What I know is that where I come from and will return,we are struggling to help out a 3rd,4th generation on welfare.And yes,this reasoning applies for many people,but not for all.And this polarized discourse,rich against poor,for the sake of poltical popularity and eventual votes,has caused many many problems, helped nobody and contributed to the social gap there is.I am not going there.It does not build and it hurts.QUOTE=Bubba Switzler;9161104, that there are other policies by the rich that have a similar effect including the bifurcated welfare policies, high minimum wage laws, etc. that discourage those with less talent from finding gainful employment.
]But neither of us is in a position to change that. Instead, my question here is what ought we do in our charitable activities.
To begin with,whatever,do it lovingly.
Awesome on toast.Interesting quote on the relationship between the poor and the rich:
As I was walking in the field, and observing an elm and vine, and determining in my own mind respecting them and their fruits, the Shepherd appears to me, and says, “What is it that you are thinking about the elm and vine?” “I am considering,” I reply, “that they become each other exceedingly well.” “These two trees,” he continues, “are intended as an example for the servants of God.” “I would like to know,” said I, “the example which these trees you say, are intended to teach.” “Do you see,” he says, “the elm and the vine?” “I see them sir,” I replied. “This vine,” he continued, “produces fruit, and the elm is an unfruitful tree; but unless the vine be trained upon the elm, it cannot bear much fruit when extended at length upon the ground; and the fruit which it does bear is rotten, because the plant is not suspended upon the elm. When, therefore, the vine is cast upon the elm, it yields fruit both from itself and from the elm. You see, moreover, that the elm also produces much fruit, not less than the vine, but even more; because,” he continued, “the vine, when suspended upon the elm, yields much fruit, and good; but when thrown upon the ground, what it produces is small and rotten. This similitude, therefore, is for the servants of God— for the poor man and for the rich.” “How so, sir?” said I; “explain the matter to me.” “Listen,” he said: “The rich man has much wealth, but is poor in matters relating to the Lord, because he is distracted about his riches; and he offers very few confessions and intercessions to the Lord, and those which he does offer are small and weak, and have no power above. But when the rich man refreshes the poor, and assists him in his necessities, believing that what he does to the poor man will be able to find its reward with God— because the poor man is rich in intercession and confession, and his intercession has great power with God— then the rich man helps the poor in all things without hesitation; and the poor man, being helped by the rich, intercedes for him, giving thanks to God for him who bestows gifts upon him. And he still continues to interest himself zealously for the poor man, that his wants may be constantly supplied. For he knows that the intercession of the poor man is acceptable and influential with God. Both, accordingly, accomplish their work. The poor man makes intercession; a work in which he is rich, which he received from the Lord, and with which he recompenses the master who helps him. And the rich man, in like manner, unhesitatingly bestows upon the poor man the riches which he received from the Lord. And this is a great work, and acceptable before God, because he understands the object of his wealth, and has given to the poor of the gifts of the Lord, and rightly discharged his service to Him. Among men, however, the elm appears not to produce fruit, and they do not know nor understand that if a drought come, the elm, which contains water, nourishes the vine; and the vine, having an unfailing supply of water, yields double fruit both for itself and for the elm. So also poor men interceding with the Lord on behalf of the rich, increase their riches; and the rich, again, aiding the poor in their necessities, satisfy their souls. Both, therefore, are partners in the righteous work. He who does these things shall not be deserted by God, but shall be enrolled in the books of the living. Blessed are they who have riches, and who understand that they are from the Lord. [For they who are of that mind will be able to do some good. ]”
From Similitude 2, The Shepherd of Hermas
IMHO, that knocks quite the hole into the idea of class envy.
Can we all agree that class warfare of any sort is social disorder?Interesting quote on the relationship between the poor and the rich: IMHO, that knocks quite the hole into the idea of class envy.
This (correlation vs. causation and the direction of causation) has been discussed a few times but not nearly enough. I have suggested, for example, that the “stay in school indicator” is probably not evidence that lack of high school education causes poverty but that people who can’t even bother to finish high school won’t bother to hold a job, etc.I think it may be like the recent study that shows angry people have heart attacks. I think the people were sick first and that made them angry and that the heart attack was from the original sickness that made them angry.
