Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Reading response April 9, 2014
After watching the movie When the Mountains Tremble and reading Pathologies of Power ch. 3 I have found the common thread is the with holding education. I believe that education is withheld in poor communities or under developed communities all over the world. I do not believe that it is solely third world countries that do not have education. Western culture is just as guilty for pushing the poor out of the education realm and have made education unobtainable for the not wealthy. Although education may be available in our culture we are held by other things that do not allow us to fully explore our options, some poor and even middle class in western culture do not believe education is an option for them especially college. That is just my opinion and my experience. Just as the boy in the movie is suppressing his own people, we here in America suppress our own people too. Let's look at a homeless man who may be of a color, or even just a white homeless man, we do not help the man get on his feet get an education and get sober, instead we throw him money, yell obscenities and tell him to get a job. police detain them and then release them to the world without giving them the basics and allowing these people to get rehabilitation. Every thing cost money, if you don't have it you can't get help you can't receive education and you can not move out of the 99%. Oppression of people is not specifically limited to third world countries if you look around you. Even now as a college student the debt from going to school will make me have to stay under the lower middle class because of how much I owe the government. It is a vicious cycle my children will have to educe as well.
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Adding Fuel to the Fire
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 5 of Pathologies of Power, Farmer digs deeper into his idea of structural violence, and concludes that denying people of their natural rights to survive is a branch of evil. However, in a system where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, there is no room to give the poor an education or decent health care, because as Sonora stated, “Capital over community and power over people” will always prevail.
Farmer brings up the idea of false charity and how it will never help out the poor in colonial Latin America. The idea makes sense especially when connecting it to the liberal slogan, “Think globally and act locally”. The slogan is a false charity, because even though we are thinking about the unfortunate people in the south, we are not helping. Our actions only help our communities, and the poor of Latin America are disregarded. As Bailey stated in her response, “Everything costs money.” Our global thoughts do not restrict us from consumption, which drives the capital machine into the further oppression of Latin Americans.
Farmer then suggests that we should think locally and act globally. The suggestion ventures far from the liberal slogan, because the idea gets people to think about the people close to them, and then act towards the people that really need the help. Without a change of consciousness, our consumption in a free society contributes to the evils of the world, as well as prevents the poor from their natural rights of knowledge and survival.