Self-imposed stupidity.

[elfs]

Fallen Pegasus once commented that if it were not for Arts & Letters Daily, I would have nothing interesting worth writing about.

Sometimes, though, a story so infuriating I just can't consider it dispassionately floats to the top of the pond and... I have no idea what to say. Just read Dereliction Express, the first essay in that collection, and tell me it is not profoundly sad and outrageous and infuriating all at once:

I'll tell you why these shops didn't work out, said the former ambassador [from Malawi], addressing the table at large. When Africans run businesses their families come and stay with them and eat all their food-- just live off them. As soon as an African succeeds in something he has his family cadging from him. Not so?

That is true, brother, the other man said.

And we are not cut out for this shop-keeping and book-keeping and (he winked at me) this number crunching.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

The sad part is that we have a large and growing similar culture right here in our own backyards.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

This is one of the major contributing factors to poverty in America.

Because if you don't share your wealth during the good times, you have no friends and no support net during bad times. So a poor person who temporarily has a little money sees it soak into the sand of the poverty of their family and friends . . . making reinvestment a sick joke.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

Reinvestment in what?

In my family we don't expect each individual to do everything on their own. There are some who bring in money and some who provide labor in kind. Everyone pulls part of the load all in the same boat instead of each one pulling all of the load each in their own little boats.

I've tried it both ways and I can tell you that sharing the load makes things better for all involved.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I think the disconnect here is in understanding the consequences of being a head of household. In America, we expect people to pull their own weight, to contribute in a meaningful way. All of the things you've described are of family members contributing in some meaningful way to the well-being of all concerned.

If someone doesn't contribute and just mooches off the efforts of others, there are only so many "second chances" we in America are willing to give that person before we give up and push that person to the margins. We have expectations that a person capable of contribution will contribute.

As the article shows, in Africa the consequences of pushing someone to the margins because of their failure to contribute are dire: the entire family strikes back, is willing to punish and even kill the breadwinner, for his or her "failure" to support the moochers. Theroux's article makes it clear: individual success in a kind of deviancy, and it is tolerated only so long as the tribe benefits from it.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Elf;

Are you familiar with Manna (http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm) by Marshall Brain? It presents a horrifyingly dystopian view of the future with a ray of hope at the end... but at a price I don't know if I would personally tolerate.

Your 'story so infuriating' reminded me in so many ways of the personality characteristics Brain cites as the cause for the future vision he presents.

...

And, on a completely unrelated note, if you thought your neighbors in the rental next door were bad; for the love of all that is good and light in this world do not move to Arkansas. I can only hope my exile here is brief.

A temporarily displaced Washingtonian,
Bryan.