Poverty of Thought

Why are people poor?

What does it mean to be poor?

Is being poor a matter of money? Or capital? The means of production?

Is there any doubt that there are poor people?

So why are they poor, while other people who make even less money seem able to live so much better? These other people, call them the proud poor, think that if the poor would just do "something", then everything would be fine with them: They would be happy, or content with their position in life, or pull themselves out of poverty, or at least stop complaining.

Thee are many forms of poverty; one is a poverty of compassion. Such a form of poverty can be diagnosed by the appearance of such phrases as "I don't understand why they don't..." and "I did it, why can't they...." In these phrases there is an inability to put oneself in the position of another, and the inability to understand the world form any perspective other than one's own. This latter deficit suggests the lack of a theory of mind, a condition that might entail that the person cannot percieve or does not believe in the existence of other people's minds independent of their own. Thus, everything is about them, anything that happens is a personal affront or specific grace, they are the center of not only their own, but of the entire universe.

If one cannot make the assumption that other people exist as independent beings

Should Have

Perhaps, somewhere between 27 and 60 Lebanese men, women, and children were killed Israeli fire at Qana. To quote the New York times of July 30, 2006, the Israelis "said that residents had been warned to leave and should have already been gone."

So what does, "should have been gone" mean? Does it mean that they were gone? In which case, why are there dead people there? Perhaps it means that they were not gone? In that case, why was the area bombed? Did the Israelis intend to kill civilians?

In plain everyday language, "should have" is used to assign responsibility. Thus, "you should have come to a full stop at the red light; instead, you continued on through the intersection. You are therefore guilty of having run a red light." Are we saying here, then, that because we "should have" done something, any negative consequences are our fault?

The civilians "should have" left. But aren't those civilians equally justified in saying that the Israeli "should have" verified for themselves that no civilians were in the houses before they bombed them?

The dead should not have died.