Would you agree that, "Nothing destroys the spirit like poverty"?

Question

If not... Why?

Answer 1

only if poverty can be seen next to wealth..

if you go to a third world nation... you will see alot of very happy poor people.. but because everybody else is poor it has nothing to compare itself to.. and the people are often happy..

however when you go to a place where people live in povetry surrounded by people living in wealth.. then its different.. and the dispair begins to show..

Answer 2

From my experience in poverty that resulted twenty years ago in a permanent disability with Federal disability income, several things do die, touched upon in your other answers. But spirit doesn't die, at least in my case, no.

Former associates from former careers don't know what to say, so what you considered friendships do dissolve, and you understand that. Lunches together, shopping, seeing movies, become impossible.

New friendships form among those similarly situated. Like in your former career, you choose friends for the same reasons. Those who defy circumstance and use energy for further learning, development, enhancement and time spent in what you're passionate about.

The only thing that destroys the spirit is death. What's destroyed by prolonged hardship isn't the spirit, it's the absence of it to begin with. If you survive in poverty, you survive. Using what's available is what we all do anyway. You can still leave work behind that enhances someone else. You can still show love. You can still help others.

This computer was a gift.

Answer 3

No. Nothing destroys the spirit like a feeling of powerlessness.
Some Eastern religions believe that poverty raises the spirit.

Answer 4

I've been poor by American standards, but not the bone-crushing poverty that afflicts so much of the world. My parents used to sleep on the porch in the summer because there wasn't enough room in the house for them. In the winter they slept on the sofa. My sisters and I shared a single bedroom, and my brother and uncle had the other.

But we didn't feel poor. We had access to books, to public education, and to a wide and loving extended family. We lived on a farm and had food.

I agree that poverty of the body crushes the spirit, but I think poverty of the mind is worse. I know relatively rich children with broken spirits. I'd have to say that ignorance is more damaging in the long run.

Answer 5

No, I don't agree because I've had my spirit destroyed. Divorce, a child in the emergency room. I could name several others. Poverty sure sucks but that seems to have more of an opportunity to heal, more so than your 'husband' coming home from work one day and asking for a divorce. That shattered my spirit. Mind you I have it now but it was gone.

Answer 6

I don't believe that it is poverty itself that destroys the spirit but the lack of control that is often associated with poverty. It is watching your children go hungry or not receiving the benefit of an education or proper clothes. It is also lack of control in choices such as the jobs that poorer people must take. It is not having access to equal justice or medical care. Yes, over time this can break a spirit.

Answer 7

Poverty leads to time and energy expended on ensuring the necessities of life are present. Lack of these necessities is a matter of survival and the spirit is subdued, eventually destroyed over time.

Even if the poverty is not at a point where it's crushing, it diminishes the time available to focus on non-tangible aspects of your existence. Education, spirit, thought even is considered meaning less and not indulged in.

Eventually this suppression of spirit leads to a revolution. That why you find that extremist religious views tend to proposer in poor nations. It's a counter reaction to the crushed spiritual part of the nations life.

If you expand the definition of poverty to include non-material things like poverty in having a social network and friends. poverty as in lack of time and energy, poverty as in deprivation of access to and acceptance by society. Then yes, I fully agree with the statement.

Answer 8

I have a qualified agreement. Much depends on the definitions. I have my own definition of poverty.

There will always be differences in income, and those with more money will find open doors not available to ordinary people. That said, there are opportunities available to ordinary people, but to take advantage of those opportunities requires money, or social capital, in some form. To me, the poor are those with too little material resources to take advantage of opportunities available to ordinary people, or even to act as ordinary people do.

We all need others as friends, as business associates, in many capacities. This is not merely as convenience, but as a human need. Others make judgments, partly because friendship takes time and effort to sustain, and the low-in-money cannot sustain those bonds. Some of the poor stop trying after certain point, and then is when despair sets residence.

Poverty destroys because it is invisible. A sane person tries to be self-sufficient, even with limited resources. Merely low-in-money is not a problem. Not having money is also not having access to a way out of poverty. Some people resort to crime, some kill themselves, others merely suffer in silence.

With all that said, poverty by itself does not destroy the spirit, but may set conditions where ordinary events do damage. Some people are lucky, and find conditions and friendships they can sustain, some people do not.

Answer 9

Spiritual poverty is not caused by economic poverty.

Answer 10

No. I have seen many many poor people that do not have destroyed spirits.