Monday, September 28, 2015

The Pope, Sentiment and Action

The Pope offers concerns about the world that are a distillation of the moral problems of the West. The care of the poor is the touchstone. Poverty is essentially a low tide of economic achievement. Many such situations are inherent to peoples and/or places and will not improve: The Eskimo is probably making the most of his options. Efforts by New York to improve the conditions of the Eskimo might make him physically more comfortable but also might make him less an Eskimo, like a displaced New Yorker. So what should be done?
It is kind of those with excess to share it with those with less but is it kind for others to take from those with excess and share it with those below subsistence? And how would that be done? Christ always placed such decisions upon the individual. Christ's gospel is filled with personal responsibility; He had disregard for institutions.
How is poverty to be defined? Many would say the intrusion of Europeans--despite the excess they brought--was a disaster for the impoverished hunter-gather North American Indian--not just in combat but in culture. Should the West duplicate such intrusions elsewhere? What about the relativity of poverty? A poor man in America would be middle class most other places; should that be considered? How should such decisions be made and who should make them? Worst, the history of centralized powerful entities making decisions such as these has historically been a nightmare. The agent of redistribution always, always become a monster. The practicalities of these problems overlook the underlying moral question as well: By what authority does one group demand the production of another?
Until someone starts talking about the problem of moving sentiment to action, the poverty cat will never get a bell.

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