Addictive pain-killers killed 64,000 residents in the U.S.
in 2016, in part because physicians tended to rely on patients’ self-determined
ratings of pain on a scale of 1 to 10.[1]
Such subjective ratings were of course vulnerable to self-seeking motives
willfully negligent or even reckless in terms of health. A habit or marked
tendency in favor of choices at the expense of a person’s own long-term well-being stems, I submit,
from weak impulse-control. This factor can explain a lot about why poverty exists and goes on.
Poverty, it has been said, is the cruelest form of war, for
such war can go on and on and wreck subtle though tremendous damage on the
afflicted. Yet the mentality that can get a person into such a war and
associated bad choices can be easily overlooked by elites that deign to study
the problem of poverty.
Attempting to explain escalating rates of suicide,
overdoses, and alcoholism among uneducated Americans, Angus Deaton and Anne
Case, who spoke at the CEO Council sponsored by The Wall Street Journal in November, 2017, pointed to the diminishing number of jobs “with a ladder up, with
on-the-job training, with benefits.”[2]
With less incentive to focus on doing well at work and less opportunity to get
involved in a union, a person can easily feel despondent, especially given the
breakdown of the nuclear and extended family and the decline of mainline
Christianity. Drugs, including nicotine and alcohol, and ultimately even
suicide, can remove the resulting sense of nihilism.
The job/family/religion explanation strikes me as overly
formalistic, even external, however. For example, the rise of individualistic evangelical Christianity,
which Deaton and Case claimed does not allow for a sense of community because of the theological emphasis on an individual's relationship with Jesus, can nonetheless provide social opportunities for people. A visit to any
megachurch can demonstrate that “extra-curricular activities” go on in spite of the individualistic theological bent. Megachurches typically have coffee shops and fitness rooms, and even put on plays (e.g., at Easter).
Similarly, not being able to get involved in a union does not exhaust the things a person can do with others in a group; political activism, for example, is open to workers outside of the work context (e.g., working on a political campaign).
I also take issue with the claim that uneducated workers do drugs because a
promotion into management is no longer as easy as it may have been in the past. The work ethic is not predicated on advancement; rather, hard work itself is valued as a virtue. To be sure, the technologically and off-shore based relative loss of manufacturing jobs and the lack of satisfaction from working in a fast-food restaurant, for instance, have made it more difficult for uneducated people to find fulfilling jobs or jobs at all. Faced with loads of empty time--rather than trying to start an enterprise (e.g., a site online) or volunteer--drugs and alcohol are easy apparent fixes, or fillers. Yet the decision to have empty time is a course of least resistance rather than a fait accompli. The willingness to be lazy is itself significant, for it gets us closer to the underlying problem, which is internal.
I submit that drug use, including alcohol and nicotine, does not stem from having lots of time from being unemployed. Rather, people who succumb to drug addition can be said to have weak impulse control; they do not have or use the strength of will to resist the urge to take another hit, or to try some drug in the first place. I've never tried heroine or cocaine even just to see what they are like because I know they are highly addictive so I have resisted offers to try them. So I'm surprised when I hear people who use those drugs treat them so casually, so conveniently, without any hint of impulse control.
The lack of a college education is a contributing factor, for a surprising phenomenon of ignorance is its presumption to not being able to be wrong with respect to itself. So presuming to know all about heroine or cocaine and being able to manage them as if a physician fits with being uneducated. In college, students think through critiques of theories rather than taking them at face value; the professors model this. Being accustomed to critiquing other people's theories can get a person in the thought-habit of critiquing even one's own, even implicit, theories. In contrast, the assumption of ignorance that it must be right goes unchallenged by the uneducated. Interestingly, the difference is not just cognitive, for attitude is impacted by whether or not a person turns reason on oneself. The arrogance of ignorance contrasts with the humility that is ideally in putting one's own assumptions and beliefs about oneself and the world under the proverbial knife. Such an orientation necessitates the use of impulse-control, which in turn implies valuing it rather than conveniently assuming that it is not worthwhile.
I submit that the “Two Americas” are separated by two
trajectories of habitual thinking and values that stem from whether or not a
person values and has good impulse-control. People who value such control loathe being around people who don't. Put another way, evading impulse-control is acceptable in some quarters while looked down on in others. The two respective cultures are each self-reinforcing, and social distance between those cultures naturally widens and is not just a matter of being educated or not. Unfortunately, I have been exposed to three "ghetto" apartment complexes, complete with "ghetto property-managements" whose mentality goes beyond garden-variety incompetence to reflect the lack of impulse-control evinced by many of the residents with respect to each other (e.g., being inconsiderate with noise late at night, and having a tendency to lie--failing to resist to impulse to take the easy out).
