Steve Saint, a missionary to the Waodani people of Ecuador, has a provocative article on “projecting poverty where it doesn’t exist“:
When people visit the Waodani, they look around and think, “Wow, these people have nothing!” People from the outside think the Waodani are poor because they don’t have three-bedroom ramblers with wall-to-wall carpeting, double garages so full of stuff the cars never fit and, I guess, because they never take vacations to exotic places like Disney World.
So, on speaking tours I began describing these jungle dwellers as “People who all have water front property, multiple houses and spend most of their time hunting and fishing.” The most common response I have gotten when describing the Waodani this way is, “Wow, would I ever like to live like that!” I agree completely.
Mincaye, on the other hand, sees the way we “Outsiders” live here in “The foreigner’s place” and makes comments like; “Why, never sitting, do the foreigners run around and around in their car things speaking to each other on their talking things but never hunting or fishing or telling stories to each other?”
[. . .]
From my life experiences with the Waodani—and other people groups in Africa, Asia and South America who live simply and materially contentedly—I have learned that it is unreasonable to evaluate their “lack” based on our distorted and exaggerated perception of need. When we try to meet phantom needs of people who live at a lower material standard than we have learned to consider “minimal,” we not only fall into a trap that keeps us from seeing their real needs but we also tempt them into a snare that can raise their perception of need beyond what their economy can support.
When we project poverty on people where it doesn’t exist, we also overlook the actual poverty with which they struggle.
(Via: Justin Taylor)
September 13th, 2011 | 9:59 am
If you are interested in learning more about Steve Saint and the Waodani, you might watch “The End of the Spear”. There’s also the documentary “Beyond the Gates of Splendor”. Both are on Netflix.
September 13th, 2011 | 10:14 am
It is a thought-provoking article, but I hope it is not misused to attempt to demonstrate that authentically poor people are not “really” poor. Here’s a video by Stephen Colbert lampooning the the Heritage Foundation’s recent report about how good America’s poor have it. It is just as much a mistake to judge those under the poverty line in the United States by the living standards of Waodani people of Ecuador as it is to judge the Waodani people of Ecuador by the living standards of the average American. Relative poverty is still poverty.
Yes, 99.6% of poor American families have refrigerators, but try shopping for and cooking for a family in the United States without a refrigerator. Try to imagine eating decently but frugally without a refrigerator.
I am not expert on world poverty, and I will take the author’s word that there are “groups in Africa, Asia and South America who live simply and materially contentedly.” But watch this video.
September 13th, 2011 | 11:50 am
David Nickol: I have actually been poor, lived among poor, and spent the bulk of the so-called “best years of my life” trying to figure out the gap between what liberals said would fix poverty vs. what actually does.
I assure you: Steven Colbert has no idea what he’s talking about.
He knows about what makes rich people laugh, not what makes poor people healthy.
There are two types of “poor” in America.
The ones who are most struggling financially are the ones who don’t qualify for “help” – because the “help” in America has, for the past three generations, been (a) written up to specifically exclude white people, and (b) written to set the “need” cutoff right where a full-time minimum wage worker does not qualify.
So you get full-time workers living on a hundred bucks a month more than the “free lunch” cutoff – but unlike the so-called “poor” they don’t get free food + food stamps + reduced-price utilities + housing assistance + so forth.
Of course, these are the same people who tend to get lambasted by wealthy idiots like Colbert, every time they complain about some lady on welfare who has a huge fancy TV. Because of course they’re mad that they work hard and they can’t afford a TV like that.
In fact, because they’re not eligible for housing assistance, they have to live in the substandard housing that housing assistance regulations protect poor people from. So they’re also the same people Jon Stewart is mocking when he laughs at the ‘trailer trash’ and ‘Hillary voters’.
Then there are the ones that left wing social programs “help”. Their problem is usually not a lack of cash – except when they’re hooked on drugs (there’s never enough cash for the ones who are hooked on drugs). Their problem is that they were required to submit totally and utterly to a hardcore regime of ‘learned helplessness’ as a precondition of receiving help, and are suffering primarily from needs stemming from violated sense of identity, worth, and dignity. What they need is not more money, but a sense of purpose and – perhaps most crucially – they need to be re-linked to the society that they are no longer truly a part of.
People are a community together when they share the same rules – which is impossible when one subset of “the group” has to have special “exceptions” because they are viewed as too dumb, unfit, and generally worthless to support themselves, get educated, get a job, be treated on an equal footing, or be trusted with responsibility. What happens is that “group” becomes excommunicated from the larger society – which means, among other things, that they’re unemployable.
And, since they had to throw their boyfriend out of the house because having a baby-daddy around makes you automatically ineligible for AFDC, now they’ve got no family supports either. And after three or four generations of this, the number one thing that separates success from poverty – strong, supportive family ties – is shattered. Good job, lefties!
