dagblog - Comments for "Indonesian Travel Journal: Poverty or the Highs and Lows of Instant Gratification"

Patricia Cohen in the NYT

Elusive Trope — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 21:01:31 +0000

In reply to Indonesian Travel Journal: Poverty or the Highs and Lows of Instant Gratification

Patricia Cohen in the NYT just penned an article on the comeback of "culture of poverty" after the controversy erupted over the term in the early seventies. She was also on a recent Topic of the Nation discussing this topic. Last year, Talk of the Nation did an episode that also explored the extent term has value in dealing with poverty.

The basic jest of much of it is that there are cultural facets to why some people remain in poverty and that academics are returning to this concept. Saying this, however, is not necessarily blaming the "victim." It is merely acknowledging that there are certain patterns of behavior and thought that facilitate a greater likelihood that individuals growing up in neighborhoods in poverty will remain in poverty.

A basic example of this is that many people who are poor have very little education, in part because they were never very successful in school. They're parents had a similiar experience. What one discovers is that in many of these homes, the parents never read to the children. In fact, in many of these homes there are no books. So when the child shows up to school for the first time, they are already behind the curve and this creates a greater likelihood they, too, will not have a successful school experience. Since many of these parents do not have fond memories of school, they are less likely to be engaged with the children's afterschool work. Of coure, one then puts on the emotional and physical stress financial difficulties bring to households, and by the third grade many of these children are on track to dropping out.

The way to deal with this is not by ignoring the pattern, but by developing early childhood education programs to work with the mothers at the moment she goes to deal with her pregnancy, helping her and the father to prepare the child for kindergarten in the years prior to the child's entry. At the same time, programs working to help bring more financial stability to home (from immediate basic needs to access to health care to job training and other forms of education for the parents) need to be implemented.

In Europe, much more so than in the US, the concept of social exculsion has replaced the simple concept of poverty which tends to define folks simply by the amount of income. Social exclusion looks at the structural facet of "poverty." In other words, two individuals who make the same amount of money are not equal in looking for work if one has access to quality public transit and the other doesn't. From a governmental point of view, social exclusion would look to eliminate or lessen the structural barriers individuals and families face in dealing with the day to day demands as well as with seeking opportunities to improve the quality of their life. Social exclusion also takes into consideration the pyschological facets that comes with marginalization.

I take your points on hunger

we are stardust — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:07:17 +0000

In reply to Indonesian Travel Journal: Poverty or the Highs and Lows of Instant Gratification

I take your points on hunger and primary needs possibly obviating other considerations. Though future-thinking is what caused many early agrarian societies to grow or forage extra food and store it, even create vessels for storage, etc. And not to step on any toes, but IMO, in many developing nations, it's the women who tend to look to the future more, and plan for it. It seems to be a developing trend, so is becoming an almost accepted idea. Some account for it by positing that since women bear children, need to look ahead to protect them, they may come by extending their imaginations further into the future. Semi-stable family units may have come from the same impulses or biological/mental directives. Just a thought.

Now and living for the moments is cool, and in this society we need more of it. That Native Americans live more on their own time drives White People nuts. We try to make them understand, so they'll fit into modern society and business better. Who knows if they should, or we should? ;o)

The system conspires even

Orlando — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:15:50 +0000

In reply to I recall reading somewhere

The system conspires even against the middle class, what with credit cards and interest rates as penalties for not being able to pay cash.

They're talking about a monorail system in Jakarta. I'm not sure they could build a subway because Jakarta is at sea level and has a chronic flooding problem during the rainy season. It doesn't help that the canals that run through the city (built by the Dutch) are big sewage dumps, since there is no central sewage system. That makes the floods super gross in addition to super wet.

But they've been talking about the monorails for a long, long time and there hasn't been any demonstrable progress. What funding they may have allocated is probably long gone into personal pockets of government employees.

I recall reading somewhere

Donal — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 13:50:17 +0000

In reply to Indonesian Travel Journal: Poverty or the Highs and Lows of Instant Gratification

I recall reading somewhere that the idea of building a subway in Jakarta (I think it was Jakarta) was so daunting that they were even considering moving the capital to another site. Here's a reference but looks like they may actually go ahead.

While the metro project will be costly, it would be less of a strain on the treasury than the proposal mooted by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in August to move the site of the capital to another location, with either Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan or Jonggol in West Java as the leading options.

I have a book, Working Poor - Invisible in America, and I read a good deal of it before getting distracted. One of the concepts is that the system seems to conspire to take money away from the poor, because everything is more expensive when you have to buy it at the last minute - like emergency rooms instead of regular doctor visits. Another is that the poor often make poor choices - drugs, bad marriages, etc - that keep them in financial trouble. These concepts seem to echo both sides of the explanations that you mentioned.