the development of predudice against poverty

Great Debates
1

i realized recently that there are predudices against poverty here in iceland. this happens at the same time politicians are trying to tell the public that iceland and its inhabitants have never been richer.

predudices against poverty does not seem to be class related because in class divided communities predudices are directed against lower classes rather than against the poverty of those classes.

in a non-classed community (like iceland - it is socially accepted that there is no specific class of people in this country, for all that is worth) the predudices are directed against poverty and the reason seems to be the politicians announcement that we are rich.

in a community which wants to believe it is rich it is “normal” to deny the fact that anybody is poor. this results in predudices against those who speak up and announce that there is poverty in this otherwise “rich” country (i belive that the total amount of money flowing through the microsoft corp in a month is more than goes through iceland in a year).

the reasoning is: “you had the same opportunities as i had, how come you didnt get a job and buy a house like i did?”.
there is a hit of jealousy and anger in the voice of the “rich” when they try and deny the fact that anybody needs help aquiring food to feed their children. accusations of laziness are thrown around and everybody becomes a liar.

the economic standards of icelanders have changed in the past 10-15 years. our work environment has changed because nobody wants to work in “lower-class” jobs like in the fish industry…resulting in the management decision to import people from other countries to do the job icelanders used to be happy to do.

perhaps predudices against poverty is what happens before a class-divided community emerges?

predudices are basically failure to accomodate any experience into your existing models of the world. models of the world are developed through an inborn need to organize our knowledge and new knowledge is assimilated into existing models.

accomodation of experiences should follow assimilation of the experience, but failure to do that results in false knowledge of any given experience.

thus, our model of the world is affected by the politicians speech about us being rich. we assimilate that and accomodate into our model (scheme). we adapt to the changes the politician tells us have come to pass.
anyone that says that there is something wrong with this picture is labeled as “abnormal”…as our model of the world does not accept the conflict of rich and poor existing at the same time. thus it is accomodated into our models that there are people that are different from the rest and that they must be “bad”…because, lets face it…i cant be bad!

summarize: we are rich(experience) > being poor is wrong(assimilation) > social class “poor” is born (accomodation)
reversed: predudices exist because of failure in adaption (assimilation and accomodation).

well, this has been a hell of a brainfart but i hope it makes some sense to whoever reads it…i am in need of some constructing critique please…

bj0rn - …

2

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The prejudice isn’t directed against poverty it is directed against people living in poverty. As such I don’t see how you can claim that Iceland is a classless society. After all you’ve just admitted that you’ve got people living in poverty and those who do not. That’s at least two social classes of people. It might be “socially accepted” that there isn’t any class but that doesn’t make it true.

**

I wouldn’t doubt that Iceland is wealthy compared to many other countries in the world. You’ve probably got a high standard of living so calling you wealthy wouldn’t be a lie. Americans are relatively wealthy compared to much of the world but that doesn’t mean we don’t have poor people.

There are probably several reasons that living in poverty is looked down on in the United States. Impoverished areas often have high crimes rates, they often appear run down and ugly, and they’re a drain on resources.

Marc

3

MGibson, the US is also a “classless society” in the sense that the phrase originated. It didn’t mean the same as economic stratification.

bj0rn (and MGibson), I think the mechanism by which people become contemptuous of the poor is that there is a wish to believe that no one has to be or remain poor, that a little effort would pull you out of it, and that economic competition is a fair game that only the weak and unmotivated lose. The relatively rich, not wanting to feel that they have undeserved wealth, want to believe the above rather than believe that it is rather difficult to obtain wealth if you don’t already have wealth, or that the deck can be significantly stacked against some people for reasons for which they are unblameworthy. The struggling people who aren’t dirt-poor but crave improvement in their situation also want to believe the “equal chances” description of economics. In both cases, the genuinely poor are distressing unless they can be blamed for their circumstances; people do not like to see the poor in their circumstances and feel that there is any valid sense of “There but for the grace of God or the Invisible Pink Unicorn, go I”

4

the “poor” here in iceland are not members of any class…they are a cross-class group when you consider education and social rank (which are the “ghost-classes” you find here in iceland). that is what i meant that the “poor” are not members of any class.

theese predudices seem to target people that are not, in the sense, poor…but people that are struggling but still seeking help.

this seems to go against the pride of those who are struggling but refuse to seek help…thus predudice vs. “poor” people are born.

please take note that most of theese “poor” people are not living in the street or anything like that…theese are people that are struggling to have a roof over their head and a meal a day or so.

there are other people here in iceland that are POOR…but they are so few they are just counted as “the exception that proves the rule (that everybody are rich)”.

bj0rn - …

5

Pardon my ignorance but could the reason there is so little poor people in Iceland be because they…, well, …freeze to death?

6

bj0rn, why do you think this is a new phenomena? Prejudice against poverty is as old as the human condition. You would have to provide evidence that, 100 years ago, the wealthier Icelanders didn’t look down their noses at their poorer compatriots in order to argue that this prejudice is just now developing in Iceland.

If there is a phenomenom here at all, it is probably simply that there is a larger class now of the relatively wealthy, so the snobbery is more noticeable.
Sadly, there is one other obvious cause of the phenomenom you are witnessing:

Xenophobia.

Sua