Thread: Leftist Planet

Terry Eagleton by any chance?

yeah he just states the obvious nothing very interesting there

Originally Posted by Thinkingofachange

Poverty is not a culture

Oscar Lewis thought so, so do I. Culture: all learned/transmitted behavior. From whom does a poor child receive his social education? Let's assume his family is poor, his friends are poor. His teachers aren't but he's only with them for a relative short time, given he listens to anything they say at all. He talks like a poor person, he acts like a poor person, he has the world view of a poor person. And most importantly he sees himself as poor and identifies with the poor. Does anyone think he'll educate his children from the same intellectual base as Mahatma Gandhi?

Originally Posted by jonny danger

Oscar Lewis thought so, so do I. Culture: all learned/transmitted behavior. From whom does a poor child receive his social education? Let's assume his family is poor, his friends are poor. His teachers aren't but he's only with them for a relative short time, given he listens to anything they say at all. He talks like a poor person, he acts like a poor person, he has the world view of a poor person. And most importantly he sees himself as poor and identifies with the poor. Does anyone think he'll educate his children from the same intellectual base as Mahatma Gandhi?

i was born poor, raised by poor parents, and lived in a poor neighborhood in a pretty poor town. I'm not poor anymore; I don't want to demonstrate this point, because I'll be accused of bragging on this forum again, but just accept that I and many others like me grow up from being poor.

Does that mean we have transcended our cultures? Are we still culturally poor?

But I think this is getting away from my original point: poverty may be a collection of learned and transmitted behaviors, but it is not unique to any one group of people and can easily be found everywhere on Earth. This is not what most travelers think they are seeing. Take the food stalls in SEA, for example, since they're commonly praised as a bit of local culture. That's not unique or specific to SEA--food stalls can and do exist anywhere where there is a lack of jobs, substantial poverty, and insufficient government aid--the three of these combine to create small-time entrepreneurs and sole-proprietors.

The food stall isn't part of southeast Asian culture; it's a consequence of a society that doesn't provide jobs and/or welfare for its poorest, and that activity can be found just about everywhere on Earth. Even North Korea, which tried to ban the market economy, has had to turn a blind eye to these kinds of markets in recent years.

The only reason why the small stall culture is revered by the backpacking hippie twentysomething traveler is because they come from a suburb of Wisconsin or Ottawa that is too wealthy to have such things. This isn't SEA culture--it's a different level of wealth. South Korea and Japan both demonstrate these; both nations had widespread streetside food stalls, but they were removed as the countries got rich (in Japan in the 70's and in South Korea quite recently--I think they banned them in 2010).

Originally Posted by Thinkingofachange

i was born poor, raised by poor parents,

Oh please, not again. Do you ever tire of telling your life story? Do you have the idea you're interesting enough to carry on and on? Or do you think you ate all your cookies a month ago and are now in the vomit phase?

Try responding to his response to your post, JD... c'mon, you can do it. Get out that dog-eared Anthro 101 text and come back with something more than a reeky fart.

Sorry, I couldn't get past his first sentence. Don't you ever do that with literature? You read the first chapter and it's shit so you move on to something else.

Poor baby, went from son of white trash to a PhD and has the passion to tell it to a public forum of loggon joes day in and day out. Awesome!

Originally Posted by Thinkingofachange

but it is not unique to any one group of people and can easily be found everywhere on Earth.

Jeez, I learn something new every day.

Originally Posted by Thinkingofachange

That's not unique or specific to SEA--food stalls can and do exist anywhere where there is a lack of jobs, substantial poverty, and insufficient government aid--the three of these combine to create small-time entrepreneurs and sole-proprietors.

Wow! I always had the idea those proprietors were British royalty dressed down for vogue.

Originally Posted by Thinkingofachange

The only reason why the small stall culture is revered by the backpacking hippie twentysomething traveler is because they come from a suburb of Wisconsin or Ottawa that is too wealthy to have such things. This isn't SEA culture--it's a different level of wealth. South Korea and Japan both demonstrate these; both nations had widespread streetside food stalls, but they were removed as the countries got rich

Man, I can see you've been hanging out with ignorant people for a long time. I'm sure you impress them.

Originally Posted by tomcat

throw tired sarcasm to the wind...

That's difficult to do when you don't have logic or evidence to back up your claims.

it sounds as though the goal of evolution is to become a middle class american. nice empty streets, atomized, demented, sedated society, random massacres to break the monotony, lots of shit at the piggly wiggly to buy. sounds like heaven.