September 13th, 2011 | 12:19 pm
written up to specifically exclude white people
Blake,
Sorry, but including a line like the above causes you to lose any credibility you might otherwise have been able to claim.
September 13th, 2011 | 12:43 pm
September 13th, 2011 | 1:18 pm
David N, did you read the article? Because if you did, I don’t see how you could have any remaining concern that the point of it is to bash the American poor. And while your concern about poor-bashing may be valid, it doesn’t really have any place on this thread, that being the case. It seems more like you seized an opportunity to ride a hobby horse.
September 13th, 2011 | 1:37 pm
Very nice David, how you take one sentence you disagree with and ignore everything else, such as Blake’s evidence.
Sheesh
September 13th, 2011 | 1:57 pm
It’s not the phantom needs, it’s the actual ones that matter, and he isn’t mentioning them. Medical care is a tremendous one, and yes, that is affected by their poverty. You get better or you die, before the missionaries came.
There’s also a lot of romanticizing the quality of life they already have. To a point his argument is true, but does anyone here really think that a lack of refrigeration or having to hunt every day in one of the world’s more dangerous ecosystems is good? Would you enjoy never reading a book, ever? Or not hearing any music except your tribal ones?
September 13th, 2011 | 1:59 pm
pentamom,
When an article is linked to in post here, I always read the full article before commenting, not just the excerpts in the post.
My concern is not “poor-bashing.” It is claiming poverty isn’t real. The article talks of “projecting poverty where it doesn’t exist.” I know it is not talking about the United States, but if conservatives from the Heritage Foundation and Fox News claim that 99.6% of the poor people of the United States can’t be described as poor because they have refrigerators and microwaves, they are accusing others of “projecting poverty where it doesn’t exist.”
The poverty line for a family of 4 in the United States is $22,350 a year. That is a princely sum if you happen to live in Somalia or Liberia, but if you live in the United States, comparisons to Somalia and Liberia are irrelevant.
The concept of poverty being projected where it doesn’t exist can be misused. There is plenty of poverty in the United States and the world that is quite genuine.
September 13th, 2011 | 3:13 pm
Steve Saint writes: “When we project poverty on people where it doesn’t exist, we also overlook the actual poverty with which they struggle.”
In spite of all efforts to end poverty, we still have it with us. Why is that? I don’t think that “it’s the other political party’s fault” is the answer. I think we don’t really have an answer but keep pretending we do. I suggest the very idea of a “poverty line” is part of the problem. People aren’t poor simply because they have less money. We need to figure out what would help people climb out of the hole they find themselves in and keep climbing. But first, I think I agree with Mr. Saint, we have to identify where that hole is. It may be different from case to case.
September 13th, 2011 | 3:38 pm
People aren’t poor simply because they have less money.
A very good book IMO (although kind of old now, might be dated) is called Development As Freedom, by Amartya Sen. It is about third world rather than American poverty, but I still like the book because of its approach.
The author speaks of “reasons we have things to value” – not dollars, which are misleading – as the specific measure of value we need to pay attention to.
September 13th, 2011 | 3:56 pm
I agree with Mike, that the notion of a “poverty line” is part of the problem.
A personal example: I’m a professional, making a pretty good salary, I don’t have a flat screen TV (don’t need one), don’t have lots of other stuff I don’t need either. I’ve got 4 small children, and I qualify for WIC. I very nearly qualify for HUD housing. How absurd. This is the sort of thing that illustrates how faulty things like official “poverty lines” are, that can’t account for individual circumstances. Probably there is somebody who would consider me to be really poor, but odds are, that person would be running for office on a politics of envy platform, trying to convince me that what I really need is cable tv and a 52 inch screen to watch it on.
I recall a pronouncement from our current POTUS, back when discussion of the transition to digital tv was all the talk. Speaking of the deadline for the switch, he made some comment about poor backwoods types who wouldn’t be able to watch tv, as though that were some sort of right on the order of food clothing and shelter.
I agree that we shouldn’t let an over-romanticized view of people in non-comparable parts of the world be ammunition in a battle to ignore the poor under our own noses. My view, though, is that government statistics are a pretty lousy way of going about figuring out who those people are.
September 13th, 2011 | 4:04 pm
David N.
With respect (and the hope that you won’t think I am ‘poor bashing’) While I agree that there is surely poverty in the United States I think you are comparing apples to oranges and perhaps oversimplifying. Poverty in the US. looks different because it is different, and very hard to describe accurately:
– How does one explain for example the “epidemic of obesity among the poor” that public health experts often cite? As a recent visitor to both Haiti and Nicaragua I can tell you for certain — only in the US do the poor have a problem with being overweight.
