Swank says:
Everyday life for a poor person in concentrated poverty doesn’t leave a lot of time for abstracting anything. Your life is concrete and in the moment. You are worried about surviving. You are worried about getting attacked. You are worried about being accosted. One false move can send your life careening down a path of horrible consequences.A child living in even slight affluence has the luxury of taking an approach to life that involves planning, long-term ideas, talking about abstract concepts, etc. “mastering the fundamentals.”
Who says this is true? I live in a town where 30% of the population lives below the poverty line. My neighborhood is quite typical of the city. This is not the wealthy part of town, and there is indeed a wealthy part of this town. A lot of folks around here are on Section 8, WIC and Food Stamps at the very least. Arrests are pretty common around here, and there is said to be a gang element. It’s not extremely dangerous to go walking about in day or especially at night, but bad things do happen. Someone might accost you and try to rob you. There are a few muggings that occur around here late at night. A few years back, gunshots were fired in my complex 50 yards away.
I was living close to the poverty line myself a while back, and I still do not have much money. My income is ~$14,000/yr. I barely pay bills, and that’s it. It certainly is not true that I have no time to be abstract because I am so concerned about day to day survival ,and of course I do not live a concrete, in the moment life like most of these morons around here. I am not very worried about surviving, but I might not go walking at 3 AM. I am not very worried at all about being attacked, though once again, when I used to go out for late night walks, I carried a knife in my pocket. I have lived here for 6 years, and I have never been accosted, assaulted or robbed. I am not particularly worried about being accosted.
It’s always the case that one false move can send your life careening down the path to dire consequences. That’s the case even if you live in Beverly Hills. That’s why you have to think carefully about everything you do.
I engage in continuous planning, longterm goals, and I live in abstraction. I am all about mastering the fundamentals. And I live in a poor area.
…Taking an approach to life that involves planning, long-term ideas, talking about abstract concepts, etc. “mastering the fundamentals.”
I agree that most of these idiots around here do not think this way. Maybe some do, I have no idea. But a lot of folks around here seem like they can’t even plan 24 or 48 hours in advance. I say that’s because they are stupid. It’s well known that dumb people can hardly plan forward. They can hardly plan a trip to the bathroom, much less into next month.
I have talked to a lot of these people around here about non-concrete things, abstract stuff, etc. and most of them are immediately lost. In my opinion, that is because they are too dumb to think abstractly and can only think in a concrete sense. It’s not that they can’t think this way because they live in a poor area. They can’t think this because they are really dumb.