Chances are that if you’re
a Peace Corps volunteer home for the holidays, you’ve recently talked with a
family member or friend that has equated poverty with happiness. During my
short visit home, I was taken aback by an incredibly common theme that popped
up during the countless “so how’s Guatemala?” conversations I had back home. It
appeared to me that many people, who seemingly for the most part enjoy
wonderful, privileged lives, got caught up marveling at how happy my host-country
neighbors are in the simplicity of their poverty. Most said something along the
lines of, “ those people have next to nothing, but they still find a way to be
so happy. Not like us.”
It’s true, of course, that
many of the people I live and work with live below the poverty line (~$2
USD/day), and yes many of them are the happiest people I know. But this
assumption that their poverty is somehow directly responsible for their
happiness really confuses me. Do people honestly think the key to happiness is
poverty? Because if so, why not just donate all of your things today? Yes
the men and women who live in poverty that I’ve worked with are happy, but that
is not to say that they wouldn’t be just as happy or even happier making more
than $2 USD a day.
If I am misreading these
comments, please by all means let me know, but my understanding thus far is
that people are essentially assuming a cause-and-effect relationship when it
comes to poverty and happiness. It seems that the common line of reasoning is
that being poor leads to a simpler life where you don’t get caught up with
“first world problems” and learn to be happy with what little you have. This
thought process worries me because buying into a causal pathway that
diametrically links poverty with simplicity and happiness makes poverty seem
voluntary. It’s almost as if you’re saying that the poor chose their
destitution because they prefer the simplicity of the lifestyle, when in
reality those in poverty are generally stuck in poverty. They probably spend
just as much time dreaming about a life of privilege and wealth as many
Americans I’ve met seem to spend dreaming of a “simpler life.”
The most confusing part to
me, however, is that people I’ve met readily romanticize the poor in the
countries I’ve worked in or travelled to, but I’ve never heard the same applied
to those living in poverty in the U.S. Usually the poor people of Kenya, Haiti,
or Guatemala are resilient-minded, hardworking folk who have learned to make
the most of what they have, while the American poor are lazy or even scamming.
Apparently it’s easier to romanticize the poor that live thousands of miles
away and vilify the poor that live down the block. I wonder where this paradox
comes from. Is it from movies like Slumdog Millionaire where the characters’
capacity for happiness and love seem to outshine our own because of all the
hardships they’ve been through? Or is it simply easier to romanticize something
so far away from your own reality?
The danger
with romanticizing poverty is that it tricks people into thinking that there’s
no need for change. “Why complicate their lives with globalization or
modernization? Just let them be happy in their simplicity.” But the truth that
I have seen with every house visit I’ve done is that there is no simplicity in
poverty. There is no simplicity in a 21 year-old mother of three, denied of
financial autonomy, clean water, and food security trying to figure out how to
keep her family healthy. There is no simplicity in a 14 year-old girl with
untreated schizophrenia being stripped of her basic right to education. Poverty
is not a simple thing- it is a complex multitude of emotions, circumstances,
and contexts that can’t be captured in one stereotypical, glorified depiction.
When we romanticize the poor and simplify poverty, we hobble the
desire to find realistic interventions for alleviating poverty.
The “happy with what little they have” mentality is
dangerous because it confuses making the best out of harsh circumstances with
willfully choosing those circumstances – the bottom billion are happy with what
they have (by the way who is actually surveying these populations and uniformly
declaring that poor people are happier than wealthy people?) because they
usually come from such disadvantaged lives that the simple making it through
the day with food on the table and a roof above their heads is a blessing, not
a given. But please don’t confuse this with the happiness you are thinking of.
Imagine being content with your day not because you excelled at work or made a
new friend, but simply because you and your family survived. Many of the women
I work with are so overcome with the sheer challenge of survival that they
don’t have the time to find the things that make us in the developed world
happy – things like friends, pastimes, or forms of personal expression. The
truth is romanticizing
poverty is a privilege that only people who do not live in poverty are lucky
enough to have.
Friends and family back home are by no means the only ones
guilty of romanticizing the poor. Social
justice think tanks and public health nonprofits tend to characterize the poor
as ‘resilient and creative entrepreneurs.’ This is clearly visible in the explosion
of emphasis placed on micro-financing in recent years. This characterization is
by all means probably true to a large extent and I really do believe
micro-financing has the capability to mobilize and empower the poor in ways
top-down interventions never could, but the over-simplification of the poor as
‘untapped potential’ is harmful in more ways than one. It results in too little
highlighting of the need for legal and social mechanisms to protect the poor who are
actually quite vulnerable consumers. If you or I make a poor business decision
or rash purchase, chances are that we’re much more likely to recover from
the economic downfall than someone living below the poverty line would be. A
romanticized view of the poor also distracts from the importance of sustainable
interventions – if you view poverty as a choice rather than a reality, you are
probably less likely to invest the thought and time that it takes to ensure a
project is fully sustainable. The idea
that the poor just need a catalyst – a donation of money or resources for
example- completely disregards the complexity of the social, political, and
geographical contexts that keeps the poor living in poverty. Instead of romanticizing poverty, we would do
better to admire the strength of the poor while understanding our role as
individuals, institutions, or government in ending poverty.
