Ted Talk by Rutger Bregman

FWS 362

March 30th, 2019

                         Midterm Exam

I will start by saying that the Ted Talk by Rutger Bregman is something that

today’s society can relate to when it comes to poverty. It is really a great talk. He

started with this question, “why do the poor make so many poor decisions?” He also

mentioned that “the poor borrow more, save less, smoke more, exercise less, drink

more and eat less healthfully. Why?”(Bregman, Ted 2017). It is a difficult question to

answer because when you are poor, you make desperate decisions and sometimes you

don’t think about the consequences. Some people say, the poor chooses to be poor and

this can be termed as freewill because they have the power to change their situation

by doing something meaningful with their lives but I don’t agree with that because the

poor are the people who work hard, some even have 2 to 3 jobs but are still poor.

Poverty is not cheap as some people would say.

I do agree with him and he said there is something wrong with the poor and it

is not their fault when they make bad decisions because they have to survive anyhow.

Determinism comes into play here because the choices poor people make are

determined completely by previously existing causes which is the situation they find

themselves and they have to do something to survive. Poverty affects every area of a

person’s life. Scarcity mentality is a term he used in his talk and it refers to the

mindset and continuous set of behaviors a person who has limited options in his/her

life portrays and in this case poverty. It is true that we behave differently when we

know we don’t have enough of something. You try to be careful not to waste it so it

can last long. An example will be the video we watched in which trash was recycled

into musical instruments for the children to play music.

I was born and raised in Africa before I came to the US so I know how it

feels like to live in poverty. My family was not considered to be poor according to the

poverty standard we had in Ghana but if I compare it with the standard here in the US

then it will be different. So geographical location has a lot to do with poverty like we

discussed in class. I do remember a lot of friends whose families were living below

the poverty line. It was very bad. Some couldn’t even afford 2 meals a day and some

of my friends dropped out of school because their parents could not afford to pay for

their education and they had to sell items for people or learn different trades to make

something out of their lives. This can be related to the differential opportunity theory

where people especially young people from poor backgrounds with few opportunities

use any means they can get to achieve success. Those that didn’t have enough food

looked hungry all the time and also could not concentrate in class.

Poverty also has a lot to do with education because without money good

education is not guaranteed. And not to talk about health care which is a whole

different issue because without money, no hospital or clinic will look at you as a

patient when you are ill so most people resorted to natural remedies when they fell

sick like herbs. Even some of the teachers thought these students were stupid and did

nothing to help them. Some of the parents of these children worked 3 jobs and very

hard to provide for their families but still their best were not enough. One of my

friends family had the opportunity to move to the city because the dad got a better job

and in no time they started eating well and her GPA improved greatly. So poverty is

not a lack of knowledge like he mentioned in his talk. She said, when people used to

give her clothes, she never cared for them not because they looked bad but all she

could think of and wanted at that time was food.

The question is how do we get people out of poverty? Somethings need to be

put in place like he stated that a quarter of US military spending can lift impoverished

Americans above the poverty line which I think will be a great idea so that everyone

will live comfortably in the US but I doubt if that will be done in the United State.