Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T21:59:09.800Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Culture of Poverty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2009

Bernard Boxill
Bernard Boxill
Affiliation:
Philosophy, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A society is culturally plural when it contains a variety of cultural groups. A common view is that just societies are likely to be culturally plural. This view assumes that human beings have rights to remain in the cultures in which they were born, or even to adopt whatever culture they choose. It is also widely believed that cultural pluralism tends to have good consequences. For example, many people suppose that the variety of cultures in a culturally plural society adds savor and interest to the lives of its inhabitants. This view evidently assumes that culture is a consumer good. Another view that cultural pluralism tends to have good consequences rests on the premise that each culture has claims to moral knowledge.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , Winter 1994 , pp. 249 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 I first came across this idea in Du Bois, W. E. B., “The Conservation of Races,” in The Seventh Son: The Thought and Writing of W. E. B. Du Bois, vol. 1, ed. Lester, Julius (New York: Vintage Books, 1971), pp. 176–87Google Scholar. Apparently the idea has a long history. See the discussion in Berlin, Isaiah, The Crooked Timber of Humanity (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), pp. 8–12.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 12.

3 Lewis, Oscar, Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty (New York: Basic Books, 1959).Google Scholar

4 See Wilson, William Julius, The Truly Disadvantaged (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).Google Scholar

5 See Jencks, Christopher, Rethinking Social Policy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), ch. 4Google Scholar; Mead, Lawrence M., The New Politics of Poverty (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992), ch. 7Google Scholar; Sowell, Thomas, Ethnic America (New York: Basic Books, 1981), ch. 8Google Scholar; Loury, Glenn C., “The Moral Quandary of the Black Community,” The Public Interest, vol. 79 (Spring 1985), pp. 11–26Google Scholar; and Lemann, Nicholas, “The Origins of the Underclass,” The Atlantic, part 1, 06 1986, pp. 31–55, part 2, July 1986, pp. 54–68.Google Scholar

6 For the right, see, for example, Mead, , The New Politics of PovertyGoogle Scholar, or Kaus, Mickey, “The Work Ethic State,” The New Republic, 07 1986.Google Scholar

7 Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), Book 4, ch. 20, section 2, p. 707Google Scholar. See also his comment that “where the hand is used to the plough and the spade, the head is seldom elevated to sublime notions…,” in Locke, , The Reasonableness of Christianity (Washington, DC: Regency Gateway, 1965), p. 193Google Scholar

8 Davis, Allison, Social Class Influence upon Learning (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

9 Miller, Walter B., “Focal Concerns of Lower-Class Culture,” in Ferman, Louis A. et al. , Poverty in America (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1970), pp. 396, 405.Google Scholar

10 Harrington, Michael, The Other America (New York: MacMillan Press, 1962).Google Scholar

11 Moynihan, Daniel P., The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor, 1965)Google Scholar; reprinted in The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy, ed. Rainwater, Lee and Yancy, William L. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1967).Google Scholar

12 Rainwater, and Yancy, , eds., Moynihan Report, p. 43.Google Scholar

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid., p. 76.

15 Ibid., p. 93.

16 Frazier, E. Franklin, The Negro Family in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939)Google Scholar, The Black Bourgeoisie (New York: Collier Books, 1962)Google Scholar, and The Negro in the United States (Toronto: The Macmillan Company, 1957).Google Scholar

17 Frazier, , Black Bourgeoisie, p. 10.Google Scholar

18 Moynihan, Daniel P., “The President and the Negro: The Moment Lost,” Commentary, vol. 43 (1967), p. 35.Google Scholar

19 Lewis, Oscar, La Vida (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), p. li.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., p. xliii.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid., p. xlviii.

23 Ibid., pp. xlviii, xlix.

24 Ibid., p. li.

25 Ibid., p. xliv.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid., p. xliii.

28 Ibid., pp. xlv, xlvi.

29 Ibid., p. xlvii.

30 Ibid., p. xlviii.

31 Ibid., p. xlv.

32 Ibid., p. xlvii.

33 Ibid., p. clviii.

34 Ibid., p. xlv.

35 Ibid., p. li.

36 Ibid., p. lii.

37 Ibid., p.xlv.

38 Ibid., p. lii. To be at all reasonable, I expect that Lewis means “social work” rather than “psychiatric treatment.”

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid., p. xlix.

41 Ibid., p. lii.

42 Ibid., p. xliii.

43 Ibid., p. lii.

44 Ibid., p. li.

45 Ibid., p. lii.

46 Gans, Herbert, The Urban Villagers (New York: The Free Press, 1982), p. 284.Google Scholar

47 Gutman, Herbert, “Labor History and the ‘Sartre Question’,” in Gutman, Herbert, Power and Culture (New York: The New Press, 1987), p. 326.Google Scholar

48 Ellison, Ralph, “An American Dilemma: A Review,” in Ellison, Ralph, Shadow and Act (London: Seeker and Warburg, 1967), pp. 303–17.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., p. 316.

