grown up in a ‘toy’ rich world, even the ‘poorest’ westerners who read this will have houses full of what is basically plastic crap. The ‘poverty’ that is coming for most of us is one of ‘things’ poverty, cash poverty, but not necessarily necessity poverty. Not if we prepare, embrace the changes, and do our utmost to form collective communities and cooperation with the people around us.
What a thought-provoking selection. It reminds me of the quote from the Prophet, “Is not the dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?” It’s like our fear of emptiness leads us to over-fill our lives with disposable goods, which in turn leads to more emptiness. I think the larger goal of the eco movement needs to be human fulfillment and satisfaction, in order to really address the root of the problem.
definitely, and i think the permaculture movement does a fair bit.
the mainstream environmental movement, though, does not seem to have recognised that the system is rotten through and through, and is mainly about reform.
fundamentally every activity in this system is destructive – perhaps only because of carbon dioxide and other pollution in some instances – but to survive here you have to take part in destructive behaviour, and the more destructive, the more you are rewarded.
do i need this? what impact does this have on life on earth, and does this action improve the quality of life and diversity in general, are questions we should always be asking.
thanks for commenting.