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Infinity

What It Means To Be Poor

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One day a wealthy father took his son on a trip to the countryside for the sole purpose of showing his son how it was to be poor. They spent only one day and one night on a farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

 

On the way back from the trip, the father asked his son how he liked the experience.

 

“It was great, Dad,” the son replied. 

 

“Did you see how poor people can be?” the father asked. 

 

“Oh yeah,” said the son.

 

“So what did you learn from the trip?” asked the father. 

 

The son paused and thought about it for a few seconds.

 

“I saw that we have one dog and that they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden but they have a fresh water creek that has no end. We have lights in our garden but they have the stars and the moon. Our patio reaches to the front yard but they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on but they have fields that go on forever. We have servants who serve us but they serve others. We buy our food but they grow their own. We have fences around our property to protect us but they have a whole community to protect them.” 

 

The boy’s father was absolutely speechless. 

 

Then his son added...

 

“It showed me just how poor we really are, Dad.”

 

Love & Light 

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I know you mean well, and I know you didn't write it, but I think it's important to consider... this parable is colonial and capitalist propaganda. There is a lesson in this story but it isn't at all what you think.

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^ sure, it's dated, but isn't the message largely anti-capitalist?

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No, it's fully capitalist and extremely colonial, the problem is we are so blinded by hubris most will not even see the problem and take it as a positive lesson instead. But actually what is hidden in this parable is a justification of the continuity of "more of the same". Here we have a privileged boy - a boy with everything - pining over the fact that he is the poor one! What a joke. His conceited affectation simultaneously justifies the oppression of the actual poor, who in no cases live under the conditions described. This parable operates as a screening mechanism for the privileged, essentially designed to offset guilt felt by colonial oppressors and allow the system to continue to take more than it needs. Thus, it's okay that in our privileged lives we have and take everything for ourselves without regard for the other, because truthfully, we are "in poverty" during this operation while "the poor" continue to live some out idealised version of themselves. It's not them - we're the ones suffering. I don't know how to make it any clearer. There is a colonial/capitalist "inversion" hidden in this story that justifies the dominance of the few over the many. If I am more frank this parable is complete horseshit. It tacitly supports the self-righteous re-appropriation for ourselves of what has been unjustly removed from others.

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hmmm that's not what I took from it.  I interpreted it that the privileged boy suddenly realised that 'poor' had less to do with money and more to do with how you experience life.  He realised that despite all their wealth his father, and society, had missed the point.

 

Sometimes I'm troubled that, because of the lifestyle i've chosen (i work for myself, don't make a packet but am comfortable and [mostly] happy) I've deprived my wife and family of certain experiences such as overseas holidays, new(er) cars, expensive gifts.  I correctly counter this though with what I have instilled in its place: healthiness, a frugal nature and love of the smaller things in life.

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I was just thinking that in Australia at least, a lot of the original story has it backwards, or doesn’t show the whole picture. 

 

When I was growing up, I was the kid who lived on the farm. When I was first in high school (year 7-8 I think) I was convinced I was poor compared to the kids who lived in suburbia. Even the housing commission kids had more designer clothes than I did. It wasn’t until I was older that I realised a working farm that we owned outright was worth more money than a house in the burbs and a bunch of consumer crap. 
 

That’s not to take away from @Micromegas‘s analysis (I think there’s something to that but will need to go and have a think before addressing it directly), just that such parables leave out the reality of wealth in some urban/rural divides. 

Edited by Yeti101
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I may be wrong, but perhaps the parable may have more relevance to poverty if it had the father take the son, on a bitterly cold winter's day and night, to live with a homeless alcoholic whose shelter is under a bridge. I can't imagine the boy coming away from that experience being able to justify being less wealthy than the homeless. 

 

However, I tend to think both versions of the story are of little value to anyone if all the boy takes away from the experience is something learned. As we can see here, different folk will gain differing perspectives from the same story. Maybe if the story told of what the boy chose to do with what he learned, and the outcomes of those actions, it might better serve to convey something meaningful.

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The boys perception in the story seems rather naive. He is seeing the outward differences between country and city life, but blind to the hardship and oppression, as well as the internal struggles families would be facing in the day to day life.

 

If he were to change places with another boy in the countryside, he would soon notice the oppression he is under and what poverty is really like. For families growing up in villages like these, it takes an enormous amount of work, effort, and lucky breaks to ever become prosperous enough to find a way out, and this is how the cycle of intergenerational poverty instills itself within a community.

 

If a boy from the poor village were to visit middle class suburbia in the city with their father what do you think they might see?

 

 

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