– A personal anecdote; for the first five years I worked in ministry my income was well below the poverty line for a family of five. We were fine, lived rather well in fact. We had a lovely church-supplied home, health insurance, pension benefits etc. Not to mention kindly farmers constantly giving us foodstuffs. Our actual standard of living was probably at a level of about twice what our cash salary said it was. Thus talking about “poverty lines” on the basis of income while not taking into account non-cash disbursements and services is extremely misleading.
– Forty percent of the children in my wife’s school (in a firmly middle class neighborhood in North Carolina) qualify for free or reduced lunches. 40%! Now, one ~could~ draw the inference that 40% of her students are poor, or one could look at the cutoff numbers and see that a family of four need make less than 48,000 dollars a year to qualify! Does that sound ‘poor’ to you?
– I just looked on the benefits.gov website. I have a family of five and one of my children is disabled. You know how much I can make and still qualify for food stamps? (another way we measure “poverty” in the U.S.) 38,329.00! That’s not a ton of money these days but it is 50% ABOVE the number you cite as the poverty line.
Look, I know that poverty is a relative condition. It sucks to have to go to the ER for health care, or to have to find a doctor that takes Medicaid. But you know what? At the end of the wait ~you get treated~. It IS lousy to have to rely on public transportation to get to work but that’s not the kind of problem we might think when 75 percent of households below the poverty line own at least one car — 30 percent at least two).
In other words poverty here looks different, feels different, and in fact is different than anywhere in (at least) the developing world. It’s not an apt comparison. The issues are very different.
One last story as a kind of interesting take on Saint’s comments. I was watching Anthony Bourdain last night — he was visiting an Amazonian village (where Sting apparently often goes as an “eco-tourist”). Bourdain said to one of the men “I envy the simplicity of your life”. When his remark was translated, the man said to his neighbor “he can have it” and shook his head. The guy KNEW his poverty made his life different (and much more difficult) than Bourdain’s and he wasn’t having any of the idea that it had it’s own consolations…
September 13th, 2011 | 4:17 pm
I don’t think $24,000 for a family of four is is a sign of a poverty line as part of a problem. If that’s net, that’s what, $500 dollars a week? Which translates into lets say a single mother making about $12.50 an hour at full time work. A full five dollars above minimum wage.
Considering where I live, (in CT, but not the darien zipcode: the depressed south east.) a two bedroom apartment is about 1000-1100 a month. So at that description of poverty, base rent alone is over 50% of net wages. It may vary in other states, but I noticed so do the wages: generally you’ll make less there too.
I think you have to ask yourself, is it viable for a family of four to live on these terms?
The standard of a poverty line imo should be that if you work a full forty hours a week in an occupation, it should be enough to be able to afford basic rent and food, and enable some saving if frugal. American poverty is unique in that you can work and not be able to afford such, and that’s what contributes to a lot of problems like health insurance.
September 13th, 2011 | 4:32 pm
written up to specifically exclude white people
Blake,
Sorry, but including a line like the above causes you to lose any credibility you might otherwise have been able to claim.
My family has direct experiences in being excluded based on being white.
Do you seriously believe that affirmative action can exist – and be effective – without any white people being affected? Seriously?
Try opening your mind to what’s real, instead of clinging to what you are so sure you know.
Or don’t; be ignorant if you choose. Pretend there are no problems with reverse discrimination – and be part of the shrinking minority clinging to your ideology and your denial.
I never had any credibility with you anyway, so it’s not like I lost anything.
September 13th, 2011 | 4:56 pm
@ Dave:
That was my point, that in your particular area, $24000 might make some sense, but what you need is people on the ground who understand realities.
Part of how I make ends meet is by trading people for things they’ve got that I need, for things I know how to do. Some federal bureaucrat would look at that and say, “he shouldn’t have to do that” to which I answer, why not? Why shouldn’t I have to exercise some creativity to make ends meet? In other words, individual situations are so specific and complex, that capital “P” Poverty seems mostly to serve as an empty vessel that capitalists can use to appeal to greed and socialists can use to appeal to envy.
The moral as far as I’m concerned is: Know your neighbors and care about them.
September 13th, 2011 | 5:06 pm
Dave’s email makes my point:
you can’t generalize poverty standards from one place to another. Where I live, I can get home raised eggs and raw milk, for cheap. I can trade back and forth with people for things I need, in exchange for things I know how to do.
Some bureaucrat would tell me that I shouldn’t have to do that stuff to make ends meet. Who says?
Blanket regs don’t do much to address the specificities and complexities of individual lives, and poverty statistics just seem to play to the weaknesses of both capitalists and socialists: the former to blame all the poor for their own condition and the latter to play on our tendency to envy.
the moral: get to know your neighbors.
September 13th, 2011 | 5:09 pm
Do you seriously believe that affirmative action can exist – and be effective – without any white people being affected? Seriously?
