Low-Income Culture: The Strengths of the Poor

Abstract

INVARIABLY when the strengths of the are mentioned, an immediate image springs to mind. The image is that of the savage-uninhibited, enjoying nature, unfettered by the responsibilities of middle-class life. People respond to this image in what appear to be two diametrically opposed ways, both of which are harmful to a serious understanding of the meaning and significance of the positive qualities emerging from a struggle with poverty. On the one hand are the romantic supporters of the supposedly impulse-free poor. Their view is typically contaminated by pervasive anti-middle-class sentiments and invidious class comparisons calculated to enhance the qualities of the have-nots. This admiration of the is rooted, not in the struggles of the disadvantaged themselves, but rather in their removal from the disreputable elements of middle-class life-whether these be inhibitions, competitiveness, disloyalty, pretentiousness, boredom, or whatever. Those who oppose this view ridicule the positives of the poor and can see no meaning in the concept other than the noble savage interpretation. Recognizing that the are not uninhibited, do experience serious strains, and want no part of poverty, this view can only hold that an emphasis on the strengths of the is sentimental drivel and naively antimiddle-class.