Sociology and Modern Social ProblemsEllwood, Charles A. (Charles Abram)
General
Sociology and Modern Social Problems
Ellwood, Charles A. (Charles Abram)
Social problems; Sociology
We have enumerated in detail some of the more important objective and
subjective causes of poverty and dependence in order that the student
may see that such causes are very complex, and, as we have already said,
there rarely exists a dependent family in which three or more of these
causes are not found to be active. Certain questions arise from such a
brief presentation as this which we may mention but cannot hope
adequately to deal with. Such, for example, is the question whether the
subjective causes of poverty can all be reduced to objective causes. In
our opinion this cannot be done, because the subjective causes have
their roots in biological and psychological conditions, which cannot be
attributed directly to causes in the environment. No doubt, however,
many of the subjective causes of poverty are characteristics which have
been acquired by individuals from the influence of their environment.
When we attribute a certain per cent of poverty to intemperance, for
example, it is probable that that particular personal defect may be
ascribed almost wholly to the environment. On the other hand, there are
other personal defects, such as sickness, vice, and mental deficiency,
that cannot always with certainty be traced to environmental factors. It
is safest to conclude that while personality is built up largely out of
social influences, society is, on the other hand, also rooted in human
nature, so that both objective and subjective causes combine to produce
practically all social phenomena, and especially the phenomena of
poverty and dependence. It is unscientific, therefore, to disregard
either the subjective or the objective causes of poverty.
Another question which is frequently raised in connection with poverty
or dependence is, whether it is due to misconduct or misfortune. This
question really has not much meaning in it when it is analyzed. As we
have already seen in practically every case of poverty, personal defects
and bad environment combine. Only a few of these personal defects,
however, can by any proper use of language be regarded as misconduct.
The great mass of poverty, therefore, seems attributable to misfortune
rather than to misconduct,--using these words in their popular sense.
But such a conclusion as this necessarily rests upon a somewhat
superficial examination of the causes of distress which does not enter
into the remote springs of personal character and development. On the
whole, it seems unwise to attempt to divide the poor into the "worthy"
and "unworthy" poor, as has often been done, for no one can say who is
the worthy and who is the unworthy in a moral sense. The only sense in
which these words may be used scientifically in charitable work is to
mean "needy" and "not needy."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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