The question I jotted down from class: Is it better to address basic needs or broader structural issues?
My conflicted response: I will start off with saying that I am and have always been a very forward-thinking person. I find it more valuable to look at the long-term effect in complex issues like global climate change but also in simpler, everyday issues like taking care of my personal health. Thinking about the future is vital to our world, but also to every individual. So at first, my reaction to this question was that we should focus on the broader structural issues that will be most effectual in the long-term. Work on fixing the government so that they can fix their people's issues. But on further contemplation, I find the compassionate side of my disagreeing with my initial response; where's my empathy? With what I recently read about poverty in Bjorn Lomborg’s interview and what I heard about last week at Bread for the City, there is no possible way that I can be comfortable with leaving basic needs unattended. How would I feel if I were an impoverished citizen (let’s say in Africa, since that is our UC’s favorite continent these days) who was proposed the same question? Hmm let’s see, would I rather be fed and treated for diseases today in order to survive? Or would I rather wait for my government to get their act together structurally and die in this long, drawn out process? I would want to see myself survive through the night, and also see my family and current generation of citizens served their basic needs. I guess that I can relate this back to the long-term as well which makes me very happy – if a population survives and prospers today, then it will only continue to grow stronger in the future and benefit a society or state as well. So what I’m saying is start off with the basic survival needs because you have to remember that the people we are talking about are people too – they are just like us and they deserve the best we can give them… not in the future, but right now.
Having said all of this, I think basic needs and structural issues don’t need to be mutually exclusive besides for the purposes of this blog question. In reality, both can be addressed so I guess that means both or neither are “better”… And that’s the best I can do to answer this deceptively simple yet very loaded question!
I don’t know about anyone else, but after reading in Lomborg’s interview that it only costs $63 to save the life of an African for one year, I feel like a pretty inadequate global citizen. I have more than that in my pocket right now. If only the world was a fair place…
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Hey Emily,
I think you wrote a great assessment of the issue, if for no other reason than to point out that the basic needs v. broader issues is always a personal choice. Even in government it's personal.
Personally, I would say meeting basic needs now actually helps to solve the broader issues. At least when domestic poverty is concerned, many of the factors that cause a person to become homeless/low-income can be traced back to a lack of economic stability in childhood. Malnutrition causes an inability to focus (aka poor grades); lack of support (childcare/caregiver) causes social disorders and hypertension; lack of housing causes every bad situation you can imagine for a child.
Working with parents to allow them an opportunity to raise their children to the best of their ability absolutely translates into greater potential for that child.
As it seems like my fellow bitter cynics and I are succeeding in beating the idealism out of Tori, I think I'll try and corrupt you as well.
Why should empathy and compassion inform our policy decisions? Although they are certainly useful virtues at a personal level, they can be incredibly dangerous flaws at a policy level. When we allow our emotions to inform policy decisions, we end up with policies that don't efficiently utilize limited resources. Instead, we act out of self-gratification; we do things that make us feel good about ourselves but have a high opportunity cost or even counteract our ultimate goals.
Lomborg's article made the point that, even among antipoverty proposals advocated by highly qualified professionals, there's enormous variation in utility. He didn't even discuss proposals that derive from mere impulse and can actually be counterproductive. Although giving change to the homeless helps sustain them, it also gives them a viable alternative to seeking help in shelters; it sustains homelessness, including the mental illness and drug abuse that are endemic among the population.
Hey Baracus,
A reasonable point, to be sure. There’s a couple things I would disagree with. When it comes to poverty, there’s no divide between compassion and efficient use of resources. Those who don’t feel empathy toward the poor don’t create any programs at all, much less efficient ones. There is a divide between those who can think of the larger strategy and those who can only speak to the case in front of them, but both responses are born out of compassion.
Another way to think about it would be the difference between a Bentham ethics system and a Kantian ethics system. I wholeheartedly agree the Kantians shouldn’t be making fiscal policy, but for a different reason. The more efficiently we use resources, the more people we can help.
As to panhandling, too much going on there. Mental illness, drug abuse, and homelessness won’t be altered by giving a person spare change. That money would be better spent going to an organization that provides housing. If it were a unilateral transfer of funds, I would be on your side, but that isn’t how it shakes out. Not to mention that I think panhandling gets a bad wrap for some bizarre reason—as if someone with no access to a phone, computer, transportation, and a number of other resources should magically know that there are better ways to seek help. If we’re being fair, no homeless person panhandles so that they don’t have to go to a shelter (though I don’t wish a shelter on anyone). Most panhandle because they either 1) don’t know service organizations exist or 2) are seeking help, but are currently pending on the housing wait list (which most often takes about 8 years or so).
I’m unfamiliar with this Lomborg character, but judging by your remarks, I’m lead to believe s/he is discussing global poverty, which is a little different than domestic poverty. There are far less resources/support structures globally.
Well, Ben, you're gonna have to do a lot more than that to shake my idealism. You ask: "Why should empathy and compassion inform our policy decisions?"
The answer to that question is simple... because we are human. We have emotions, all of us, good and bad. Even in policy-making, we are not robots, we are human. I would even argue that the reason we have policies is because of our emotions... otherwise we would all be in an anarchic society, not giving a crap what other people do. We have policies because we want people to work together to make things as good as they can be. Maybe not everyone has the same amount of compassion, but it is there in all of us. Emotions should "inform policy decisions", just as matt argued, because the best and most effective policies will come from an emotional side of us.
It is when we try to separate ourselves from our human characteristics that I will be worried about our policies, b.a. baracus. I appreciate your goal to turn me over to the cynical side, and I challenge you to do so! But this time... nice try but no cigar, not even close :)
Post a Comment