The basic tenant of poverty is a lack of power. A lack of power, of control, over the external circumstances of one's life. This lack of power is systemic, not individual, in nature. To gain power
is to lose poverty; to lose power is to become deeper entrenched into the physical and mental depravities that plague so many in the world. First, we need to define "depravity;" in this context, I refer
to a simple lack of comfort. Comfort as human development, if you will. This simple definition can be extended to all walks of life, and forms the cornerstone for greed and lust for power and control. We, as human beings, simply want comfort, and wish to avoid pain and unpleasantness. This is the human condition. This is also the situation that plagues so many of the systems designed to help alleviate the powerless conditions in the developing world. Once people get comfort, they are loath to give it up; our thirst for comfort becomes paramount, and clouds our judgements, our duties, and our capabilities to truly perform altruistic work. Only those few, who have done the near-impossible, and have overcome the addiction to comfort, have had the power to lead-by-example and truly influence change for the powerless. The list of these people is extremely short; the normal suspects, Mahatma Gandi, Mother Theresa, His Holiness The Dalai Lama; those who have transformed their own addiction to comfort, and have succeeded in breaking down the walls that the comfort divide builds between the powerful and the powerless. So much of our thirst for comfort, which controls out motivations and actions, also depletes the resources intended for the powerless. Again, this can be seen in the macro-level, through environmental resource depletion and trade barriers, down to the micro, individual level, as NGO workers power around town in air conditioned, new SUV's, basking in comfort that the powerless can not even imagine.
Power and comfort are intoxicating; this is the drug of inequality.
“Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects which must be saved from a burning building; it is to lead them into the populist pitfall and transform them into masses which can be manipulated.”"
-Paolo Freire
is to lose poverty; to lose power is to become deeper entrenched into the physical and mental depravities that plague so many in the world. First, we need to define "depravity;" in this context, I refer
to a simple lack of comfort. Comfort as human development, if you will. This simple definition can be extended to all walks of life, and forms the cornerstone for greed and lust for power and control. We, as human beings, simply want comfort, and wish to avoid pain and unpleasantness. This is the human condition. This is also the situation that plagues so many of the systems designed to help alleviate the powerless conditions in the developing world. Once people get comfort, they are loath to give it up; our thirst for comfort becomes paramount, and clouds our judgements, our duties, and our capabilities to truly perform altruistic work. Only those few, who have done the near-impossible, and have overcome the addiction to comfort, have had the power to lead-by-example and truly influence change for the powerless. The list of these people is extremely short; the normal suspects, Mahatma Gandi, Mother Theresa, His Holiness The Dalai Lama; those who have transformed their own addiction to comfort, and have succeeded in breaking down the walls that the comfort divide builds between the powerful and the powerless. So much of our thirst for comfort, which controls out motivations and actions, also depletes the resources intended for the powerless. Again, this can be seen in the macro-level, through environmental resource depletion and trade barriers, down to the micro, individual level, as NGO workers power around town in air conditioned, new SUV's, basking in comfort that the powerless can not even imagine.
Power and comfort are intoxicating; this is the drug of inequality.
“Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects which must be saved from a burning building; it is to lead them into the populist pitfall and transform them into masses which can be manipulated.”"
-Paolo Freire