This is perhaps the most difficult problem of all because it involves not only the welfare of the mother (and father) but of the child. It is also probably the most important issue with respect to the perpetuation of poverty.Having said that, social controls like welfare payments and Earned Income Tax Credits/EIC higher for those women who have booted daddy out of the home may need a second look as sabotaging the poor. Social workers peeping under the bed for daddy are no longer needed as this is done by checking computer records for addresses, see? No daddy means kids with less education, more jail time, more poverty and of course a truly materialistic view of salvation, so to speak. That may include engineering their lives to have no marriage to conform with welfare/tax codes for cash; and more abortions and no kids so that missed child support payments won’t lead to jail time and loss of one’s job under America’s debtor prison system that suddenly ignores the ability to exact payments from IRS and state refunds. “The Lord hears the cry of the poor; blessed be the Lord.” I hope God gives us the wherewithal to dismantle this toxic social control system posing as a government.
Indeed, I think you are right that abortion is a secular “solution” to poverty. And, in fact, there are those who have argued it is the cause of reduced crime rates. There’s got to be a better way.America started erasing dads under Lyndon Baines Johnson’s War on Poverty, and it increased poverty if the unemployment rate of blacks and whites, before then only a few percentage points different and increasing widely under LBJ, is any indication. So let’s look and see how America is sabotaging the poor, including insistence on government funded abortion that plays out in a racist fashion with 10% of the population receiving 30% of the abortions–African Americans. “Brown eyed people” are the very targets of racist founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger.
One of the most permnicious such policy is the belief that reducing child births is the cause of economic improvement. Much of international obsession with birth control is based on that.And don’t forget the World Bank. A few years ago the World Bank expressed the desire that families have both parents working; and dialed in the economy to insure that kids would be more at risk with parents working. God, Good Shepherd, slay the wolves now!
Any kind of warfare at all is a social disorder.Can we all agree that class warfare of any sort is social disorder?
This is a very interesting point. I think it would be great to have a survey, however rough, across history that tried to examine moral attitudes among various segments of soceity. Charles Murray is interesting but he is very narrowly focused on the US and on the time frame of the last couple generations.It has been observed that during the “Victorian Era”, the morals of the very rich were bad and the morals of the very poor were just as bad. The real “Victorian morality” was on the part of the people in the middle…particularly the petit bourgeoisie. Those people did not have it easy in a material sense. They had to make their own worlds, and had the determination to do it.
True, though as I pointed out it is certainly not contrary to Catholic morality, it’s just not the whole of it. I don’t think that detracts from his point unless his “American” virtues are contrary to Catholic virtues.But that does not answer the question in that or our own society; which is the chicken and which is the egg? Murray is basically talking about “secular morality”; the kind of morality that does not get you into binds here and now and in your worldly future. He does not know, and, as i read him, does not pretend to know, the moral fibre of any of the people he talks about. Nor, certainly, does he know how God regards the struggles of individuals. Secular morality is essentially self-discipline; the kind the “strugglers” of the middle class find essential to their well-being and that of their children. It is not necessarily equated with personal morality in a spiritual sense.
But there is little doubt in my mind that the “strugglers” do have, at least objectively, a higher moral code. But again, are they successful because they’re moral or are they moral because that which causes them to be successful also gives them greater strength to avoid devastating consequences of bad moral decisions?
This has been brought up a few times but usually, as you do here, by way of example rather than generality. We can find sin everywhere and among any group of people. The question that Murray puts forward is whether the rich have something of value to teach the poor. And, in our case, we are rightfully concerned that this is at least consistent with Catholic moral teaching. I don’t think anyone should expect that the rich are gong to catechize the poor. But the rich are, to take the narrowest example, more self-disciplined than the poor, perhaps they can teach that.I have also read those stats on the pathologies of Wall Street traders. Assuming they’re correct (and that’s a big assumption) it may be observed that sociopaths are risk takers almost without exception. They are risk takers because they refuse to see the downside of their decisions, and are unrealistic about the rewards. Are sociopathic Wall Street traders successful? Are they sucessful in the long run? Are they any more successful than compulsive gamblers? One may reasonably doubt it. But that tells us nothing at all about, say, the morals of a successful physician, businessman or investor.
I think there is more to this than some here are willing to admit. It’s not at all clear that, as a general rule, dishonesty is a net better strategy for escaping poverty than trustworthyness and much to suggest that trustworthiness is essential to working with others.It is not unreasonable to believe that persons with high moral character likely tend to be more successful in a worldly sense than those without it. People can often read character. Who has not avoided a business transaction with someone when their intuitive sense told them “this person is not to be trusted”? Who has not placed confidence in someone in a business sense because of their perception that the opposite party is fundamentally honest?
