Poverty is a state of being extremely poor. In the “What is poverty” essay it talks about the struggles of a woman that has three children and is trying to survive with little to no income. Jo Goodwin Parker describes her life living in poverty and her daily struggles to raise a family. In the essay she goes in depth and describes what goes on in her daily life. It is sad to say that Jo describes herself as dirty, smelly, and with no proper underwear on and with the stench of my rotting teeth. She talks about how she has no luxuries while being poor due to the high cost of simple things such as hot water, soap, medicine and clothing.
She continues by writing that while there are government programs to help the poor, none exist in her area and if there were she has no means by which to travel to them. This is no way for a woman like her to live. Later in the essay she explains how she cannot get out of her situation through employment because the job does not pay enough to pay her children’s day care. She writes that “poverty is looking into a black future” and states that her children have no future. Overall, she did not want sympathy, but understanding of her struggles.
The “Social Darwinism and American Laissez-faire Capitalism” article by Charles Darwin, and Herbert Spencer talks about how Herbert Spencer believes that people could genetically pass on their learned characteristics to their children which leads to his idea of the “fittest” and the “unfit”. Social Darwinism ties in with this article because social Darwinism is survival of the fittest. The “unfit” will eventually dwindle off because the people of the upper class control the economy, media, rules of society, and even the government so that either way the upper class will be in control.
Overall, both the article and the essay ties together because the essay explains the aspect of the lower class and very obstacle that lower class people may go through. According to the article the lower class eventually die off but as for Parker, she was somewhat trapped in the low class and could not find a way to supply her or her families basic needs. If both the essay and the article were combined Parker would be considered unfit. Social Darwinism is something that can be used in the world and society. This concept can be described as the survival of the fittest concept.
Those who are the strong will go on to chase life and leave the weak behind. Darwinism has come in the form of colonization and imperialism throughout the world. This theory seems to be the basis for most missions. It is as if the so called inferior beings are being forced to change in order to meet the demands of the more prominent culture. People like Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler have used Social Darwinism to defend their views about the world. Even though these individuals have a variety of differences in their viewpoints, it is possible to use Social Darwinism to their advantage.
The whole idea around Darwinism is that the strong will survive. Karl Marx focused on capitalism and business aspect of it. In the business world, if one is weak than he or she will not rise in success up the social status. To him, those who are powerful repress the powerless in the form of having a higher social status than the average man. On the other side of the spectrum, as unstable as Hitler was, Darwinism could be applied to what his particular beliefs were. To Hitler, the Arian race was prominent over all other races as well as other ethnic groups.
He believed that his people were superior to those who were considered inferior. For Hitler’s people to be successful he had millions of innocent men, women, and children exterminated in an act of genocide to help with the survival of the fittest. This goes to show that social Darwinism has a owerful impact on different countries in the world as well as in todays society. Poverty can be a lot of things such as hunger, lack of shelter, being sick and not being able to see a doctor, and most importantly not being able to go to school, not knowing how to read, not being able to speak properly.
Poverty is not having a job, fear for the future and living one day at a time. Poverty is loosing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of freedom. Poverty has many aspects, changing from place to place and across time, and has been described in many ways. Most often poverty is a situation people want to escape. So poverty is a call to action for the poor and the wealthy alike – a call to change the world so that many more may have enough to eat, adequate shelter, access to education and protection from violence. Unfortunately, poverty is often an invisible problem.
The voices of the poor are never heard. What makes it worst is the unwillingness of our society to deal with this preventable problem, and how politicians who rule the country pretend that poverty is simply a given human existence that is unstoppable. What makes a good life? Material and physical well-being, ecurity, freedom of choice and action the very things that bring joy to human existence, all make a good life. It is living healthy and peaceful lives in love with no hunger; no worrying about the future of children that brings the principal pleasures of everyday life.
Physical health, strength and appearance are of great importance to the poor. The body is poor people’s main asset, but one with no insurance. If the body doesn’t stay in a health condition, hunger and destitution take over. Shortage of food and sickness cause pain and they weaken and devalue the asset, make a person highly vulnerable. Illness can plunge a ousehold into destitution which has an affect on every single person in the house hold in a negative way which puts people in a health and financial state that turns out to be negative situation that is difficult to get out of.
When people state that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer it is hard for the upper class to realize the imbalance of wealth and power between themselves and everyone in the classes below them. As for middle class they are at a stand still. This is becoming a major problem because upper class has the most say on where and who money is going to and people are becoming more aware of this problem. Overall, social Darwinism is something that every community has and it is not going away anytime soon.
It is sad to see that people are considered unfit to live in such a community. Situations that people go through on a daily basis should not determine their life forever but should look forward to enhancing their life for the better in the future. Poverty can make or break a person, depending on the person’s social status. Just because society defines what a good life is doesn’t mean that people don’t have great lives living below the upper class. Sometimes their life is better than those that are in the the top ten percent.