Speaking once with a
security guard whose company covered one such “ghetto complex” in addition to other, “non-ghetto”
complexes, I was struck by how he distinguished the “ghetto” residents. “They think
they live in houses, playing their music as if people are not on the other side of the wall. We don't have this problem at the other complexes we handle. The people in that area of town are not so inconsiderate.” I could see why uneducated poor people live together and other people avoid them; the difference is not merely monetary. People who resist the urge to play music or movies loud at night so not to disturb neighbors also resist the urge to lie when doing so would get them off the hook. In apartment complexes populated by poor, uneducated people, the mentality is exactly the opposite, and such a sordid mentality based in a convenient refusal to engage in impulse-control (for selfish reasons) is anathema to other people, who thus keep their distance and even perhaps urge public policy that hurts the poor. Regardless of how sordid the attitude is, I contend that poor people's human rights to sustenance should be respected and protected. This is particularly so because of how intractable the attitude truly is. A person who is used to dismissing impulse-control (i.e., not valuing it) is not likely to go down the other track, unless the motive comes from sustained suffering.
In terms of not being employable, the lack of a college education again does not tell the whole story. A low-level employee interacting regularly with customers gets heat from a manager if the attitude is, "I can't be wrong about X." Lying about the customer is also not acceptable. Impulse control is vital to virtually any vocation.
A day after Thanksgiving in 2017, I faced a middle-aged cashier who insisted that people could refuse to recognize that it was Thanksgiving and instead validly select another holiday to celebrate that day, including Christmas and even July 4th. I countered that Thanksgiving and the other two holidays are set by the U.S. Government, and so are on determined days. She dismissed this out of hand, which was insulting, and repeated, "It can be any holiday you select." She refused to resist her impulse that she must be right even though she was wrong. "No, yesterday was Thanksgiving and this is Thanksgiving weekend--not another holiday," I insisted, but she rigidly held on to her ignorance as if it could be right. Rather than use self-discipline even to consider that she may have been wrong, she failed to resist the impulse of the presumption of being right and being dismissive.
I submit that a culture exists in the poor America that involves not only a difference in wealth and even education-level, but and most crucially in the attitude toward and practice of impulse-control. That is, being inconsiderate, lying, and feeling entitled in being infallible about what a person thinks one knows can become salient norms where enough uneducated poor live. The attitude thinks it receives confirmation because other people in a similar way also have it. The poor are very susceptible
to being rude, lying, and using drugs because of ill-used or perhaps impaired impulse-control. Viewing such restraint as of nugatory value, it is easy to be inconsiderate, rude, even highly aggressive (given the overblown or even imagined slights or provocations).
Biking in poor areas near universities, I have noticed the extreme “road-rage” that is distinct among poor drivers. Today in fact, I witnessed one driver get out of his car to shout at the driver in front of him at a red light. The aggressor showed absolutely no impulse-control; his emotions were out of control. Similarly, I've seen poor drivers much, much more than other drivers lose complete control of themselves emotionally and because apparently I had no right to bike on the side of the roads along the curbs! The sheer aggressiveness, outstripping any rational basis in the context itself, has both amazed me and formed in my mind an image of the typical poor driver. My reaction in observing such drivers has been that such people must surely live in a very different world. I couldn't imagine anyone with such pathetic impulse control being in college or holding a job. Clearly, another America exists, with its own mores and values that retain the inhabitants from entering (and being accepted in!) polite society. Being in the habit of evading impulse-control is so different than valuing such internal control that “Two Americas” can be so explained. Both in terms of wealth and, if the stats on drug and alcohol abuse are correct, impulse-control, the America that is expanding is not the one that should be.
If I am correct in my analysis here, simply providing more and better jobs,
creating labor unions and other ways for poor people to “get involved” or be in a group only touch the surface, and thus cannot get the job done in eliminating poverty. Even if "ghetto" apartment complexes are "broken up," with the very poor being disbursed such that they cannot form a culture of least resistance, the internal attitude with respect to impulse-control is surely very difficult to change. So study of precisely how such a feat may be accomplished is needed.
[1]
Gregory Korte, “U.S. Waging Tech War against Opioid Epidemic,”
USA Today, November 24-26, 2017.
[2]
Janet Adamy, “’Two Americas,’ Updated,”
The
Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2017.