Blake,
Affirmative action can no doubt cause some individuals in one group to lose out to some in another group. But to say ” . . . because the ‘help’ in America has, for the past three generations, been (a) written up to specifically exclude white people . . .” Most of the money from “help” programs (e.g., food stamps, disability payments) goes to white people. Black people are disproportionately represented, but that is because blacks are disproportionately poor.
But it is nonsense to say that white people are “excluded.” And it would be nonsense to say that “reverse discrimination” is anything close to being a larger problem than discrimination.
September 13th, 2011 | 5:18 pm
“The article talks of “projecting poverty where it doesn’t exist.” I know it is not talking about the United States, but if conservatives from the Heritage Foundation and Fox News claim that 99.6% of the poor people of the United States can’t be described as poor because they have refrigerators and microwaves, they are accusing others of “projecting poverty where it doesn’t exist.” ”
In other words, I know this article has nothing to do with my complaint, because I’m talking about things that were written by different people about entirely different situations, but I just can’t stop making my complaint regardless of the context, because I respond to buzz words.
September 13th, 2011 | 6:43 pm
In other words, I know this article has nothing to do with my complaint, because I’m talking about things that were written by different people about entirely different situations, but I just can’t stop making my complaint regardless of the context, because I respond to buzz words.
pentamom,
Your mockery is snarky and uncharitable. I considered my message to be a legitimate reaction to the article, if not a direct comment about it, but if you think it’s off topic, why not just ignore it? You are not the moderator. And if my “hobby horse” is concern for the poor, I don’t see what offends you about it.
September 13th, 2011 | 8:01 pm
And as a doc who has spent a lot of time working and living in cross cultural situations, I suggest you check the maternal/child mortality before you think these folks’ lives are wonderful.
And remember that many cultures have taboos against showing anger or resentment under the smiling happy face, a and often they tell you what you want to hear, not what they really think.
But As one African proverb warns: Even a small snake has a tooth.
The local NPA in the Philippines, or FARC in Colombia, or the Mao rebels in India all started among happy smiling folks like this.
September 14th, 2011 | 2:19 am
David,
It is amusing and ironic how Blake rails against the Left even as he plays the race/victim card.
September 14th, 2011 | 10:11 am
@Jeremy,
So you’re saying only the Left can play the race/victim card?
September 14th, 2011 | 10:43 am
Arty:
Some costs are fixed, and aren’t able to be bartered. Usually the barter or free culture is focused on low value goods or services which are optional. It’s the fixed, non-barter costs that are important, and things like rent, insurances, and retirement or emergency spending are more or less constant regardless of access to free culture.
Knowing your neighbors or trusting charity goes only so far.
September 15th, 2011 | 11:34 am
David,
It is amusing and ironic how Blake rails against the Left even as he plays the race/victim card.
I don’t get what you’re saying. Are you saying that you don’t believe racial injustices exist? Or that my situation isn’t one?
Or that I can’t criticize the policies of the Left if I feel that it is unfair that I was excluded from something because of my race?
Or are you just trying to avoid actually addressing the substance of my critique? Because I think I’ve really said some substantive things re: what is wrong with how we’re addressing poverty, and I really feel that is far more valuable than questions about my character or my defects.
September 15th, 2011 | 11:45 am
Blake,
Affirmative action can no doubt cause some individuals in one group to lose out to some in another group. But to say ” . . . because the ‘help’ in America has, for the past three generations, been (a) written up to specifically exclude white people . . .” Most of the money from “help” programs (e.g., food stamps, disability payments) goes to white people. Black people are disproportionately represented, but that is because blacks are disproportionately poor.
But it is nonsense to say that white people are “excluded.” And it would be nonsense to say that “reverse discrimination” is anything close to being a larger problem than discrimination.
If you measure by dollars (excluding government benefits), then black people are more likely to be poor.
If you measure by actual resources, then that is not the case.
People on government handouts are not poor. Their needs are met. Those who find that the money and resources they are given are not enough have no trouble finding “under the table” work.
Real poverty is the thirtysomething working at a fast food restaurant or grocery store. Because she doesn’t qualify “for benefits”, she is missing one of her front teeth – because she can’t afford dental care. She lives in a dilapidated trailer. And she’s not on record as being “poor” because she works two jobs, so on paper she’s got more money than the woman with just as many kids who lives off handouts.
September 15th, 2011 | 11:51 am
Most of the money from “help” programs (e.g., food stamps, disability payments) goes to white people.
Educational programs – from tutoring in elementary schools up to college admissions and especially financial aid – discriminate heavily against whites, or at least they used to.
I have also encountered programs discriminating against whites offering child care, payment of utilities, food, job assistance, job education, and jobs themselves.
AFDC and food stamps do not discriminate against whites, but all the programs that are designed to help people out of poverty do.
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