Choosing poverty

There are moments when I wonder about the way people look at other people. I'm a bit of an elitist myself. I believe that smart, capable people should be ahead of the rest, should possess advantages and be treated better than everybody else. Is that really so wrong? That's the way the world works. That's the way the world moves forward. Progress can only exist if those who are smarter, more capable, faster, stronger, whatever, can get some sort of reward for exploiting their advantages to the maximum, or at least whatever extent they feel like. If everybody was content to remain as they are, or believed that having more than others was bad, the human race would still be stuck in the Stone Age.

Think about it. Imagine if the Greeks didn't believe in creating classes. The only reason, well maybe not the only reason, but a major one nonetheless, that the Greeks were able to come up with so much cool stuff is because the women and children did all the work and left the men to sit around thinking about stuff. The Romans wanted to be the bosses of the world, and they ended up bringing civilisaton to Europe. Qin Shi Huang wanted to rule China, so he did, and laid the foundations for a unified and lasting civilisation. We could keep going. It is only by believing that one is better than others, and that superiority deserves recognition and reward, that we have been able to progress at all. Arrogance is often derided as the worst of flaws, but that is precisely what we value in others and ourselves.

I watched Troy the other day, and it struck me how much we want our heroes to be arrogant and elitist. Anybody who watched that movie would agree that Achilles and Hector would have made better leaders of their respective factions. Why? Not because they were more capable administrators or benevolent leaders or anything along those lines, but simply because they were so good at something. Achilles was pretty handy with a sword, and Hector was an extremely endearing sort of fellow. If their conceit had extended to being the boss, we would have cheered. When Achilles was ready to kill everybody in the tent, including the king, I forget his name, to get back the girl, everybody wanted him to do it. There was almost an audible sigh of disappointment when he swallowed his arrogance and sheathed his blade. We want our heroes to have absolute confidence in themselves, to decide to do something difficult and impossible, then do it. It is not enough to actually accomplish something, the attitude must be there as well. I think that's why professional wrestling is so appealing to pretty much everybody, if they will only admit it. Every person in there is just completely arrogant and believes in his own ability to beat the crap out of everybody else. The bad guys are less so. When the good guy responds to a challenge, the bad guy is invariably freaked out, and needs his cronies to help him out. That's why we cheer the confident good guy who beats up loads of people at a time, and boo the bad guy, who needs to cheat to win. It is the arrogance that attracts admiration. The Rock character is completely arrogant and overbearing. He shows up and insults everybody, including the audience, who boo him initially, but the sheer confidence and cockiness he shows soon wins their cheers again. We want to see people who believe in themselves.

Yet arrogance remains one of the most common gripes about character. I think this is largely due to a schism between fantasy and personal experience. When we look at someone with fantastic force of personality, perfectly arrogant and with complete belief in himself, we may either consider him as a hero, or some fellow with too high an opinion of himself. The only difference is in the interaction. Say we take a sports player. If a football player has the audacity to try the most ridiculous tricks, or struts about the field as if he owns it, we consider him to be authoritative and worthy of adulation, if he actually pulls off his tricks, of course. But when we encounter him outside the strict context of the playing field, and he continues to be so completely confident and self-important, we think of him as self-important. Just look at how we view, say, Franz Beckenbauer. We want to idolise a confident hero, but the everyday nitty gritty of living with him, we find irritating.

Many people will protest this, saying that they do not object to the talented being willing to exploit their talents, or to them being conscious of and vocal about their abilities, but to the refusal to let others share in the benefits of their success. They look at the rich in this capitalist world of ours, and bemoan the massive inequalities of our society. The poor live in squalor, the rich live it up. I say that is ridiculous. The capable are sharing the benefits of their success. They are doing this when they succeed. Imagine a world where, say, John D. Rockefeller did not dominate his rivals and become the world's richest man. Without a centralised and strong oil company, there would have been no way of controlling the supply of oil we so desperately need today. We should not begrudge the riches of the successful, but recognise that it is a reflection of how much society has benefited by their talents. It is really very simple. There is no way of accumulating wealth unless somebody somewhere decided that whatever you offer is worth parting with his cash for. Any person who spends his money on anything is admitting that the thing he has purchased is worth more to him than the money. So the purchaser gains, as does the seller. That's the beauty of the capitalist system. There are no losers, because there can't be. No matter how low-paying certain jobs are, the worker finds the wage worth his time and effort. If not, he would not be doing it. Oh, some may complain that they have no choice, but they do. They can go become farmers, beggars, starve. The options are infinite. Not much of a choice, you say. I say it is. Is it worth your time and effort to avoid starvation? If it is not, then too bad for you. You have chosen leisure over survival. Besides who really thinks the sweatshop worker is worse off than the subsistence farmer? Only the middle-class university student. It sucks to be a subsistence farmer. You subsist. Sure, it might be dangerous and unpleasant to be in a sweatshop, but there's a reason people choose to be cheap factory labour rather than farmers. You might not find the tradeoff worth it, but you're not the one making the choice.

Does it bother me to see people in the streets begging for change, or rummaging through garbage for cans? Sure it does. I think people should have a better quality of life than that. Also, I think such poverty encourages crime. But again, this is a choice that these people make. I am certain they could find enough to live on if they move out to the country and work on farms. But they do not. They choose to live in abject poverty in the big city rather than live in abject poverty in the country. The only difference is that the contrast is more visible. That is their choice, and I do not presume to judge them for it. But I am judged for respecting their choice. I am supposed to be willing to redistribute wealth, to give up some of my own to enable others to gain. Well, imagine if the wealth of the entire world were evenly distributed. I do not have the statistics, but I imagine that every person would end up poor. Ask yourself, are you willing to give up your computer, your designer clothes, your cars, your comfortable homes, your ample meals, your holidays, the good schools for your children, just so that others may be happier? Don't be a hypocrite.

I seem to have veered off from my original idea, which is of the concept of lotteries. I shall continue some other time.