Category Archives: Poor/Poverty

THE VIRTUE OF AN EDUCATED VOTER

Professor Alan Taylor teaches at the University of Virginia.  He has won the Pulitzer prize…twice!  Look for a review or interview on his latest book in the months ahead.

Taylor has written a terrific piece on the need for an educated electorate (HT to www.thewayofimprovement.com).  I spent some good time marking up and pondering Taylor’s critical assessment and prescription.  Here’s a taste:

“Here then was the rub. Visionary leaders insisted that preserving a republic required improving the common people by an increased investment in education. But a republic depended on common voters who lacked schooling and often balked at paying for it, preferring to spend their money on consumer goods. As farmers, they also wanted to keep their children at work on the farm. To justify their preferences, they invoked a populist distrust of the educated. A rustic republican from North Carolina insisted, ‘College learned persons give themselves great airs, are proud, and the fewer of them we have amongst us the better.’ Preferring ‘the plain, simple, honest matter-of-fact republicanism,’ he asked, ‘Who wants Latin and Greek and abstruse mathematics at these times and in a country like this?’ Distrustful of all aristocrats, natural and artificial, he insisted that they should pay to educate themselves, and the poor could make do without book learning; thus, he would vote for candidates who kept taxes low. Common voters in the southern states often did not regard education as essential to preserving their republic.”

The rest is here: http://https://theamericanscholar.org/the-virtue-of-an-educated-voter/#.V9Yg-DX2Q6k

THE WORLDVIEW THAT MAKES THE UNDERCLASS

Theodore Dalrymple (pen name of Dr. Anthony Daniels) is one of my favorite essayists.  Joseph Epstein, who was mentioned last Saturday, is another one.
In this astute and sobering essay, Dalrymple has much to say.  He worked among the poorest of the poor in his native land of England. 
You will be wiser for having read this!

WE DON’T HAVE THAT MUCH TO FEAR

As Americans, we take many things for granted.  For example, we tend to think the answer to poverty in developing nations is getting them adequate resources.  Of course, things like food and medicines are badly needed.  But there is something more foundational that we tend to miss.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/opinion/brooks-the-republic-of-fear.html

MEET MY FRIEND, PROFESSOR CAROL SWAIN

About five years ago, I spoke at Vanderbilt University.  I was invited by Professor Carol Swain. Carol’s story is truly amazing.  She dropped out of high school, got her GED along with a slew of other degrees, and ended up teaching at places like Princeton and now Vanderbilt.

Here is a six minute video on her incredible story:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUl3ibKO38k