Re:Why do people believe true things?
by TheOtherHobbes on Saturday August 17, 2024 @08:53PM
(#41279292)
No, it isn't, because for most of pre-history poverty didn't exist as a concept.
It barely existed as a concept in early history.
Poverty in this culture isn't just defined as a lack, but as an unjust experience of relative lack.
And it's loaded with unspoken value judgements - like the common belief that people in poverty shouldn't have an expensive phone, because that's somehow unfair on everyone else.
Why this idea of poverty exists as a concept now, when previously it didn't, is a much more interesting question - and one this piece gets nowhere near addressing, never mind answering.
So this is a very superficial article. You can't ask why people believe true things if you're just going to assume - as the author says no one should, and then does himself - that everyone somehow magically agrees about which truths should be questioned.
It barely existed as a concept in early history.
Poverty in this culture isn't just defined as a lack, but as an unjust experience of relative lack.
And it's loaded with unspoken value judgements - like the common belief that people in poverty shouldn't have an expensive phone, because that's somehow unfair on everyone else.
Why this idea of poverty exists as a concept now, when previously it didn't, is a much more interesting question - and one this piece gets nowhere near addressing, never mind answering.
So this is a very superficial article. You can't ask why people believe true things if you're just going to assume - as the author says no one should, and then does himself - that everyone somehow magically agrees about which truths should be questioned.