Modern Liberal Condescension

by Tibor R. Machan

An interesting element of modern liberalism is that all of the poor are deemed to be innocent.  “The poor” is a term used by such folks to mean “those who are the unfortunate, helpless, innocent victims of bad things in the world and were left without enough resources to fend for themselves.”

Now some of this is true­-in many of the world’s countries the poor are largely poor because others have the legal power to keep them so, to take from them their earnings or property and prevent them from ever rising above a state of bare subsistence.  These countries are mainly dictatorships or one party states or, elsewhere, fiefdoms or feudal systems.  Even there, however, some of the poor are poor not because they are kept such but because they make no effort to prosper.  Some don’t make this effort out of religious or philosophical convictions, others because they are unwilling or, yes, lazy.

This is especially so in countries not plagued with and inherent, static socio-economic class system.  In economically mobile, relatively free societies, the poor are often guilty of failing to take steps to prosper.  They marry too early and have too many kids and thus arrest their own development and, also, those of their children.  They stick with bad jobs because they have gotten themselves into debt too early.  They do not take time to get educated because they are in the hurry to have fun.  They destroy their health with bad habits.  And so forth­-there can be several dozen reasons, apart from what the modern liberal believes about them all, namely, that they are innocent victims or circumstances or just kept down by the rich.

Now why could it not be true that all of the poor are just unlucky?  Well, it could be, but not from the point of view of the modern liberal.  You see, the modern liberal isn’t consistent and excuse everyone’s bad lot.  

If you do not agree with the modern liberal, if you do not vote the way of such a person, you will be blamed good and hard.  In other words, the modern liberal considers everyone else but the poor to be fully morally responsible to act as the modern liberal thinks we all ought to act.  If you do not, you are guilty­-it is only the poor who are fully exculpated.

Well, that is an insult to the dignity of poor people-­it treats them as less than human, akin to a dumb beast that’s unable to take responsibility for its decisions and actions.  Only the well off are deserving of being held responsible for how they conduct themselves, especially for failing to, you guessed it, help the poor.  Or, more accurately, for failing to give power to the government­-mostly staffed with modern liberals­-to take care of the poor (or at least feign doing so).

Why is it that modern liberals get away with this?  There is a wonderful passage in Herbert Spencer’s famous book, Man Against the State, that gives at least one plausible explanation­-aside from the more obvious one that those who want political power see in the poor an excuse to trample on other people’s liberty.  Spencer says this:  Sympathy with one in suffering suppresses, for the time being, remembrance of his transgressions . . . . Those whose hardships are set forth in pamphlets and proclamations in sermons and speeches which echo throughout society, are assumed to be all worthy souls, grievously wronged; and none of them are thought of as bearing the penalties of their own misdeeds. (p.22)  This is akin to coming upon an accident and seeing people injured­-one doesn’t at that moment consider, “Well may be these people drove irresponsibly, recklessly, and here is their comeuppance.”  No, one gets down to business and provides the help needed, leaving the matter of assessing blame to another time.  Most folks are good-willed enough not to be judgmental at a time when immediate assistance in required.

But when this attitude is taken away from the situation of an immediate emergency and transferred to public policy decision making, it is not only extremely costly but very insulting, condescending toward--as well as clearly counterproductive for--those who may very well have brought about their own poverty and related demise.  Others, too, such as drug addicts, alcoholics are routinely treated with this kind of lack of respect, as if they were helpless victims of some kind of virus that got into their system and had no power of self-control that they could but often do not exercise.  Sure, once one has indulged at length one may have set oneself on a course of self-destruction from which it is very tough to turn back.  The same with poverty ­ once one has gone into debt, recovering is very difficult.  But not impossible!

If one denies this, one then has to accept that none of us really has any control over how we carry on.  It is always “The devil made me do it,” “It’s in my genes,” “My parents treated me badly,” “My teachers made me behave this way,” and so forth, including for all of those who refuse to grant the demands of the modern liberal to be more altruistic toward the poor and other helpless folks.  If they are all helpless, well, then so are those who aren’t moved by this; but if the latter aren’t helpless and are responsible to be generous and kind, then neither are the former and it’s insulting to treat them as if they were.

It is better not to abuse the idea of helplessness­-it can backfire very quickly.    

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