I've been making the point, on this blog of mine and outside of it, that there's an undeniable connection between poverty and crime. We may not want to accept it, it might feel icky to even discuss it, but this subject is vastly studied.
Understanding Survival
If you've never lived in discomfort, if you've never felt hunger, there's a good chance some of the things I'm going to share won't resonate with you. There was a period of my life, eons ago it seems, when the reality of poverty really kicked in.
I was living in Arizona at the time, my life was chaotic to say the least. Finding myself alone, with no family around me, really did a number on my mental health too. For the first time in my life, with barely 20 turns around the sun, I found myself homeless, without a penny in my pocket.
What can I say? Being homeless shattered my worldview. It realigned how I saw everything around me, how It felt to be alive.
These days I can intellectualize what happened, and forgive myself, if you will, for some of the things I did back then. I can find justifications for all of it, but it doesn't mean they were correct.
I lied to get my first apartment. I reused a cup from the gas station countless times to keep myself hydrated. I would buy 1 hotdog, and put three or five inside my little box. But like I said, I justified every single one of those actions.
Amygdala, hey, What's up?
The fight or flight response, the survival instinct firing in all cylinders. Studies today show that in extreme situations the amygdala take over, suppressing the pre frontal cortex, thus dampening your morality, your reasoning.
You see, the human in peril is just trying to survive, and its with the simple idea in mind, that the brain does what it needs to do. Is it convenient to be moral? Is it convenient to not be?
You see, this "decision" is happening without us even being aware of it. We don't need to decide consciously, to dampen our morality, it will happen if we are pushed to an extreme situation.
Basic physiological needs: food, shelter, safety; form the foundation, and when unmet, they eclipse higher-order concerns like morality or self-actualization.
There's a reason to worry
Everyone should want a society with little to no poverty, even if the reasons for doing so are very different.
I'll grant my personal experience says more about me than anybody else, but there is also data, research you can look up to show you unequivocally who my experience is not unique or special.
As someone who's lived being down and out- The sleeping in a park, the anxiety of worrying about where to get food-- My advocacy for a fair system, for more opportunity, for human emancipation, may come from empathy. But, I submit to you that a truly pragmatic mind can see the evidence, can understand the workings of our brain and conclude that the only way to fix society is to eradicate poverty.
Isn't that a beautiful idea?
MenO
Survival mode really changes everything. People judge from a distance, but when you're starving or homeless, morality takes a backseat man like for real, I don't judge people in such situations.No one should have to live like that. Fix poverty, fix crime. 💪🔥