Why is poverty as an issue ignored? According to Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickled And Dimed, it is because of society's current social/media incarnation. The poor have easy access to the life of the rich, through media, books, TV shows, and the like. They can constantly tune in to the latest happenings of the celebrity world, hearing about the various crisis afflicting the affluent. However, this availibility of information about those different from you is not equal in both directions. The rich have little to no contact with the life and goings on of the poor: there aren't numerous articles about them, they can't view them speeding by on the street, and since most people are constantly looking up, the rich don't have the desire or the want to look at the lifestyle of the poor. Thus, their exposure to the realities of the classes below them is extremely limited: for some, the only glimpse they will ever get of this other world is through the medium of either household servants, or stereotypical representations in the cinema. There is no easy way for them to be exposed to the realities of poverty and hunger, and so their responces to these issues are based off of little to no real information; instead, they come from what they believe to be true, making them that much more assured in their decisions. And so it continues.
TIP
TIP
No comments:
Post a Comment