50 Ibid., pp. 315, 316.

51 Ibid., p. 316; emphasis in original.

52 Hannerz, Ulf, Soulside (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 183.Google Scholar

53 Lewis, , La Vida, p. xlvi.Google Scholar

54 Ibid.

55 Hannerz, , Soulside, p. 185.Google Scholar

56 Ibid.

57 See for example, Gans, Herbert, “Culture and Class in the Study of Poverty,” in On Understanding Poverty, ed. Moynihan, Daniel P. (New York: Basic Books, 1968), p. 208.Google Scholar

58 Ibid.

59 Lewis, , La Vida, p. xlivGoogle Scholar. This suggests that Lewis's culture of poverty is different from the “slum” or “lower-class” concept of Davis and Miller, ; supra nn. 8 and 9.Google Scholar

60 Rainwater, Lee, “The Lower-Class Culture and Poverty-War Strategy,” in On Understanding Poverty, p. 242.Google Scholar

61 Cans, , The Urban Villagers, pp. 284, 285.Google Scholar

62 It may be said that they have rejected the mainstream institution of working or trying to find work. But this suggests a more deliberate response to the dearth of employment opportunities than need be the case.

63 Elster, Jon, Sour Grapes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64 Stack, Carol, All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community (New York: Harper and Row, 1974).Google Scholar

65 Hayek, F. A., “Kinds of Order in Society,” The New Individualist Review, vol. 3 (1964), p. 5Google Scholar. See also “Notes on the Evolution of Systems of Rules of Conduct,” and “The Results of Human Action but not of Human Design,” both in Hayek, F. A., Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967).Google Scholar

66 Hayek, , “Kinds of Order in Society,” p. 4.Google Scholar

67 Hayek, , “Notes on the Evolution of Systems of Rules of Conduct,” p. 66.Google Scholar

68 Ibid., p. 67.

69 Hayek, F. A., Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 1, Rules and Order (London: Routledge and Kcgan Paul, 1973), pp. 45, 46.Google Scholar

70 Hayek, , “Kinds of Order in Society,” p. 8.Google Scholar

71 Hayek, F. A., Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 3, The Political Order of a Free People (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

72 Ibid., p. 154.

73 Hayek, F. A., The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 59.Google Scholar

74 Ibid., p. 161.

75 Hayek, , Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 3, p. 155.Google Scholar

76 Ibid., p. 204.

77 Ibid., pp. 204, 205.

78 See Plato, , Republic, trans. Grube, G. M. A., rev. Reeve, C. D. C. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992), Book IX, 592B.Google Scholar

79 Ibid., 501A.

80 Hayek says that his idea that we can “tinker” with tradition is the same as Popper's idea of piecemeal social engineering (Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 3, p. 204n. 50)Google Scholar. This seems unlikely, although this is not the place to discuss the point at length. According to Popper, the piecemeal engineer will “adopt the method of searching for, and fighting against, the greatest and most urgent evils of society, rather than searching for, and fighting for, its greatest ultimate good” (Popper, Karl, The Open Society and Its Enemies [New York: Harper and Row, 1965], vol. 1, p. 158)Google Scholar. This does not sound like “tinkering” with tradition. See ibid., p. 285n. 4, for Popper's cautious discussion of the similarity of his views to Hayek's views on this point.

81 See, for example, ch. 7, “The Legislator,” in Book II of Rousseau, Jean Jacques, The Social ContractGoogle Scholar. In an earlier version of this essay, I had associated Rousseau's views with Plato's. I now believe that this was a serious error. Although Rousseau was, of course, strongly influenced by Plato, he did not share Plato's dismissive attitude toward the culture a people happens to have. He made it clear that the legislator must respect and draw on that culture. See, for example, The Social Contract, Book II, ch. 9.

82 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, On the Social Contract with Geneva Manuscript and Political Economy, ed. Masters, Roger D., trans. Masters, Judith R. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978), p. 69.Google Scholar

83 Stack, , All Our Kin (supra n. 64), p. 113.Google Scholar

84 The most famous argument for this claim is in Murray, Charles, Losing Ground (New York: Basic Books, 1984), p. 157.Google Scholar

85 Gill, Richard T., “For the Sake of the Children,” The Public Interest, no. 108 (Summer 1992), p. 81Google Scholar. Apparently this is somewhat controversial, at least with respect to the emotional and social development of children. See, for example, Jencks, , Rethinking Social Policy (supra n. 5), p. 130.Google Scholar

86 See, for example, Jencks, , Rethinking Social Policy, pp. 130, 131.Google Scholar

87 Ibid., p. 135.

88 Ibid., p. 134. For further examples of this phenomenon, see West, Cornel, Race Matters (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), p. 56.Google Scholar

89 See, for example, Keil, Charles, Urban Blues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968)Google Scholar, and the discussion in Valentine, Charles, Culture and Poverty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 84–87 and 123–25.Google Scholar

90 Ellison, Ralph, “No Apologies,” Harper's Magazine, 07 1967, pp. 8–20.Google Scholar

91 Ellison, Ralph, “The World and the Jug,” in his Shadow and Act (supra n. 48), p. 119.Google Scholar

92 Ibid., p. 120.

93 Lewis, , La Vida (supra n. 19), p. xlviii.Google Scholar

94 Elster, , Sour Grapes (supra n. 63), pp. 115, 145.Google Scholar

95 See the variety of definitions in Kroeber, A. L. and Kluckholm, Clyde, Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1952).Google Scholar

96 Rodman, Hyman, “The Lower-Class Value Stretch,” Social Forces, 12 1963, p. 209.Google Scholar

97 Ibid.

98 Festinger, Leon, A Theory of Dissonance (Evanston: Row, Peterson and Co., 1956), pp. 3–7.Google Scholar