A Culture of Poverty [and] The Broken Windows Theory…

Date October 30, 2006 | 11:58 PM

I recently ordered several books that I think will help me understand poverty in the urban setting. For a while now I’ve been formulating my thoughts on poverty and human dignity. In particular I’m going to look at the Broken Windows Theory and how it potentially applies to the individual and those in a poverty setting. The books I’m reading are listed below in alphabetical order.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to posting anything about it, but I hope so. Some of the thoughts percolating in my head:

Is it possible that by perpetuating the welfare system, we are showing people that we have no faith in them to take care of themselves? What is human dignity, and how does this dignity as a person relate to the poverty mindset? Could it be that the system has been integrated into a poverty subculture, so that any and all future generations have lost hope (or vision) of anything better? How can this change? How does the Broken Windows Theory fit into the poverty picture? Or does it?

I left a comment on another blog recently, although it went largely unnoticed. Several of my points were:

  1. Martin Luther King, Jr. made a great point, saying that we shouldn’t just toss the poor man a coin. We should work to fix the system that made him poor.
  2. Some people choose to be poor (and/or transient). There’s not much we can do about it.
  3. Because of that, there will always, ALWAYS, be poor on Earth. So there is a mandate for us as believers to help them.
  4. Is it the welfare state that makes Christians lazy? I’d say that it’s the welfare state that makes many on welfare comfortable enough to maintain instead of strive for their best. I think it’s the disconnect between the welfare worldview and our worldview that makes it DIFFICULT for any work to be done cross-culturally (and it IS a culture of poverty). That difficulty, compounded by a complete communication disconnect, is what keeps many people from doing anything (or even knowing what it is to do). Then add the fear factor in (in many cases, rightfully so). I think it’s more than just Christians being lazy (although I think we are).

So we’ll see where everything goes from here. I do challenge you to ask yourself, “How can I help change the system?”

Category Posted in Christianity, Human Dignity Series, Politics, Social Justice

No comments on this one, boys and girls.