A Poverty of Empathy: The GOP’s social welfare philosophy dates back to 1818

[marmar]

from In These Times:



A Poverty of Empathy
The GOP’s social welfare philosophy dates back to 1818.

BY Maggie Garb


In 1818, the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, New York’s first anti-poverty organization, issued a report advocating the need to relieve “the community from the pecuniary exactions, the multiplied exactions, and threatening dangers” associated with paupers.

These middle-class worthies were alarmed at the cost of heating the almshouse in winter, the appearance of women and children scavenging for coal and food scraps along city streets, and the able-bodied men left idle by a serious economic downturn. The report listed the causes of urban poverty: intemperance in drinking, idleness, “want of economy,” gambling, pawnbrokers and “imprudent and hasty marriages.”

Nowhere in the 20-page document did the authors mention the twin burdens of urban laboring people: low wages and few jobs. Instead, the report framed poverty as a moral failure, arguing that the “habits and vices” of the poor need to be remade. The Society later suggested installing a running wheel in the poor house—a massive machine combining the grueling monotony of a hamster wheel and a Stairmaster—to train the poor in the discipline of work.

The Society’s report brings to mind Mitt Romney’s comment about the 47 percent: “My job is not to worry about those people—I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/14034/a_poverty_of_empathy

[Kalidurga]

1. Well if you consider this it might start to make a little sense.

http://reinep.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/proof-religious-people-are-less-empathic-than-atheists/

There are a lot more religious people in the Republican party. I don't know that this was the case in 1818, or not. But, it does seem to me it was the religious people of the day that pushed the meme that poor people were lazy, prone to drink, prone to marry too soon (whatever, that means), have too many children, and a host of other habits that many rich people had, but didn't put them in the poor house.

I can't account for the Religious Left's generosity though. Except that it seems religion on the Left seems to be very spiritual and philosophical. It doesn't seem to be based on punishment, but more on forgiveness. But, I am saying this as a person that is observing from the outside, way outside. But, without fail every religious liberal I have met talks about love and forgiveness.

[We People]

5. A glimpse the progressive Christianity that shapes Obama's thinking...

“This is the first time we’re hearing the Social Gospel from the perspective of the black church from the Oval Office. It makes it warmer, more emotive, more communal," Bass says. "There is less fear of linking the Social Gospel with the stories of the Bible, especially the stories of Exodus and Jesus’ healings.”

The emphasis on community uplift - not individual attainment - may strike some Americans as socialist. But the emphasis on community is part of King’s “Beloved Community,” Bass says.

King once wrote that all people are caught up in an “inescapable network of mutuality… I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be you ought to be.”

“When I listen to Obama, I don’t hear communism, I hear the Beloved Community,” Bass says. “But a lot of white Americans don’t hear that because they never sat in those churches and heard it over and over again. It’s the whole theology that motivated MLK and the civil rights movement.”

Click below for more
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/21/to-some-obama-is-the-wrong-kind-of-christian/comment-page-2/#comments

[Uncle Joe]

6. Well 1818 was square in the middle during the "Second Great Awakening"

Last edited Mon Oct 22, 2012, 04:39 PM - Edit history (1)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Awakening

The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant revival movement during the early 19th century in the United States. The movement began around 1790, gained momentum by 1800, and, after 1820 membership rose rapidly among Baptist and Methodist congregations, whose preachers led the movement. It was past its peak by the 1840s.

The Second Great Awakening expressed Arminian theology, by which every person could be saved through revivals. It enrolled millions of new members in existing evangelical denominations and led to the formation of new denominations. Many converts believed that the Awakening heralded a new millennial age. The Second Great Awakening stimulated the establishment of many reform movements designed to remedy the evils of society before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.[1]

People at the time talked about the Awakening; historians named the Second Great Awakening in the context of the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and '40s and of the Third Great Awakening of the late 1850s to early 1900s.

(snip)

Culture and society

Congregationalists set up missionary societies to evangelize the western territory of the northern tier. Members of these groups acted as apostles for the faith, and also as educators and exponents of northeastern urban culture. Publication and education societies promoted Christian education; most notable among them was the American Bible Society, founded in 1816. Social activism influenced abolition groups and supporters of the temperance movement. They began efforts to reform prisons and care for the handicapped and mentally ill. They believed in the perfectibility of people and were highly moralistic in their endeavors. The Second Great Awakening served as an "organizing process" that created "a religious and educational infrastructure" across the western frontier that encompassed social networks, a religious journalism that provided mass communication, and church-related colleges.[11]:368

However there was no Republican Party in those days, it's predecessors were the Federalist and Whig Parties.

[SJohnson]

2. Marmar love your posts

I learn so much from reading the things you post & look for your name first when I come to DU - Thank You

[marmar]

3. Thanks for the compliment.

[PETRUS]

4. K&R nt

[libodem]

7. Sociopaths

All of them. No compassion. No empathy.