No general observation will apply to all and every general solution must be applied with care for individual cases.What I know is that where I come from and will return,we are struggling to help out a 3rd,4th generation on welfare.And yes,this reasoning applies for many people,but not for all.And this polarized discourse,rich against poor,for the sake of poltical popularity and eventual votes,has caused many many problems, helped nobody and contributed to the social gap there is.I am not going there.It does not build and it hurts.
Of course.To begin with,whatever,do it lovingly.
Here is more from Charles Murray on changing norms:It has been observed that during the “Victorian Era”, the morals of the very rich were bad and the morals of the very poor were just as bad. The real “Victorian morality” was on the part of the people in the middle…particularly the petit bourgeoisie. Those people did not have it easy in a material sense. They had to make their own worlds, and had the determination to do it.
nationalreview.com/corner/295496/collapsing-social-norms-peter-robinsonUpper middle class kids had a real great time during the ‘60s. And during the 1970s, it got a little sleazy. And maybe they began to wonder whether this is really the right way to spend your life. And they straightened out …. [the lower class neighborhood kids], they had the same experience in the 60s and 70s. But the social norms there did collapse.
True.Can we all agree that class warfare of any sort is social disorder?
Any kind of warfare is a disorder, but we are not to shrink from it.Any kind of warfare at all is a social disorder.
“Coming Apart” would not be as shocking if it were not for a political and academic establishment that is unable to speak about the problems of the working class except in terms of class warfare and racial discrimination. Murray boldly upends the formula that social problems arise from economic problems and that these can only be solved with more social welfare programs. Instead of holding the upper classes accountable for not paying enough into the system that subsidizes the welfare state, he instead holds them accountable for disrupting national values, while maintaining them communally.
frontpagemag.com/2012/04/11/coming-apart-coming-together/While the class warfare model links social ills to an economic deprivation practiced by the rich on the poor, Murray looks instead at a values deprivation which has led to statistics such as a marriage rate of 83 percent for the white upper middle-class and only 48 percent for their working class contemporaries. This has created Two Americas divided not by wealth, as defined by John Edwards in the economic realm, but divided socially by the segregation of communities and the stratification of values.
Excellent and challenging question. Not saying I have the answer or even AN answer. But maybe I can help myself clarify my own thinking by making some observations, and I hope I can be forgiven for taking up space doing it.The question I want to explore here is how the rich might better help the poor in light of Charles Murray’s observations (which anyone is free to dispute, as many have already).
It is foolishness and a public madness to fill the cupboards with clothing and allow men who are created in God’s image and likeness to stand naked and trembling with cold, so that they can hardly hold themselves upright.
Yes, you say, he is cheating and he is only pretending to be weak and trembling. What! Do you not fear that lightning from Heaven will fall on you for this word? Indeed, forgive me, but I almost burst from anger.
Only see, you are large and fat, you hold drinking parties until late at night, and sleep in a warm, soft bed. And do you not think of how you must give an account of your misuse of the gifts of God?
Emphasis mine.… On the other hand, you question very closely the poor and the miserable, who are scarcely better off in this respect than the dead: and you do not fear the dreadful and the terrible judgment seat of Christ. If the beggar lies, he lies from necessity, because your hardheartedness and merciless inhumanity force him to such cheating. … If we would give our alms gladly and willingly, the poor would never have fallen to such depths.
Yes, this is the theory I referred to earlier that it is uncharitable to question the use to which a panhandler will put your change. It is the justification for giving to without teaching those in poverty. Whatever Chrysostom’s actual meaning, it has been used to justify a purely materialistic approach to poverty.I thought in the context of this thread this sermon of St. John Chrysostom might be relevant:
This is something I have long argued for and have mentioned at least once here. While I am skeptical of the value of completing public high school, I have much greater confidence in the value of a Catholic education.I realize this is highly improbable, but one thing I can think that really could be helpful, at least among Catholics, is for Catholic diocese to dump a lot of their established programs, really make an effort to jar money loose from parishioners and make a concerted effort to make all Catholic schools affordable.
Perhaps that is Chrysostom’s actual meaning. Just help the poor and don’t assume yourself to be better than them.Yes, this is the theory I referred to earlier that it is uncharitable to question the use to which a panhandler will put your change. It is the justification for giving to without teaching those in poverty. Whatever Chrysostom’s actual meaning, it has been used to justify a purely materialistic approach to poverty.
Perhaps. If you think Chrysostom is calling on you to enable drug and alcohol addiciton (among other things), there is not hing I can say to stop you.Perhaps that is Chrysostom’s actual meaning. Just help the poor and don’t assume yourself to be better than them.