In this video, a british non-profit conducts a highly controversial social experiment. This video illuminates the gap between defending the poor and taking action in support of them. My questions for you are as follows:
1. What caused the hypocrisy in society's willingness to defend the poor from verbal persecution as they do nothing but further the problem by ignoring those asking them to help?
2. How do we negotiate this dissonance in ideals instead of propagating it?
3. Do you see any bias in the study or inaccuracies in the way society was portrayed? If so, how would you conduct this study/observation differently?
I think the main cause of the hypocrisy is that there is a level of direct help that people don't want to cross. In this sense, I believe that there is two categories of helping in this scenario: direct and indirect help. People are more willing to indirectly help the poor, as seen in the video of people fighting verbal abuse, because it is a quick way for people to feel like they did something morally good. However when it comes to contributing to the cause, I believe, there is some hesitation because there's more of a commitment people have to make to give monetarily to a cause. In this sense, they are going to feel the affect, even if it is a little bit, later on if they give their money away, so people are going to be more careful.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the ideal scenario would be for people to unselfishly and willingly give to a foundation; however, it is culturally built into our system that we should keep our earned income to ourselves or in our immediate family. For us to move towards a more giving society, we need to reevaluate how we look at our own financial priorities because people are going to be more concerned with shelling our $300-$500 for a new Apple Watch for their own self-image than donate $1 for the nation's self-image.
I think there is some bias when society is portrayed in these videos. In the last few seconds, they didn't show the people who actually gave to helping homeless people, which could distort the message the video-makers are trying to present; in my opinion, it is not about getting people to donate, it is about getting people to donate more, which takes time. I feel that a way we can improve this message is redoing the shock value when presenting the need for homeless people. The shock value of seeing someone having a sign that says "Fuck Poor People" is going to attract more attention than one that says "Help Poor People" because it's something that society is not use too and the former sign gives off a more emotional impact than the latter. I feel that having a sign that says "200 people are dying everyday on these very streets due to homelessness" would give off a greater emotional impact, which could lead to people willingly part ways to loose change that they don't care for or people actually giving more than expected. The presentation of the message, I feel, is one of the most important aspects of getting a point across and getting a response back from the people.
I think the hypocrisy stems from the conflicting views that people hold, from what people are told and from what they know. People acknowledge the realities and obstacles that the poor face that they will care enough to defend them. There are also the connotations of the poor that hold them back from doing anything more than defending them. For example, living near NYC, children are told not to give money to the poor while walking through the city because they will use it to buy drugs and alcohol. I think that people would rather donate to a charity than on the street as in the video.
ReplyDeleteI think there is a slight bias due to the strength of word choice in the signs. Like Aaron said, "Fuck the poor" has a shock value. You dont expect to see it. It carries more weight and has more emotion than just "Help the poor."The two signs are not equal opposites.
1. Regarding why people are willing to defend the poor, but not to donate to the poor I would argue it is simply moral reasoning and an answer of numbers. For one, people know they had the moral backing of almost everyone when they challenged the fuck the poor ideology. On the contrary, the vast majority of people don't hold the same moral obligation to donating to every cause in need (this case the poor) and thus, many will walk by, and because others walk away they will think nothing of it.
ReplyDelete2. Rather than propagate the idea that many people don't want to donate to the poor it should e noted that many people donate to multiple organizations that advertise on the street. It must be realized that in a scenario such as this people are just more likely to be involved with the "fuck" campaign as it is a unique opportunity that no one has seen where as everyone has seen a change collection before. Therefore I would argue that there is not disconnect between the two as people wish to both defend and donate, however the uniqueness of one scenario simply highlights the fact and creates a perceived difference.
3. The is a fundamental flaw in the way the study is done as one aspect is built to garner results while also holding the element of surprise. The shock value that comes with seeing "fuck the poor" is bound to skew the results of a test as more people are more likely to take notice of such a harsh sign. Along with this, one is testing monetary contribution while one is testing verbal defense. Overall though the video is done in a way that gets the viewer interested, however it is tough to claim that based off the video most people don't wish to donate to the poor.
I think that in general in this society, people have the attitude that there must be sympathy on some superficial level for the poor, but there is a huge lack of action in this specific regard. As we see in the video, people did not want to donate simply because there is a preeminent attitude of not wanting to help, feeling scared and unsure of where donations may end up.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a perfect illustration of the "bare minimum" mindset that many people approach social justice issues with. There is a set standard, where it is considered taboo to publicly deride the poor or homeless. However, most people do not care about bettering the social situation of the underprivileged; they believe it is enough to not participate in their ridicule.
ReplyDeleteSo it is a lot easier for people to conceptualize a a problem and retaliate against its slurring than it is for people to conceptualize a long term solution. A similar problem which parallels the above example involves sustainability. For example, if someone walked around in a slaughtered pig suit and said Fuck Pigs, people would react harshly and negatively. The identification of a problem, cruelty toward animals, is obviously bad and people identify easily with this idea. But put the same person on the street with a petition to stop industrial animal agriculture and very few people would stop. It is harder to visualize the steps needed to stop the atrocities committed to animals so people are passive on taking actions. It kind of goes along with the old saying if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it really fall? If you sign that petition and nothing happens immediately, did you really do anything?
ReplyDeleteI think this video demonstrates a very important trait of western society which is that while we are able to recognize a problem, we are much more complacent when it comes to actually working to solve it. In many cases while people are willing to stand up for one another when we witness outright, direct, discrimination those same individuals are unwilling to take that next step towards actually helping. With that said I think if this is truly problem we want to solve, we first need to bring awareness to the problem so that people recognize how strong the need is. On top of that we have to remove the stigma that is associated with homelessness. Overall I enjoyed the video, the one thing I found problematic is that in the first scenario there is a very clear extreme being portrayed while the second scenario is much more common. Thus making them unequivocally different.
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